Is this true?

[Hurricane]

Got this today and just wondered if it would work.


> HOW TO PROTECT YOUR ADDRESS BOOK!
I learned a computer trick today that's really ingenious in it 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 thevirus 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 In the window below where it prompts you to enter the new email
address, type in [email protected] . Then complete everything by clicking add, enter, ok, etc.

Now, here's what you've done and why it works: The "name" AAAAAAA 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 ([email protected]). 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 InBox almost immediately.
Hence, if you ever get an email telling you that an email addressed to [email protected] 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?

 

[voyergirl]

cool, thanks, i put in my worm friend already

 

[jasper]

Sounds like a good idea, and I think it would work for most email worms that infect Outlook and Outlook Express.....BUT.....I've read on groups.google.com that it's a hoax - it will NOT stop your Outlook from spreading the worm.

I think the claim about the worm stopping after the first failed email address is false, you can easily write scripts to send our emails to any address and execute them without waiting to see if they actually made it. Also, somewhere.com is a real, valid domain name, and they have a mail server that probably gets more garbage mail than any other in the world (well, their site says they're second, next to nowhere.com).

Seriously though, the best way to prevent worms from running through your address book is to not use Outlook or Outlook Express. Or just not have any entries in your address book.

 

[Hurricane]

Thanks Jasper....I kinda thought that about the stopping after the first one wouldn't go through. I stopped using outlook when all this worm stuff started anyway...so I guess I won't pass this out if it won't work. Thanks!

 

[mathmajors]

I don't see how one bad address will stop a virus from going throught the rest of your email. Besides which, emails are sent out by Outlook whether they are bad.

Hoax.

The best way to prevent Outlook-targeted worms is to install and maintain good antivirus software.

 

[voyergirl]

so i am guessing i should remove it?

 

[mathmajors]

Originally posted by voyergirl
so i am guessing i should remove it?

The address? The hoax thing is right in that you would get a message from your system's postmaster indicating an undeliverable message. Otherwise, it's not doing anything for you.

 

[twentybelow0]

Nortons System Works scans all incoming and OUTGOING mail as well. Zone Alarm Pro scans e-mail as well also.