Virus??

I'm starting a new post on the virus going around. Just to be safe, if anyone on this board gets any email from me, bb36dd966, don't open it. I will use the US postoffice for a while until this thing is killed. I have been recieving some strange mail that I don't recognize, so I delete it all. Good thing I don't get bills this way, then again? If I recognize your address and open it and all is well, then I will answer via email. I just won't initiate any for a while.

My cable ISP has notified me of nearly 60 infected emails sent to me that they intercepted in the last two days. Many of them claim to be from people on this board & other people in the CL circle. (Haw, haw, son, I made a funny!- Foghorn Leghorn)
I just deleted two claiming to be from PW & John Brodak. It's the W32SoBig (?) virus usually. I'm glad I have the cable outfit screening with McKaffee & my machine running updated NAV & also a firewall. I've got more burglar alarms on this thing than a NY apartment.

>I'm starting a new post on the virus going around. Just to
>be safe, if anyone on this board gets any email from me,
>bb36dd966, don't open it. I will use the US postoffice for
>a while until this thing is killed. I have been recieving
>some strange mail that I don't recognize, so I delete it
>all. Good thing I don't get bills this way, then again? If
>I recognize your address and open it and all is well, then I
>will answer via email. I just won't initiate any for a
>while.

Here's an excellent website that you might want to bookmark:

http://www.symantec.com/us.index.html

When the next new virus hits, you'll find good descriptions here.

The Sobig virus, the one that's so rampant right now has the following characteristics:

-----------------------------------------
From: Spoofed address (which means that the sender in the "From" field is most likely not the real sender). The worm may also use the address [email protected] as the sender.

NOTES:
o The spoofed addresses and the Send To addresses are both taken from the files found on the computer. Also, the worm may use the settings of the infected computer's settings to check for an SMTP server to contact.
o The choice of the internet.com domain appears to be arbitrary and does not have any connection to the actual domain or its parent company.
-----------------------------------------

The first note is the key for us: the "From:" in the message you receive is NOT the sender of the virus except in very unusual cases.

So: even if the message seems to be "From" a known e-mail address, it may well contain the virus.

The only real answer is to keep your anti-virus system current.

Or, the ultimate anti-virus: don't use a Windows system!

Regards,

Bill Lee

Ty,

Another good website.

Macafee's latest Dats remove SoBig.

http://www.nai.com/us/index.asp

Regards Frank.

Ty, just don't send attachments for now. Of if you do send attachments, put a detailed description of what you sent in the message portion of the e-mail. That way we can check to make sure it is real.

All of the viruses (so far) come with the attachments (which Norton, McAfee, others will take out if they are up to date).

And you guys are whimps. I got 102 between 11:30 last night and 7:30 this morning. At least it is slowing down. The first day I got over a hundred new ones in just the time I sat down to eat supper.

Oh, and on a related note, there are also viscious websites out there. I have been trying to get off all of the scumbag spam e-mail lists and try to "unsubscribe" from every one I can (some are legitimate, you know). One "unsubscribe" from a sex cam ("If you got this in error, click here to remove yourself") grabbed my computer and I couldn't even get off the internet (had to unplug the phone line). Then I couldn't click out of my e-mail or browser and had to unplug the computer. The end result was I lost all my e-mail for the last year. It could have been worse, but a web attack is not detected by your antivirus.

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" (The shadow knows, ha, ha, ha!)

Len, I know you are right - there ARE some legitimate "unsubscribe" functions, somewhere. But I gave up a long time ago, I'm afraid most of them simply verify that you are a responding email address and perhaps put you on some more spammer lists.

Just flushing them seems to be the most efficient.

For those who care to try with OE, you CAN put in some rules to automatically move files to the Deleted Items folder. Things like: if the subject line contains 'viagra' or 'breast' or 'prescription' or 'mortgage' or .. etc.

I had used 'ink' (against printer ink spam), but found my friend at earthlINK.com kept getting flushed.

Spammers are the lowest of the low.

[photo not recovered: 3e69bb3870f12ad5.jpg]

"I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and almost went back in time."

Larry,

My ISP has an "abuse" email address. If one forwards spam messages to that address, they check out the situation and block access from those addresses that originated the messages. Unfortunately, the number of "fake" return addresses seems to prevent their keeping up with the traffic. The only good thing about my primary email address being down is the fact that I have had no spam for the last three days.

It's a real shame that folks feel a need to send spam or write and send viruses. They have way too much time on their hands. They should use that time to build a few CL Airplanes.

Paul

>Larry,
>
>My ISP has an "abuse" email address. If one forwards spam
>messages to that address, they check out the situation and
>block access from those addresses that originated the
>messages. Unfortunately, the number of "fake" return
>addresses seems to prevent their keeping up with the
>traffic. The only good thing about my primary email address
>being down is the fact that I have had no spam for the last
>three days.
>
>It's a real shame that folks feel a need to send spam or
>write and send viruses. They have way too much time on
>their hands. They should use that time to build a few CL
>Airplanes.
>
>Paul

I have had people on three different occasions use my clstunt address as their return for sending out porn spam. So if the ISP blocks it, they will also block mail coming legitimately from the forum. I have had spam sent with my own return address on it. If that were to happen to you and they blocked it, they would be blocking you.

>Oh, and on a related note, there are also viscious websites
>out there. I have been trying to get off all of the scumbag
>spam e-mail lists and try to "unsubscribe" from every one I
>can (some are legitimate, you know). One "unsubscribe" from
>a sex cam ("If you got this in error, click here to remove
>yourself") grabbed my computer and I couldn't even get off
>the internet (had to unplug the phone line). Then I
>couldn't click out of my e-mail or browser and had to unplug
>the computer. The end result was I lost all my e-mail for
>the last year. It could have been worse, but a web attack
>is not detected by your antivirus.

I recommend *never, ever* using the "unsubscribe" functions, These are primarily, if not entirely, a way to verify the legitimacy of addresses. "Unsubscribing" registers the fact that someone is reading the mail, and thus that the address is "active". Thus making the next batch of direct mail more efficient.

Deleting and filtering these are really the only way to go. For all it's faults, SBC/Yahoo! (which has been mostly a pain since I was force-"upgraded") has a pretty decent server-based filtering system, so I see a tiny fraction of the spam. The OS X mail.app has an even better filtering system, but you still have to download the mail for it to work, which kind of defeats the purpose for us old-style dialup guys.

Brett

LAST EDITED ON Aug-22-03 AT 03:46 PM (CDT)
 
Ty,

If you check this site,

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/

you'll see that there are six newly reported since yesterday. Someone (s) needs to be caught and hung by the test-----!

My latest Norton AV caught the "W32.Dumaru.B@mm" worm this morning but didn't know what to do with it, so it deleted the attachment and reported my receiving the worm to Symantec.

KEEP your AV Virus Definitions up to date!! At least, if the AV definitions are not up to the minute, my software is recognizing that they are not legit and taking care of the problem.

All this has almost, but not quite, convinced me to get rid of my PC and get a MacIntosh. Hah!!

Paul

>
>All this has almost, but not quite, convinced me to get rid
>of my PC and get a MacIntosh. Hah!!
>
>Paul

It's hardly worth the effort of the nerds that write these viruses to write something that only attacks 10% of the computer world.
I'm not totally convinced that the majority of these worms/viruses aren't written by some demented Macintosh worshiper, thinking he'll bring down the evil empire of M.S. I guess we could all switch over to Mac's and Netscape and be safe for awhile until some psychotic Bill Gates geek decides to bring down the evil Apple Force.
Of course this is just my warped opinion.

Says here http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,95457,00.html that they've got the Sobig virus licked. Wish they'd come dump my mailbox every half hour or so.

>demented Macintosh
>worshiper, thinking he'll bring down the evil empire of M.S.

As a demented Macintosh worshipper, I can tell you I wouldn't be willing to sully my hands by generating Windoze code.

Seriously, having pretty extensive experience with both systems, I find unfathomable the amount of flogging it takes to keep Windows systems running. I genuinely don't understand why people, even after repeated disasters, people keep buying the next version on the promise that this one will finally be right. Just based on the concept of "comaptibilty" - which is simply a non-issue. I have used a 8-year-old Mac in an otherwise all-Windows work evironment and have never, ever, had a situation where someone "couldn't read my files". On the contrary, I spend a lot of time taking files from Windoze machines, putting them on the Mac, and then sending them back out in a different format just so they could be read by another WIndows system.

I might also add that the H/W tends to be junk, as well. I've had 5 different windows machines at work over the past 3 years, and #6 is getting ready to go over the hill any day now. These aren't some off-brand cowbox thing either - straight from IBM.

To get the same quality PC hardware as a Mac, you have to buy a machine that costs just as much or more. The price is negligibly different.

I guess once you have convinced yourself that computers should be hard, and fussy, you find it hard to believe it could be otherwise.

LAST EDITED ON Aug-23-03 AT 06:06 AM (CDT)
 
>>demented Macintosh
>>worshiper, thinking he'll bring down the evil empire of M.S.
>
> As a demented Macintosh worshipper, I can tell you I
>wouldn't be willing to sully my hands by generating Windoze
>code.
>
> Seriously, having pretty extensive experience with both
>systems, I find unfathomable the amount of flogging it
>takes to keep Windows systems running. I genuinely don't
>understand why people, even after repeated disasters, people
>keep buying the next version on the promise that this one
>will finally be right. Just based on the concept of
>"comaptibilty" - which is simply a non-issue. I have used a
>8-year-old Mac in an otherwise all-Windows work evironment
>and have never, ever, had a situation where someone
>"couldn't read my files". On the contrary, I spend a lot of
>time taking files from Windoze machines, putting them on the
>Mac, and then sending them back out in a different format
>just so they could be read by another WIndows system.
>
> I might also add that the H/W tends to be junk, as well.
>I've had 5 different windows machines at work over the past
>3 years, and #6 is getting ready to go over the hill any day
>now. These aren't some off-brand cowbox thing either -
>straight from IBM.
>
> To get the same quality PC hardware as a Mac, you have to
>buy a machine that costs just as much or more. The price is
>negligibly different.
>
> I guess once you have convinced yourself that computers
>should be hard, and fussy, you find it hard to believe it
>could be otherwise.
>
> Brett

I've worked with almost every brand of computer, as well as O.S. and after 23 years I've come to the conclusion that NOTHING is more stable and reliable as an HP Unix box.

Brett, sorry a rocket scientist like you hasn't figured out the MS world. I've been using it both at work and home for the past 10 years with hardly any problems that wern't my own fault. If you know what you're doing windows is just as good as anything else... except Unix.

regards,
Rick "catdaddy" Blankenship

btw anything from IBM IS worse than a cowbox

LAST EDITED ON Aug-23-03 AT 11:58 AM (CDT)
 
>Brett, sorry a rocket scientist like you hasn't figured out
>the MS world. I've been using it both at work and home
>for the past 10 years with hardly any problems that wern't
>my own fault. If you know what you're doing windows is just
>as good as anything else... except Unix.

Since Mac OS X *is* Unix, I guess you agree with me... But maybe you didn't know that.

You are wrong, too. The most stable OS is VMS - much more so than most brands of UNIX, and vastly less obscure to operate than UNIX.

The rest of it - "knowing what you are doing with windows" - is *precisely* why I think it's complete junk. Why in the h*ll should you have to learn the guts of the OS just to keep it alive? I am continually amazed that this is acceptable to people, and a perfect illustration of what I was talking about. With apparently limited exposure to other systems, you don't even seem to be able to grasp the concept of something that works whether you "know what you are doing" or not.

I can almost guarantee I have more PC experience than you, BTW.

> I can almost guarantee I have more PC experience than
>you, BTW.
>
> Brett
>
>

I'm sure you do Brett you are a rocket scientist.
But I seem to be able to make my windows work and you can't
And I know much less than you.

I do know the relationship between Unix and the Macs that you so dearly love. I said the most stable system I've worked with is an HP UNIX box I'll stand by that statement as well as thousands of other people including some rocket scientist I know.

But like you I'm continuously amazed at all the brillant Mac users that can't get a PC to work. My current box is three years old and is running fine. Maybe your company needs to stop buying IBM's and get this 16 year old I know to build you some PC workstations.

The simple reason, Brett, is that there's about 500 times more software readily available for a PC.. And it is cheaper.

I've been upset at Apple since way back in the Apple II days, when they refused to lower their prices and take over the market with a superior product. Here they had a 68000 processor coming, and refused to lead the market. As a hardware designer, it hurt me to see the 8085/8086 become the de-facto "standard".

And I also remember the computer club, where we talked about how to rewire the Apple printer cable so that we could use a common RS232 interface printer. (Shades of Tandy's decree: "The User agrees not to disassemble the code". And DEC's Rainbow, which had no software to format a floppy, so that we had to buy them pre-formatted from DEC.) I really despise the marketeer mentality that tries to extort in such a manner. And Apple had it.

I still think Macs are overpriced. It seems like many of the Mac lovers I know are more concerned about getting the matching color (peach, is it?) on their printer case.. I place little value on a "cute" laptop with a cover that resembles a toilet seat. (I place little value on laptops in general - what a sorry keyboard and mouse interface!)

I'll give Apple credit for having a reliable (closed) architecture and OS. And I know they have been the computer of choice for people using all the Adobe software for years. They SHOULD be able to do that!

Don't assume I favor Windows, I use it as a matter of practicality. Windows causes me grief on a daily basis, I'm particularly bitter about Microsoft's "Clippy" mentality, and all the emphasis on playing media, a la XP. Microsoft Publisher is an example of Microsoft's purchase of a true Edsel of a "family" product. Every couple of months my wife drags out her newsletter and I end up cussing Microsoft for a Saturday over this completely astonishing piece of crap software package - I end up doing the newsletter because she cannot figure out its abstruse command interface (neither can I). Excel, Word, and Outlook are further examples of violation of the "Law of Least Astonishment" by software designers. They all have that autonomous "Clippy" philosophy, with various Big Brother features so eager to help out, which take a week to figure out how to disable. And they all seem to need to have internet access, and common access to that Address Book!

Thinking about it, I guess I have to admit that at 56 I've discovered that "personal" computer software is almost all inherently evil (with a handful of exceptions), and writing software is not a fit occupation for a human being. <Apologies to my programmer friends (and brother) but "better a sister in a whorehouse than a brother writing software.">

Windows virus problems are a symptom of Microsoft's continued emphasis on flash instead of security or reliability. With all the billions of software development thrown at Windows, it is still an insecure mess. I'm not sure the government could have done it any worse..

Don't get me started!

[photo not recovered: 3e69bb3870f12ad5.jpg]

"The fellow who thinks he knows it all is especially annoying to those of us who do." -Harold Coffin

>The simple reason, Brett, is that there's about 500 times
>more software readily available for a PC.. And it is
>cheaper.

How much s/w do you need, and in what sense is it cheaper? Appleworks is completely interchangable with MS Office products, actually works, and its $99. Compared to something like $499 retail for Office.

I have found maybe two things I couldn't do with free S/W on the Mac, and they were specialty programs that I re-wrote in FORTRAN on the Mac.

How many free word processors do you need?

>I still think Macs are overpriced. It seems like many of the
>Mac lovers I know are more concerned about getting the
>matching color (peach, is it?) on their printer case.. I
>place little value on a "cute" laptop with a cover that
>resembles a toilet seat.

Overpriced? You're living in the past. Not if you compare orange to oranges. Complete, factory-built PC systems are rare, and are at least as expensive for the performance as Macs. A PowerMac G4/Dual 800 mhz is something like $1000, and it's more than a match for a 2.4 Gig P4 machine, if you could even find a factory-built.

You can buy on-the-fly assembled machines like Dell, Gateway, etc, for about the same money as equivalent Macs, but that's not a system - just an assemblage of parts.

I would also wonder if you ever actually used first-generation iBook - you know, it actually works pretty darn well, and was pretty inexpensive. You oculd get it in colors, but please explain to me why it matters to the function.

>(I place little value on laptops in
>general - what a sorry keyboard and mouse interface!)

Obviously a function of only paying attention to PC laptops - generic gray platic boxes with parts randomly tossed into them. The keyboard on all three of my Powerbooks is excellent, the trackpad actually works the way it's supposed to (no little red button garbage), and the mouse just plugs in to the USB port and works just like any other mouse.

I have used almost all types of systems that you have ever heard of extensively. - I don't get the impression that you have ever gotten past looking at the ads for the Mac.

Brett,

What do you do if your place of employment does not use Macs? Over 200 PCs in the laboratory, no Macs. And I use a computer for much more than word processing.

They don't want my reports and presentations in Appleworks, they want them in Word or Powerpoint. They want me to use Excel for the spreadsheets. (We don't even use Word Perfect anymore.)

Can a Mac run the FPGA design software (Altera) I use about 4 hours a day? How about the schematic design software (Orcad or Protel?). I need to use the PC version of such software as Labview, when I build up a test program, I have to send it to field where they use PCs, not Macs. If I need to write a program in C/C++, they want it written for a PC and compiled with MSVC.

How about the AutoCad drawings I generate? Again, the company wants them in native DWG format.

I don't have a choice about using a Mac at work. When I work at home, I need compatibility with the software I use at work. It's a practical matter.

I'm afraid it's too late for me to become a Mac enthusiast.

[photo not recovered: 3e69bb3870f12ad5.jpg]

"Only the little people pay taxes." -Leona Helmsley

>Brett,
>
>What do you do if your place of employment does not use
>Macs? Over 200 PCs in the laboratory, no Macs. And I use a
>computer for much more than word processing.
>
>They don't want my reports and presentations in Appleworks,
>they want them in Word or Powerpoint. They want me to use
>Excel for the spreadsheets. (We don't even use Word Perfect
>anymore.)

Export them in Excel, Word, or Powerpoint format. If you want, create a PC-formatted floppy or Zip disk to store them on.

>
>Can a Mac run the FPGA design software (Altera) I use about
>4 hours a day?

Yes - VPC

>How about the schematic design software
>(Orcad or Protel?).

Yes -VPC

> I need to use the PC version of such
>software as Labview, when I build up a test program, I have
>to send it to field where they use PCs, not Macs. If I need
>to write a program in C/C++, they want it written for a PC
>and compiled with MSVC.

Then compile to a 486 target. You mean your C compiler doesn't generate code for a wide array of target processors? Mine does - X86, 68040, PPC, and Alpha. I've written a fair bit of FORTRAN on the Mac for use on VAX/VMS, for goodness sake.

>How about the AutoCad drawings I generate? Again, the
>company wants them in native DWG format.

Then draw them using an easy-to-use Mac program, and export it in .dwg.
>I don't have a choice about using a Mac at work. When I work
>at home, I need compatibility with the software I use at
>work. It's a practical matter.

Me too, My work uses PCs, Unix, VMS - I have the only Mac left in the building, I generate at least as many reports and programming as anyone else there. If you want compatibility, get a Mac, not a PC - I spend a lot of time using the Mac to convert one PC format to another PC format that are not internally compatible with each other!

You use whatever you want, I don't care. But the compatibility question is really just so much FUD.

I figure the machine is a means to an end, not the end itself, but I can see I'm in the minority.

Brett,

Did I mention that my company buys the PCs AND the software I use at work?

VPC is probably wonderful, I wouldn't know. I've seen an 80286 emulation running on a Z80 before, I know that about anything is possible.

I'll forward a copy of your post to procurement, maybe next time they'll buy me a G5 or whatever and the software to run on it. Right now I'll have to continue to make do with what I have.

(Oh yeah, and did I mention? I've got a perfectly good religion, I don't need another one.)

[photo not recovered: 3e69bb3870f12ad5.jpg]

"When I woke up this morning my girlfriend asked me, 'Did you sleep well?' I said, 'No, I made a few mistakes.'" -Steven Wright

>(Oh yeah, and did I mention? I've got a perfectly good
>religion, I don't need another one.)

I noticed. I just wish people would get out of the psychology of imbuing mindless tools with deific powers, but failing that, at least pick a tool that's not quite a capricious.

Made me wonder: say you're running VPC on a Mac (do you run Windows on top of that?), would your virtual machine be wont to catching viruses?

[photo not recovered: 3e69bb3870f12ad5.jpg]

"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde

>Made me wonder: say you're running VPC on a Mac (do you run
>Windows on top of that?), would your virtual machine be wont
>to catching viruses?
>

Potentially, but I don't bother with trying to run Outlook inside Windows 98 inside VPC inside OX X. mail.app on OS X is a lot more direct, and if I wanted to pass data from one to the other, it's drag and drop.

I had a scare the other day - my computer suddenly quit connecting to the Internet - I got "Server not found". My ISP had no problem - in fact they said the connection to me looked fine from their end, but they couldn't ping me (I couldn't ping out, either). My virus defs were up-to-date, and scanning didn't reveal anything - it turned out that my firewall program was blocking SVCHOST.EXE, which is why I had no connectivity. Simple thing to fix. But that put the scare in me, so I went out this evening and bought a router. In addition to adding a hardware firewall and other security features, it'll allow my second computer to be on the Internet whether or not the "primary" computer is on, which will be a cool side-benefit...

Tim

I use Norton daily. It comes in automatically. I have one other, but the name slips my mind. I been painting my Oriental, Galloping Comedian and DeMeco Continental, and even with the mask, I think the fumes go through my skin and into my old brain. That or I'm just getting old. Ha.

Hi Guys

Have a look at Mailwasher, www.mailwasher.net. It's a New Zealand product but it picks up the header details of your email while leaving it on the server. It maintains a blacklist and a friends list and, when you blacklist any item of email it sends a message to the source saying that the message was sent to an invalid email address.

The invalid email thing does not appear to have much effect but it might give you a good feeling by causing spammers some small amount of trouble.

Since using Mailwasher, I have not had a single instance of infected email getting to my computer for the AV program and the firewall to deal with.

>Hi Guys
>
>Have a look at Mailwasher, www.mailwasher.net. It's a New
>Zealand product but it picks up the header details of your
>email while leaving it on the server. It maintains a
>blacklist and a friends list and, when you blacklist any
>item of email it sends a message to the source saying that
>the message was sent to an invalid email address.
>
>The invalid email thing does not appear to have much effect
>but it might give you a good feeling by causing spammers
>some small amount of trouble.
>
>Since using Mailwasher, I have not had a single instance of
>infected email getting to my computer for the AV program and
>the firewall to deal with.
>
>Cheers, Geoff

If it keeps your box clean, that is fine, but it does no good to send a message to the spammer. They never get it anyway. The address is either bogus (anything with a bunch of numbers in it) or they have purloined a real address from someone else. I have had spammers use my clstunt address for their return and I was getting 200 returns a day saying it was an invalid mail address on mail I had not sent. It was worse than the present virus, which, at least, Norton takes care of anyway.

And, by the way, does it just leave the mail on the server? Somehow that has to be washed off or you are going to get "mail box full" messages and get booted off.

Whatever this virus is, it disabled my Norton softwear and after reinstalling I lost Norton again. So I reformmated the hard drive and reinstalled Norton one more time, then jumped on the updates from
Norton and Microsoft which I'm still downloading from Microsoft right now. If anyone knows what I might be up against, I could use some help. Thanks.

Steve Grenot

That one sounds like the "Klez" virus. It specifically targets your AV program, and disables it. It also attaches itself to all the executables it finds on your computer.

There are "cleaner programs" available at some sites, including Norton. Be sure you execute these in the "safe mode", or it will
do no permanent good.. I made that mistake and it may be why I couldn't get a complete fix for it.

You may or may not be able to get rid of it, and your registery may end up damaged. I never was able to get the Norton Live Update to ever work again. In spite of several attempted repairs. When I later installed the Norton firewall, it tried an could not install Live Update!

Ultimately, I installed new disks and made a fresh installation of all my software (a week's work) to get it off my home computer. A rather drastic solution.

[photo not recovered: 3e69bb3870f12ad5.jpg]

"Many a man has fallen in love with a girl in a light so dim he would not have chosen a suit by it." -Maurice Chevalier

Two lessons from Larry's experience.

Update your antivirus software every day before you do anything else and keep an image of your Windows setup so, if necessary, you can restore to a point in the past when you were happy with your setup--that is if you are ever happy with your setup as decreed by the gnomes of Redmond.

This works best if you keep your operating system and programs on one drive or partition and all your data on a different drive or partition. That way, if a gremlin gets hold of your operating system, you can reinstall from the image fairly quickly. It's a good idea to use rewriteable disks and take a new image once in a while. Also, backup your data.

Another lesson that I learned the hard way; use relatively up to date virus search engines or program versions. I was caught several years ago because McAfee did not keep the signatures for the Virus Scan engine Ver 3 up to date after they released search engine Ver 4.

At least Norton AntiVirus told me when the going was getting too tough for NAV 5 and it was time to upgrade. And if you do not like product activation as introduced by Bill's boys, NAV 2004 is rumoured to have product activation.

Cheers, Geoff

LAST EDITED ON Aug-23-03 AT 08:34 AM (CDT)
 
Hi Leonard

When you blacklist an address in Mailwasher, the program adds the address to its own blacklist so when someone uses an address again, it is automatically listed as spam, it deletes the message from the server and sends a message to the originating address saying that the receiving address is invalid.

Your mailbox does not get clogged and it is very easy to identify the messages that you want to receive. It's not unusual for me to get only one message in ten, and tonight it was one in 22, that I take delivery of. It is not unusual to get spam with exactly the same title from three different sources in the one batch of messages. That makes it even easier to identify the messages to blacklist. In the light of all that is said, I find it interesting that I receive about 3 spam messages in 20 from addresses already on the blacklist. Clearly, the spammers do not bother cleaning their lists.

The program also identifies emails that are sent to many different people using relatively simple address lists and marks them as possible spam so you see what they are. However, some of the email newsletters that I receive are marked as possible spam for that reason but you can add them to a 'Friends' list and they are marked as coming from a friend. It does not take long to run down the list ticking the boxes to bounce and delete 30 separate messages--about the same time that it takes to download a single message and check it.

Then there is the benefit that dodgy, virus carriers do not actually get to your computer. As I said originally, the bounce function has little benefit but the rest is done automatically after you tell the program what to do.

It's free, give it a try.

However, three people that wrote to me and I answered had a bounce back feature as you describe. It may have come because some spammer had used my address in the past. But I had to go through all sorts of hoops and whilstles just to get accepted by the software police.

Now, imagine if everyone who's e-mail is listed as the sender gets bounced by the program as a spammer. We will all be locked out. Right now I am getting bombarded by these automatic machines that are sending me messages telling me that my computer is infected with a virus because they got a virus sent with my name on it. These things are getting as bad as the virus itself. And a lot of it is sent to addresses that I never send from. Sorry, guys, it is not me.

I am getting a number of virus hits, but my wife is getting none at all. Suggests that we are getting accessed from sites like this one.

To protect my machine from the spam and viral activity, I have changed my email address at this and other forums where my email address must remain public to " [email protected] ". This, of course is a non-functional, ficticious address and anyone who uses it will get a bounced message. To send legitimate email to me, merely remove the " -nospam " from the address. The email button at the top right of messages from me will not work and will return email messages sent to me merely via the button to the sender as non-deliverable.

Unfortunately, I find it necessary to take this step due to the trials of this week whereby I lost access to my primary email address and, as a result, to my eBay account with its perfect feed back. My eBay user ID shows that I am " Not a registered user." In addition, all bids I had pending as of the time when I lost access to my primary address, which is, of course, registered with and tied to my user ID, were cancelled with the following explanation to the seller, as well as to anyone who takes the time to read the bid history of those items:

Cancelled
Explanation:Administrative Cancellation
Bid:Aug-20-03 09:59:37 PDT
Cancelled:Aug-21-03 12:33:31 PDT

This may well make it appear to anyone who has an interest that I am a disreputable character so base as to be not worthy of eBay "membership" any longer.

These trials which I'm trying mightily to resolve have caused me to be very cautious about protecting my functioning secondary email address.

Leonard,

Will one of the benefits of change over to registered users only posting be that, unless one is a registered user, he cannot click on the email link to send messages or view user profiles? If that is the case, once the change is made, I'll change my email address to its correct iteration so that those who wish can use the convenient email functionality of the button/icon.

Paul

>I am getting a number of virus hits, but my wife is getting
>none at all. Suggests that we are getting accessed from
>sites like this one.

Not at all. This site doesn't even operate on Microsoft software. There is no virus in it, nor can these viruses get into it, nor can anyone glean the e-mail without hacking the software.

Your wife isn't getting hit because no one has her on their address book or those who do did not get infected. If someone got infected, they could get their addresses from their address book and send out mailings from those computers. The e-mail client here is something altogether different, and there is no address book.

Spent the last three days scanning, cleaning and updating about 600 laptops. Average infection rate with SoBig, Blaster, Nachi, HideMinumize, and ColeFlood was about 70%. Sad thing is they were all be hind a central fire wall which was not penetrated. The viruses found their way into the network through people taking laptops home and having unsafe internet. All of the systems that were running personal firewalls were clean.

Recommendation:
1. If you want to avoid viruses almost entirely use LINUX or a MAC.
2. If you want to use Microsoft, don't use outlook and if possible use an email with a web interface so you can check it through a browser before risking your system.
3. Get a good Antivirus program and keep it updated.
4. Invest in a good personal firewall and use it. I use the FREE version ZoneAlert and can show you the logs where my systems were hit and the attact was blocked.
5. If you use Outlook or Outlook express keep a boggus email address starting with numbers in your address book and watch for email being bounced back to you from this address. If you get one update your virus software ASAP.

Since email virus pray off of the address list it is extremely doubtful even to the point of saying 99.9% unlikely that any email list from the the forum software was utilized to spread the virus. It is more likely that there are several unfortunate people who have compiled address lists of board members that have been sucessfuly attacked by the viruses. Thankfully, neither my wife's email or my email has been targeted by the viruses. Of course since I have said this we will get entirely flooded.

My general feeling is that if they catch the people doing this they should be sent to visit Ricky Martin and his 12" cresent wrench at his flying field.

Gentlemen: The Stuka site is not the only place getting hit by virus. My 89 year-old mother-in-law lives 2 miles from me. I have had to reinstall WINDOWS 3 times this past month on her "e-machines" computer. I simply can't get through to her to stop opening e-mail attachments from people she doesn't know! Hard for someone that age to understand. Hard for me to understand sometimes!

>Gentlemen: The Stuka site is not the only place getting hit
>by virus. My 89 year-old mother-in-law lives 2 miles from
>me. I have had to reinstall WINDOWS 3 times this past month
>on her "e-machines" computer. I simply can't get through to
>her to stop opening e-mail attachments from people she
>doesn't know! Hard for someone that age to understand.
>Hard for me to understand sometimes!
>
>Floyd Carter

Floyd,

Install Norton Antivirus and enable the "Auto Protect" feature (default). It screens all incoming EMAIL for viruses, and screams when an infected file shows up. Screens your outgoing EMAIL too, to keep you from broadcasting nasties. And it slows things down not at all.

>Gentlemen: The Stuka site is not the only place getting hit
>by virus.

>Floyd Carter

Floyd, you may not have meant it in that way, but I want to repeat, the Stuka Stunt site is not being hit by viruses, nor is it sending them out. The viruses are using personal computers that have been infected, and once it gets into someone's address book, that is where our e-mails come from.

I find it interesting that the return addresses of viral messages attributed to me, use an old e-mail account that hasn't been actuve for at least 4 years.

I highly doubt that the scource was this forum.

I'm wondering why everything is spinning around?

I have had no trouble with any virus. There were posts on this site which seemed to indicate that incoming e-mail from Stuka Stunt were infected. I'm glad I don't have to worry.

Floyd Carter
Eugene, OR, where the weather is just about perfect!