Protect yourself

[Pengineer]

Heres a copy of a tip I'm passing on, I've already posted it in Computer and internet forum but more people read this one so perhaps if it was left here for a couple of days a few more people might benifit from it.

Quote

Heres a little tip to protect yourself from those viruses that automatically mail themselves to all your e-mail address book contacts.
1.Create a new contact in your address book, call him !0000, (this will put him on the top of your address book)
2. Don't give him an e-mail address(leave that field blank)
Thats it, done!
Now if a virus or worm tries to send an e-mail it will come up with the warning
"This message could not be sent as one or more recipients do not have a valid e-mail address"
Click ok, then go to your outbox and delete it.

Merry Christmas

[Gantenbein]

A quick reply before the topic gets shut down:
Well-intentioned, but don't let this give you a false sense of security, as most recent virusses already have workarounds for this.
A few basic rules and an up-to-date anti-virus programme are more effective.

Besides, this tip won't keep you from GETTING a virus, at best it will keep you from SPREADING it...

[ 25 December 2001: Message edited by: Gantenbein ]</p>

[Lew Ton]

Yes, urban myth I'm afraid.

[mad_jock]

The best tip is don't use microsoft products for reading email this also includes MSN messanger.

MJ

[Pengineer]

I didn't say it would stop you getting a virus, nor did I say throw away your virus scanner. It will prevent you from passing one on should your virus scanner fail to stop one.
And by the way it does work, try it yourself and see. Create a e-mail to yourself (or someone else) and include the recipient "!0000" click send and tell me what happens.

[dme4]

Sorry, pengineer, old chap, modern viruses don't go through your address book from A to Z. BadTrans, for instance, selects 'Reply-To's' from mail in your Inbox. Others select Contacts at random. It does create a false sense of security, there are some sad muppets who still don't use anti-virus software.

As for MS products, security patches to defeat BadTrans were available on the MS site since March. Other mail clients have had their problems too.

Speaking of sad muppets, what am I doing here!? <img src="rolleyes.gif" border="0">

[TR4A]

Symantec Security Response recommendations

Although this is technically not a hoax--in theory, it could work with a few older worms and viruses--Symantec Security Response strongly recommends that you ignore it. You should not rely on such "fixes" to prevent the spread of viruses, worms, and Trojans. Also, a hacker could exploit some variants of this message to make you more susceptible to loss of confidential information. The best defense against such threats is to have a current version of Norton AntiVirus installed, make sure that Auto-Protect is enabled, and update your virus definitions frequently. In addition, if you are on a network, or you have a full-time connection to the Internet (such as cable or DSL), you should be running firewall software.