How to protect your email address book

[schadeaux]

I don't know if this works. Anyone want to try?

Here's a computer trick today that's really ingenious in its simplicity.

As you may know, when/if a worm virus gets into your computer it heads straight for your email address book, and sends itself to everyone in there, thus infecting all your friends and associates.  This trick won't keep the virus from getting into your computer, but it will stop it from using your address book to spread further, and it will alert you to the fact that the worm has gotten into your system.

Here's what you do:  first, open your address book and click on "new contact," just as you would do if you were adding a new friend to your list of email addresses.  In the window where you would type your friend's first name, type in AAAAAAA.  For email address enter AAAAAAA@AAAAAAA.AAA.

Now, here's what you've done and why it works:  The "name" will be placed at the top of your address book as entry #1.  This will be where the worm will start in an effort to send itself to all your friends.  But, when it tries to send itself to AAAAAAA, it will be undeliverable because of the phony email address you entered.  If the first attempt fails (which it will because of the phony address), the worm goes no further and your friends will not be infected.

Here's the second great advantage of this method:  If an email cannot be delivered, you will be notified of this in your In Box almost immediately. Hence, if you ever get an email telling you that an email addressed to AAAAAAA could not be delivered, you know right away that you have the worm virus in your system.  You can then take steps to get rid of it!

Pretty slick Huh?  If everybody you know does this then you need not ever worry about opening mail from friends.

[Starlyte]

I'm going to have to try that. Thanks for posting this Schadeaux!

[Bizarro]

nice. thanks Schadeaux

[Nintendork]

*folds hands* excellent.

[Nancy]

*sigh* I hate to burst anyone's balloon, especially you schadeaux!

But???? Tis a HOAX:

http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/quickfix.htm

Last updated:  25 August 2003

Origins:  This "helpful" bit of advice first appeared on the Internet in mid-August 2001. It purports to offer an easy-to-implement solution to counter the ongoing travails visited upon those foolish enough to have opened virus-laden e-mails by disarming the virus' ability to spread to others disguised as legitimate mail from the duped user. According to the advice, netizens need only add a bogus entry at the head of their e-mail address books to create an effective "shark account" that will gobble up unauthorized mailings to the full book.

Remainder of info, at above LINK

[schadeaux]

Hey, I said I didn't know if it would work...

[Nancy]

Hey, I said I didn't know if it would work...

Hey YOU....... NO sad faces allowed...... Just wanted to let you know, tis all.

[Bizarro]

it is still useful for knowing that something sent e-mails to all your contacts. i tested it and Outlook will send mail to the address but it does come back to you saying there is no such address. think of it like a canary in a coal mine, its a warning that something is amiss.

that article is right in some aspects but in others its just attempting to scare people. it almost implies that you would be an idiot to put AAAAAA@AAAA.AAAA in your e-mail program because it might somehow be used against you. that's ridiculous.

i have anti-virus stuff on my computer but from time to time i get messages returned to me saying no such address- the funny thing is that i didn't send them. i assume a spammer is using my address to spam people now. at least using this method i can tell if its coming from my computer or theirs. that is useful.

[TheOracle]

I agree DS, I think it is still a useful tool for finding out if there is something there that has slipped past your virus detection. Especially when you get a bit slack with your updates .

It may not stop the virus but at least it won't go un-noticed