From: Aron Roberts (aron@socrates.berkeley.edu)
Date: Mon Oct 22 2001 - 08:09:52 PDT
Hi David,
See <http://www.snopes2.com/inboxer/virus/quickfix.htm> for a
discussion of the efficacy (highly limited) of this tactic.
Aron Roberts
Workstation Software Support Group
--Hello Folks,
A user recently forwarded me an email "from a friend" that purports to eliminate worms that exploit address book lists (Netscape and Outlook). Although these programs are not used in the department I am curious if this type of fix is workable.
Is there someone on the list who confirm or deny the viability of this suggestion?
###
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 - do not enter the quotation marks). In the window below where it prompts you to enter the new email address, type in "WormAlert" (without the quotes). 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 list. This will be where the worm starts 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
###
All thanks and regards for your time,
David Rieger ********************************************** David JL Rieger University of California, Berkeley PH: 510.643.9666 FX: 510.643.9929 eMail: drieger@socrates.berkeley.edu
"The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance." Robert Coveyou
**********************************************
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