This was sent to one of my other addresses:
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E-ADDRESS PROTECTION
I learned a computer trick today 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 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 !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 WormAlert.
(If it tells you this is not a valid address
just say yes to add it, or ok). 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), 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
WormAlert 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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Even in the event that this address is ignored by a future worm, it wouldn't be hard to change just a few letters and have it work again.
(Except for that new one that changes your E-mail address when it sends a message out.)
