To All,
The slime balls and sleaze bags are at it again, this time turning loose
the MYDOOM or NOVARG virus on the computer world. It is time to circle
the wagons and protect ourselves once again. If you haven't already
done it, go out and get a good anti-virus program, install and run it on
your computer and set it up to scan incoming and outgoing e-mail as well
as check and get automatic updates every time you are on line. You
should also set it up to scan your entire computer for viruses
periodically (my computer is scanned once a week). Whatever the cost of
the program, it is cheap compared to having to get your computer
professionally disinfected if your computer should fall victim to the
virus. Even if you do have virus protection on your computer, now is
the time to be extra careful of which e-mails you open. If there is
nothing in the subject line or a hokey subject line or one that just
says Hi, especially if it is from someone you don't know - dump it!
Even if it has a name you recognize, but it has a subject line that is
out of context for that person - dump it! If you dump something that
was legitimate and it is important enough, the sender will get in touch
with you someway. In the same vain, when you send an e-mail, word the
subject line such that it doesn't sound strange to the recipient.
While you are at it, go into your e-mail program preferences and turn
off the automatic collection of e-mail addresses in your address book.
In Netscape click on preferences in the edit menu, expand Mail &
Newsgroups and click on Addressing, then go to the section that is
marked Email Address Collection and uncheck the box that says Add email
addresses to my: ... If you are using some other e-mail program, you
will have to search for a similar preference setting and ensure that
your program doesn't add the e-mail address of everyone you send
anything to into your address book. If this function was turned on, you
might want to go into your address book or the address book that is
labeled collected addresses and clear out all addresses that you don't
recognize or don't need. Why do this? If your computer does become
infected with this virus, within the first 30 seconds or less, the virus
will duplicate itself and send itself out attached to an e-mail under
the name of everyone listed in your address books. It additionally
sends itself to everyone listed in your address books. To give you an
idea how this works, today I received an e-mail with the virus from
Little British Car Co. and from myself! Now I know that my computer has
not been infected and I am sure the Jeff Zorn of LBC has his computer
set up to avoid infection, which means that somewhere, some bodies
computer with LBCs and my e-mail addresses was infected and a whole lot
of people have received infected e-mails under LBCs and my e-mail
address. Which brings up another item, if you receive an infected
e-mail from an e-mail address of someone you recognize, don't pick up a
club and go hunting for that individual to get even. It is almost
guaranteed that they didn't send the infected e-mail.
One other thing that you can do to help stem the tide of dangerous
things coming into our computers via e-mail. If you receive a "virus
warning" from a well meaning friend, especially one that says that this
is a virus that can't be stopped by the anti-virus programs and your
computer may already be infected and here is how to check your
computer... consider that this may be a hoax that your friend is
unwittingly sending out. These hoaxes usually have you going into your
computer files (following explicit instructions) and removing the "bad"
file. One of these hoaxes that come to mind is the Teddy Bear virus and
the hoax has you remove a file that is proceeded with the icon of a
teddy bear. Anytime you get one of these warnings, you should check the
one of the following links to see if it is a hoax that is meant to have
you self mutilate your computer HOAXBUSTERS Home Page
<http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/> or Computer Virus Myths home page
<http://www.kumite.com/myths/>.
Sorry that this has gone on so long, but I think that if we all work at
it, we can at least minimize the amount of disruption among those of us
who want spend our time working on and driving our MGs.
Cheers,
Dave
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