OT - Just got this in my email (from someone I know)

On Sun, 26 Feb 2006 08:37:51 +1100, "Gwen"
wrote:


Thank you Gemini - as Anna maria said " luckily it is a hoax" however my
golden rule is that I never open anything from any one if I do not know
them, or if I feell the subject line does not reflect the person sending
it.. Maybe I miss an e mail or two - though I have never noticed - but that
is just too bad. God Bless Gwen

Some are very sophisticated, though, and appear to be from people you
really know. Years ago, when I had a different computer and was living
in the US, I opened an email from a coworker at the university. It was
a malicious email that she had accidentally forwarded to everybody in
her address book. I realized almost immediately what was happening (it
was going through my address book and forwarding itself) and shut my
computer down abruptly by hitting the off button. It only got as far
as the B's in my address book. However, one of the names it pulled out
of the address book, which starts with a "B", is still being used more
than 10 years later to try to fool me into opening malicious emails.
Whenever I see an email that seems to be from that person, I have to
check the headers before opening it. Sometimes I get emails addressing
me as that person, for example, "Dear Ban______", we have a wonderful
surprise for you!"

I use Mailwasher, a free program that lets me inspect emails before
downloading them from the server to my computer. It also flags
probable spam, but lots of programs do that now. What I like is the
ability to see the headers and read a few lines of the email before
downloading it. Once I've deleted all the spam and viruses, I use my
normal email program to download the rest.
--
Barbara Vaughan

My email address is my first initial followed by my last name at libero dot it.

wrote in message
oups.com...
The "please forward" and "let's see how many friends you have" emails
are started to grab email addresses as they are forwarded. No matter
how nice or well meaning the email sounds, the original intent is to
get as many addresses as possible for the spammers. Passing them
along plays right into their hands.

Yes, I have received a few of these "you could have a miracle happen" or
"this will bring you luck and money" emails within the last couple of
days... I deleted them and emailed the person who sent them asking them not
to send this type of thing to me anymore, because they are chain letter
types and I don't like them.

If a message is one you feel compelled to send on, send it to one
person at a time, or use BCC (blind carbon copy) if you want to avoid
falling into the trap.

I have definitely been using BCC for everything that I do send out to more
than one person, as I REALLY hate getting emails that have a gazillion email
addresses on them (not that I have that many addresses to send to... but I
don't want to share their addresses with everyone anyway).

And... a few weeks ago, I wanted to send something to a few friends that had
a picture on it and couldn't do it properly... so Matthew showed me that
there is a way of doing it from Yahoo. Click on the arrow on the "Forward"
button and choose "As Inline Text", then you can delete all the other email
addresses (and any other garbage on there) that came along with it... and
just send the original message with the pictures on it. So, you learn
something new everyday... or I do anyway... it's likely something most of
you already knew about! ;o)

Gemini

Oh no, I didn't think you had implied that my friend was up to no good. )

Gemini

"B Vaughan" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 25 Feb 2006 11:29:25 -0500, "MRH"
mthecarpenterATxcelcoDOTonDOTca wrote:

Thank you for the heads-up on this Barbara. Actually the lady who sent it
to me was very likely fooled by whoever sent it to her... she isn't the
type
to be up to no good like that.

I didn't mean to imply that the person who sent it to you was up to no
good. I meant that the person who first started the hoax on its merry
way, hoping that everybody would send it to everybody they know.

My daughter's sister-in-law often sends me these pass-it-on virus
warnings, and she really sends them to everybody in her address book.
Funny she didn't send me this one. Maybe she hasn't read her email in
a while.

--
Barbara Vaughan

My email address is my first initial followed by my last name at libero
dot it.

"B Vaughan" wrote in message
...

I use Mailwasher, a free program that lets me inspect emails before
downloading them from the server to my computer. It also flags
probable spam, but lots of programs do that now. What I like is the
ability to see the headers and read a few lines of the email before
downloading it. Once I've deleted all the spam and viruses, I use my
normal email program to download the rest.
--
Barbara Vaughan

Mailwasher is indeed a wonderful program, but hang on to it. It's no longer
free. I went to their site recently to see if there were any updates and
got the surprise of my life. (shrug). Doesn't matter much to me, the
version I have works just fine.

Shelagh

just put the name of the virus into google along with virus hoax and it'll
put up McFee's and all sorts of info on it.
hugz Cher


"MRH" mthecarpenterATxcelcoDOTonDOTca wrote in message
...
Thank you, Anna Maria! I will add that urbanlegends site to my favorites
so I can check on things from now on. ;o)

*hugs*
Gem

"Anna MCM" wrote in message
news:tgLLf.5737$zc1.1206@amstwist00...


MRH wrote:

Don't know if it's true or not... but I thought I'd pass it on just to
be on the safe side.

Gemini

Hi Gem!

Luckily enogh it's a hoax :-)

http://urbanlegends.about.com/librar...orch_virus.htm

Hugs,

Anna Maria

Some also have websites for you to go to read about them, DON'T go, it just
enables the site to keep going by the amount of 'hits' it gets, there was
one about a kitten in a jar once...elaborate hoax of course..
hugz cher

"B Vaughan" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 24 Feb 2006 16:31:35 -0500, "MRH"
mthecarpenterATxcelcoDOTonDOTca wrote:

Subject: Fw: IMPORTANT WARNING
For Your Information:
Please read the attached warning issued
today.
PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG
FRIENDS, FAMILY AND
CONTACTS:

Anything that says "Please forward this to everyone you know" is a
hoax. If everybody followed that advice, it would be worse than a
virus because it would swamp every mail server in the world.

How many people do you have in your email address book? Suppose you
got this warning from every one of them? Multiply that by all the
email addresses in the world and you'll see what it could cause.

People who tell you to forward things to everybody you know, and to
tell them to also pass it on, are usually up to no good.





You should be alert during the next days:

Do not open any message with an attached filed called
"Invitation" regardless of who sent it.

It is a virus that opens an Olympic Torch which "burns" the
whole hard disc C of your computer. This virus
will be received from someone who has your e-mail address in his/her
contact list, that is why
you should send this e-mail to all your contacts.
It is better to receive
this message 25 times than to receive the virus
and open it.

If you receive a mail called
"invitation", though sent by a
friend, do not open it and shut down your
computer immediately.

This is the worst virus announced by
CNN, it has been
classified by Microsoft as the most destructive
virus ever.

This virus was
discovered by McAfee yesterday, and there is no
repair yet for this kind of virus.

This virus simply destroys the Zero
Sector of the Hard Disc,
where the vital information is kept.

SEND THIS E-MAIL TO EVERYONE YOU
KNOW, COPY THIS E-MAIL AND
SEND IT TO YOUR FRIENDS AND REMEMBER: IF YOU SEND
IT TO THEM, YOU WILL
BENEFIT ALL OF US.


--
Barbara Vaughan

My email address is my first initial followed by my last name at libero
dot it.

yes that is true also, cos alot of them have automatic return to their own
email addy's attached which you know nothing about...I no longer forward
anything that says pass this along, even the things like well wishes and the
like or it means that potential idiots and spammers get a hold of your email
and goodness knows how many others...hugz cher

wrote in message
oups.com...
The "please forward" and "let's see how many friends you have" emails
are started to grab email addresses as they are forwarded. No matter
how nice or well meaning the email sounds, the original intent is to
get as many addresses as possible for the spammers. Passing them
along plays right into their hands.
If a message is one you feel compelled to send on, send it to one
person at a time, or use BCC (blind carbon copy) if you want to avoid
falling into the trap.

BB

I think it first got going under another name back in 2000 just had it's
name altered abit to go out again...they keep doing the rounds..lol
Cheers...cher


"B Vaughan" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 25 Feb 2006 11:29:25 -0500, "MRH"
mthecarpenterATxcelcoDOTonDOTca wrote:

Thank you for the heads-up on this Barbara. Actually the lady who sent it
to me was very likely fooled by whoever sent it to her... she isn't the
type
to be up to no good like that.

I didn't mean to imply that the person who sent it to you was up to no
good. I meant that the person who first started the hoax on its merry
way, hoping that everybody would send it to everybody they know.

My daughter's sister-in-law often sends me these pass-it-on virus
warnings, and she really sends them to everybody in her address book.
Funny she didn't send me this one. Maybe she hasn't read her email in
a while.

--
Barbara Vaughan

My email address is my first initial followed by my last name at libero
dot it.

I believe they can, if an innocent looking email can have what we call a
''back door virus'' attachment to them, whereby the receivers see's no paper
clip, and an apparently looking safe email, but one which sends out this
email to everyone in your addy' book, including returning it to the sender,
then I am sure they have cracked a way of getting this info back to
themselves. it's just a small prog after all.

By the way, some of you have your emails open for you, my advise is
Don't...i just get the headers in, so that I have to double click on it to
open it, Outlook Express has a thing in tool box called...layout...go in
there and make sure the pre-view pane is not open if it is, the minute you
click on an email to delete it even, it is too late as it has opened
automatically. Also no, one particular antivirus checker can catch them
all, I have three running, since I had a back door virus on my old pc which
wiped out the hard drive, even after eventually formatting it and getting it
running again, it was never the same, kept faltering and shutting down on
it's own, and opening things I didn't even know about...I used McFee and AVG
then and none of them found it. now I use three including antispam and
mailwasher and go in once a month and have an online scan to make sure...i
don't want that nonsense again. In the end I took out the hard drive and
put in a new one and gave it to a g/daughter who doesn't use the internet
and it is doing fine now..still a bit slow but with the new hd it is tons
better.

These things drive ya nuts.

hugz cher
"B Vaughan" wrote in message
...
On 25 Feb 2006 14:42:12 -0800, wrote:

The "please forward" and "let's see how many friends you have" emails
are started to grab email addresses as they are forwarded. No matter
how nice or well meaning the email sounds, the original intent is to
get as many addresses as possible for the spammers. Passing them
along plays right into their hands.

Actually I don't see how they could use this kind of chain email to
capture email addresses, because there's no copy going back to the
originators. Web pages that ask you to forward themselves to lots of
people may be trying to capture email addresses, though.

--
Barbara Vaughan

My email address is my first initial followed by my last name at libero
dot it.

Thank you, Cher! That sure seems simple enough to do!

I also went googling yesterday morning before getting off the computer for
the day and found a few virus hoax websites to add to my favorites so I can
check out things coming into my email that I'm unsure of. So I have a few
options now! ;o)

*hugs*
Gem

"spinninglilac" wrote in message
. uk...
just put the name of the virus into google along with virus hoax and
it'll put up McFee's and all sorts of info on it.
hugz Cher


"MRH" mthecarpenterATxcelcoDOTonDOTca wrote in message
...
Thank you, Anna Maria! I will add that urbanlegends site to my favorites
so I can check on things from now on. ;o)

*hugs*
Gem

"Anna MCM" wrote in message
news:tgLLf.5737$zc1.1206@amstwist00...


MRH wrote:

Don't know if it's true or not... but I thought I'd pass it on just to
be on the safe side.

Gemini

Hi Gem!

Luckily enogh it's a hoax :-)

http://urbanlegends.about.com/librar...orch_virus.htm

Hugs,

Anna Maria