AMORES FORO-created on Jan.13,2001.-dedicated by Christian Meier on Jan.15,2001.:-)
A better way to protect your friends
by
Sorry, my friends, but when John did get my “Thank you” message, he sent me back a one sentence message:
One of my friends told me it wouldn't really work. Sorry...
I felt pretty bad that I had misled so many people by publishing his easy “fix.” I have my own procedure, which I know works for me, but requires a lot of work on my part. It is more difficult to install but ... well I will let you read the message I sent to my friend, John G. At least you can have something that is tried and true if you wish to use it. Here is the message:
JOHN G 011009 SURE FIRE DEAD END SIGN FOR WORM VIRUSES
Dear John:
I forgot to mention my own solution that I thought up a long time ago and published about a year ago some where. It requires more work than your "!000" fix. But there is no way a worm virus can get by my solution.
First open your address book and select any address. Then press CTRL + A to select all the addresses. Then press CTRL + C to copy them to the clipboard.
Next open a NEW FOLDER in MY DOCUMENTS under a cryptic name such as "A flower shop" and press CTRL + V to paste your entire address list in an address file with another cryptic name in that folder. Finally, go back to the address book and delete all the addresses [except the !000 AwormAlert ] from it. A worm virus can not go to addresses that do not exist. But your work is not over yet.
If you use Microsoft Outlook Express (R) , then when you open the inbox you will see a subsection of the window on the lower left called "Contacts." When a name pops up in there, it has been added to your address book. You need to follow the above procedure to move that address to your special file to protect that "friend." If it is one that you know is already in your special file, simply DELETE it from the address book.
This procedure has some advantages as well as disadvantages. One disadvantage is that you have to be alert to keep your address book empty [no addresses in the "Contacts" window, except for the "!000" which you leave there to get the warning as you specified in your original message to me.] The other disadvantage is that you have to go to your special file every time you want to forward messages to a group of friends. But the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
The main advantage is that it is SURE FIRE AND WORKS. Another advantage is that you can have as many files of selected groups to forward mail to under folders with identifying code names such as Relatives, Professionals, Friends, Club A, and so forth. One name can appear in as many categories as apply. Then when you want to send a bulletin to Club A, you can call up that list and paste it in your "To" box of your message.
AH !!! Now I think I remember where I published this information. Last year I sent this to all the students in my Spanish class at my college. Now I will use the next hours to publish this message to all the forums I sent your "fix" to. My solution is a lot of work, but I thought you had found a simpler fix. Yet, having published a "false" fix, I owe them something that works. Mine is a lot more work, but you know that to arrive at success, you have to jump through all the right hoops first.
On my computer, I have a folder in which are several address files including a master file and some special category files. In each list I inserted a character that is illegal in an e-mail address in each address on the list. This is in case a super intelligent worm virus can locate my lists, it would still not be able to use them because of the illegal characters, such as a colon [ : ] or pound sign [#].
Before I use the list, I paste it to a blank page in "Document1 ." Then I strip it of all the illegal characters using the FIND AND REPLACE function. Finally I copy the resulting list to the "To" box of the message window to send one message to all persons on the list. As I said, it is a lot of work, but no worm virus will get forwarded by me.
One more thing, I do not have my anti-virus program on my hard drive. When I need it, I call it up from my CD-ROM, which is called up by the RESTART program on my floppy drive A...
That way I do not have the creeping problem of the anti-virus program gradually slowing down my computer and eventually forcing a lot of "illegal procedure" messages for common operations such as saving a file, or copying a file from one place to another, or downloading a picture of the surface of Mars .
Believe me, I had those problems and the only way I got rid of them was to back up all files I wanted to keep, erase my hard drive completely, and then reformat it adding only those programs I wanted, leaving out Terminal-Stay-Resident programs like anti-virus programs.
Now everything works quickly, efficiently, and NO ERROR MESSAGES.
Your fix was simple to install and would not require maintenance. But as your friend told you, "It does not work." My solution requires a lot of maintenance, but it WORKS PERFECTLY. I hope we come up with a simple to install, no maintenance, solution that works, but until then, you can use mine.
I treasure your friendship, and I will never forget the days we worked together building and trouble shooting the Elwood long range ARSR-3 radar and when we flew together before I retired the second and last time. So, John, make your day a beautiful one !!!
Werner [
P.S. Foristas, please refer to my previous post “A DEAD END SIGN FOR VIRUSES” to see John’s procedure. Install his change in your address book to become alerted to a worm virus in your own computer. Better yet, install it in the first three items using the SAME NAME “ !000,“ but with different e-mail addresses: “AwormAlert,” “AwormAlert2,” and “AwormAlert3,” but without the quotes, of course. The result is that the “outbox” program will freeze your computer with an error message. When you get that message, shut your computer off. Put an anti-virus program in your CD-ROM drive and your RESTART disk in Floppy drive “A.” From drive “A” you can call up the virus program on your CDROM drive. If you know what you are doing, you can protect your computer by backing up all your critical data, mostly in “MY DOCUMENTS.” I BURN IN A READ WRITE CD-ROM WITH ALL MY CRITICAL DATA ABOUT ONCE A MONTH WITH ONE OF A SERIES OF DISKS WITH THE INTENTION OF ROTATING THROUGH THEM. When I suspect a virus. I reformat my hard disk and reinstall all my programs, and finally, I reinstall any data I need, but keep on the CD-ROM that data I do not need. It is a sure fire protection, but requires about 4 hours of work because I have a very large hard drive. I also have a ZIP drive which comes in handy for backing up recent data that I do not want to get lost or corrupted. About every other year, I upgrade to a larger, faster hard drive. If any of you want more information, contact me direct at my e-mail address: mobimath@swlink.net . There is no doubt that worm viruses are a form of INTERNET TERROR. We have to develop methods to NEUTRALIZE their effect upon our WORLD COMMUNITY. If you want to do the work, the methods I outlined in this PUBLICATION will both protect your computer and also that of your friends. Make your day a super special one and spread some of your sunshine. Together, we DEFEAT FEAR. ... !!! [ . . .
Posted on Oct 10, 2001, 5:18 PM from IP address 208.203.102.164
