How to protect your email address book

I got this in from a friend the other day and spotted it when I was clearing out emails I had missed.  Think of the suggestion as "Chicken Soup" for the computer.   In theory it should work, just like if you used any other "invalid" email address.  The idea is simple - you add a bad email address to your email account address book.  If you get anything back from that address, you know you're stuck.  The Virus may not stop at that point, in fact I'd expect that it doesn't, but the article does imply something that makes sense - if you get a lot of email messages saying that you sent something off and it's undeliverable, run your virus scanner!

Why am I posting this "spam" as a blog article?  Because lately I have been getting a lot of spam from email accounts that friends have.
 

Why do I call it Chicken Soup?   A good Jewish friend once told me the story of why chicken soup is served when someone has a cold - it may help but if it doesn't "It Couldn't Hurt".  
 

Great... now I want some good Matzo Ball Soup!  In this part of South Florida?  I'll have to make it myself!
 
How to protect your e-mail address book

A computer repairman says this is like having gold. 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  'A'.  For the screen name or email address, type AAAAAAA@AAA.AAA.

Now, here's what you've done and why it works: The 'name 'A' 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. 

When it tries to send itself to AAAAAAA@AAA.AAA, it will be undeliverable because of the phony email address you entered.  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 In Box almost immediately. 

Hence, if you ever get an email telling you that an email addressed to AAAAAAA@AAA.AAA 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!

Pretty slick huh?

If everybody you know does this then you need not ever worry about opening mail from friends.

DO IT NOW and pass this on to all your friends