I learned a computer trick 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 may 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 !000 (that's an exclamation mark followed by 3 zeros). In the window below where it prompts you to enter the new email address, type in Worm Alert. Then complete everything by clicking add, enter, ok, etc.
Now, here's what you've done and why it works: the "name" !000 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 !000, it will be undeliverable because of the phony email address you entered (WormAlert). If the first attempt fails (which it will because of the phony address), some worms go 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 Worm Alert 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!
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/ Revised 20 June 03