Virus

Pampa has an E-mail site for all consenting members that may be the source of addresses for the S.O.B. that is sending the virus E-mails.
Don't open the attachments !!!
JIM

>Pampa has an E-mail site for all consenting members that may
>be the source of addresses for the S.O.B. that is sending
>the virus E-mails.
>Don't open the attachments !!!
>JIM

Apparently these are going out with the owner's email address in the "From" box. I have received about two dozen today from folks that I know would not be sending nasty cyberbugs out.

No doubt someone will get something with my email address in it as well. If you an email that says "My details" or "Your details" or Approved or "About that movie", please delete. Also, it helps if your AV software is up to date.

I don't figure it is the PAMPA site or any one site in particular. I have gotten returns from "[email protected]" or "[email protected]". Of course, I have gotten spam at these addresses, too, so once these are in use by someone, they are picked up and morphed into the virus that is sent out. I have deleted a couple hundred today alone and each one has a different return address. (Oh, yes, and I got notices that a mail I sent out, to a party I never knew using an e-mail that I never send from didn't arrive due to some circumstance.

Symantec at least elevated this virus to a level 4 today and issued at least two updates to their antivirus definitions.

Keep an eye on the file size of the emails. Those NOT to open are around 100kb. A normal message will be 2-4kb. Photos or cartoons could make the total close to 100kb or even more, but if they come from somebody you don't expect something from, either email them and ask, or delete it and let the ethernet sort 'em out. Don't forget to keep dumping your trash. Steve

>... if they come from somebody you don't expect
>something from, either email them and ask, or delete it and
>let the ethernet sort 'em out. Don't forget to keep dumping
>your trash. Steve

If you hold the shift key down when you delete, it won't go into your recycle bin. It's gone.

For a long time, my policy has been that if I get email from someone with an attachment, I automatically delete it unless I specifically knew it was coming. With Linux, the nasty .exe file attachments that Windows users get aren't a concern. But I do get some very nasty DOS stuff and occasionally some whiz kid will try to come up with a virus program that can get by Linux security. Since I don't run the thing from the administrator account (root), that's pretty much impossible, but it's interesting to watch.

I regularly see a ton of spam for the [email protected] email address, but it is on the PAMPA web site's opening page. It's traditional!

To access the PAMPA Email Central page, the next level has to be opened. I wouldn't put it past these autobot programs nowadays to traverse the complete tree of HTML files for a web site it is "farming" email addresses from. However, I don't believe this has been a problem in the past.

I would also note that my own email address in the PAMPA Email Central page is [email protected], and I haven't received a single one of these returned virus messages at that address. But I've had about 35 or so at the [email protected] address. I'm not sure that proves much, but if the PAMPA Email Central page was the source for the target email addresses, I would expect to get one at [email protected]. That might be faulty deductive reasoning..

In the past I've considered doing something simple to all the PAMPA email address listings on that page, say replacing @'s with @@. This would put an end to straight click to email convenience, but users could remove the extra @ and have the address. If PAMPA members would like to do something like that, email me and let me know.

Anyway, it looks to me like the destination addresses for these 'returned' mails are NOT in the PAMPA directory listing. They seem to be garbage values.

I'm not sure what the answer is - follow all the good advice being given here.

Death to virus writers!

[photo not recovered: 3e69bb3870f12ad5.jpg]

"A duty dodged is like a debt unpaid; it is only deferred, and we must come back and settle the account at last." -Joseph F. Newton