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A Virus warning


jbredmound

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Very Important>>> During the next several weeks be VERY cautious about opening or> launching any e-mails that refer to the World Trade Center or 9/11 in> any way, regardless of who sent it. PLEASE FORWARD TO ALL YOUR> FRIENDS AND FAMILY. FOR THOSE WHO DON'T KNOW, "WTC" STANDS FOR THE> WORLD TRADE CENTER. REALLY DANGEROUS BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL OPEN IT> RIGHT AWAY, THINKING ITS A STORY RELATING TO 9/11!>>>>>>> BIGGGG TROUBLE !!!! DO NOT OPEN "WTC Survivor" It is a virus that> will erase your whole "C" drive. It will come to you in the form of> an E-Mail from a familiar person. I repeat, a friend sent it to me,> but called and warned me before I opened it. He was not so lucky and> now he can't even start his computer!>>>>>> Forward this to everyone in your address book. I would rather> receive this 25 times than not at all. So, if you receive an email> called "WTC Survivor", do not open it. Delete it right away! This> virus removes all dynamic link libraries (.dll files) from your> computer.>>>>>>>>> PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGEI did forward this message, along with some info on AV programs, and strongly urged everyone to pick a product today.I find it very frustrating that people enable the proliferation of these terrorist viruses through their own inaction, especially since the necessary actions are so simple. I said so in the forward.If you are not running anti-virus software on your computer, the cyber gods should strike your tower with lightening. :lol: I just gotta learn to quit "beating around the bush" on these things. ;) >>>>

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Bob,Thanks! I have been sending a reply to friends and relatives (and the level of friendship is relative to how many of these I get!) with a little blurb I wrote up that is quite similar to your page - but now I can just direct them to your site and let them read it! (Funny, isn't it, if someone reads a web page, they think it is quite possibly true, but if they get an email from me saying the exact same thing, it is probably not!)I tell all my people there is one basic rule:If it has the words, "send this to everyone", or any combination of words to that effect, it is probably B.S. and should be treated as such. Like you, I have NEVER gotten an email that had that line in it that was legitimate.I usually end the email with this paragraph:"Pass this on to everyone in your address book! - If you do, everything good that you ever wanted to have happen to you will happen tomorrow! Really! A friend of mine who is a lawyer told me that she looked it over and if everything good you ever wanted to have happen to you doesn't happen by tomorrow, then you can have BMW start a class-action lawsuit against Mrs. Fields and get the Cookie recipe that my other friend got from a disgruntled waitress whose little boy is dying of cancer and has a last wish to get as many emails as he can so he can respond to them and see a dancing clown on his monitor to help him forget about the gang initiation his mom was caught up in at the mall when she went to unlock her car and the gangster reached out from under the car and cut her Achilles tendon because she had flashed her lights at them when they didn't have theirs on..." Or don't.Thanks again, Bob - for writing a page that says exactly what I have been telling people ever since... Well, ever!You legitimized my opinion!d|:^)Dick

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Guest ComputerBob

Thanks, Dick! I'm always happy to hear when someone finds one of my articles useful. :DYou hit the nail on the head, re: an "Internet-published" article having more credibility than an email message to most people. I wrote my article because I got tired of sending the same email reply to the same people, over and over again, asking them to please stop sending me hoaxes.The other thing I do now is, when I receive a hoax, I "reply to all" so that everyone who received the hoax in the same "batch" as me, will receive my reply as well. That serves two purposes:[*] it increase the education level of the populace re: email hoaxes[*] it increases the embarassment level of the person who sent it to all of us. :huh:

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While I agree with the annoyance factor of people forwarding these messages robotically and all, guys, I think you're missing the point:It IS frustrating that lots of people don't have antivirus software installed and even if they do, half the time it hasn't been updated or they've let their subscriptions expire. This WTC Hoax actually started right after 9-11. I remember it hitting the news then, and I got a few of these in the mail. But this is innocuous -- comparatively. What isn't innocuous, and what may be most insidious about hoaxes, is that they lull us into a false sense of security. And I think experienced users are the most likely to get trapped by that pitfall.Look, I'm not one of those people who sees a virus behind every spam message. But, on the other hand, stranger things have happened than for lightning to strike twice.As experienced folks, I consider it our primary job to get the word out about how to protect yourself from viruses. Because far, far too many people are purposely looking the other way to that problem, or not ponying up the $20 at the end of the year to re-up their antivirus subs. Either way, they're abetting real worms and viruses.The fact that we climb all over the first person who tries to be a good citizen, innocently passing along one of the many hoax messages, saying to them what boils down to RTFM!, isn't helping things.Bob, believe me, I empathize with your Hoax article, and I'm not saying that it's a bad thing. You're right, email-based warnings are 98% hoaxes (although I have gotten warnings that wound up being true, though none that sound like the ones in your article, of course).I just feel that not enough people are emphasizing what's really the problem: worms and viruses. All of this stems from that problem. It's a real problem that's not very well understood by joe six pack computer user. Look, you pressed a hot button of mine. Sorry for the rant.-- Scot

Edited by scot
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The fact that we climb all over the first person who tries to be a good citizen, innocently passing along one of the many hoax messages, saying to them what boils down to RTFM!, isn't helping things.
Well, I'd like to apologize if anything I said came off as jumping all over jbredmond about his post. I certainly didn't mean it in that way.Jbredmond has posted some very enlightening things on this board and seems to know what he is doing. I visited a couple of sites that he recommended for testing email vulnerabilities and was glad he had posted.I agree that we are all a bit uppity (is that a word?) when it comes to forwards, UCE, and emailed virus alerts, and we tend to lump them together. It's almost like getting hit with a 1-2-3 punch! I think that is why computerbob and I both use humor in our way of responding - so that the message gets across, some education is accomplished, and feelings are left intact as well.The forums here (SFNL) do tend to wander off-topic sometimes, and my feeling is that maybe we should have acknowledged the post - talking about jbredmonds remarks that he had sent information to his contacts about anti-virus software and firewalls. Then, if we wanted to talk about email hoaxes, we could have started another thread. This would have given it a lot less of an attack look!Anyway, sorry again John if our discussion came off as an attack on you - didn't mean it to.d|:^)Dick
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I guess I didn't even notice the part about the passing it on with info on AV programs... I get so much stuff like that WTC email that I don't even look at it anymore... I've done my best to educate my family on keeping good virus software (I'm the computer guru of the family), so hoax emails don't go any farther than to remind me to check my AV updates... I guess that's what I did with this note, saw that it didn't seem quite right, and checked the web to prove it. Didn't think to notice that the post didn't have ">" all the way down. I do have to agree with JB that sending the AV info was a good idea, I also think pointing out that things like this are usually hoaxes isn't a bad idea. If I do see a virus alert that I've not heard before, I run a search (takes 30 seconds) and see if this is a legitimate concern. If it is a concern, I'll pass along the info with a link explaining the virus/worm. This way people get the real information and know to do something about it.

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Hey, everyone: No need to apologize! Everyone made great points. Heck, I bookmarked Bob's article too. ;) Uppity is a word; I'm not sure that we're that way; but if we are, we have a right to be! It's frustrating knowing this much, ain't it? :) -- Scot

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I bookmarked Bob's article, too. I also sent it out to the same "group" that I sent my admonitions too.I keep blowing it with brevity. Actually, I did a search on the warning (somehow, I missed it around 9/11, and found that it was a hoax. I'll tell you the terrible truth...I don't want them to know that.We know Sue very well; she is one of my wife's former co-workers, and we could tell from the e-mail that she was freaked out.GOOD!!!I have received a dozen replies, if I have received one, to my little newsletter, saying, "This can't REALLY be true...I mean, I've never had any problems." Well, my wife saw what happened to us when a Trojan disabled the Norton and made it's way through us like it was powered by ex-lax. Heck, the only thing that saved us was we were patched up pretty well. Sue was scared. I'm not scared. Like many more experienced folks, I am often flippant, even arrogant (just let that big, bad Trojan try to get a piece of me) . It wasn't us that fueled the DoS attacks, it was them.I read an article a long time ago that likened computer viruses to biological viruses; the rule of thumb for biological viruses is that if you can immunize 80% of the population against a virus, it dies. That's how we got rid of Smallbox; a world-wide immunization effort.There is no "World Health Organization" for the Internet, just us folks. We know (especially after Slammer) that by the time the e-mails circulate, the battle will be over. They do not know that. In Nursing, we call it a "teaching moment". Let's teach, and be truthful about it; that's why I sent the hoax info...to let them know to take a deep breath.By the way, no offense taken, at all. I saw right a way that I hadn't been clear on the purpose of my post. Thank you, Scot, for helping to clarify all of this, and thanks to all for your input. ;)

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