Melissa: When you told me about the forum I ran home and connected up and thought it was the greatest thing I had found in a long time..But now everyone is so hyper over vireses and are afraid to send any of their freinds any e-mails...I think it should a mistrust of your friends so I think I will no longer be able to tune in ....This is goodbye..Don't bother to answer, you might give me a viris...Radar

-- Robert (snuffy@1st.net), November 30, 2001

Answers

Radar, I set up the hotmail account, you can e-mail me on it, just click below to send e-mail. Thanks!

-- Melissa (melissa_n65@hotmail.com), November 30, 2001.

Oy vey!

-- Ardie/WI (ardiexxxxx@hotmail.com), November 30, 2001.

Sorry to see you go Radar, but as long as you DON"T OPEN any e-mail, you are safe, especially if you get Norton Corporate Edition installed by a friendly geek who already has the program, he/she can do the install for free.

I have been active on these Lusenet forums for years, and even when the worst of the trolls tries to "get me" , they are unsuccesful thanks to the efforts of my dear professional geek brother antihacking software installations.

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), November 30, 2001.

ANNIE: Thanks for your comeback, I'm not worried about any visies at all, because I do have the best Norton system you can buy and it also has the anti hacker system built in also...It scans everything I get or send out so I know I'm not sending any virises to anyone..But since evryone is running scared their missing alot of good stuff I wasgoing to send them Bye Radar

-- Robert (snuffy@1st.net), November 30, 2001.

Hey Radar the forum is perfectly safe.

Also anything you want to e-mail anyone can be easily put directly on the forum. All you have to do is high-light it, then click on copy, then open an "Ask a Question" box then put your cursor in the box and then click on paste under the "Edit" category. Once you learn to do this you will love it!

I don't think ANYONE is knowingly sending viruses to anyone else, however this particular "worm" does not make itself known until after you have already had it and then sent itself to everyone in your address book.

It has nothing to do with TRUST, you can easily send it without knowing about it.

As to the Norton virus ware, there are new viruses each day and if you don't continually up-date your program one can slip by. Several people here have the virus even though they have the software as well.

I am going to set up a hotmail account, then I can receive e-mails again without worry as they screen the e-mails for viruses. I simnply cannot affored to have my computer messed up. My kids use it too much for school-work (almost every day) and I'm sure you will agree that is pretty important.

so I hope you don't leave the forum, because once this mess is straightened out there will continue to be lots of good stuff here!!

-- Melissa (me@home.net), November 30, 2001.

Now...I will quietly explain. I NEVERED opened an attachment! I only opened email from addresses I recognized! Wednesday night, DH installed a program which had a firewall and could ID email senders. Thursday morning the computer CRASHED! DH spent the AM talking tech- talk with the manufacturers help desk. Thank God he knows computeese! Nobody can understand why this all happened as nothing was detected. Anyway, for now we on this forum are not distrusted each other. We are distrusting email addresses! We're being careful and to not seems rather dumb IMHO. I "know" the people here and I enjoy their posts. It is the trolls that are untrustworthy.

-- Ardie/WI (ardiexxxx@hotmail.com), November 30, 2001.

Another point I wanted to make but forgot, is that these trolls are using real e-mails that we know, but the real people aren't sending them.

So let's say that someone sees you saying, you have a perfect system and you can't send the virus. So people will think they can open e- mails from you safely.

Now the troll uses your name and sends a virus. Ok, people see your name and think it is OK,and then they open the e-mail and OH NO they have a virus.

It is not you or anyone else we don't trust, it is the people who are using people's e-mail addresses falsely. When I see someones name on the screen I have no way of knowing if it is really them or a troll using their e-mail address. I hope you can understand our concerns.

-- Melissa (me@home.net), November 30, 2001.

Radar you can call me and we will make up some sort of code-word then if I see it in the e-mail address I will know it is you! Then I can post your poems and quotes and sayings on the forum!!

-- Melissa (me@home.net), November 30, 2001.

i agree that it has nothing to do with trust. I know that Lesley would never send me a virus, and yet one of the bad e-mails I got this week appeared to come from her. If my own sister sends me an e- mail with an attachment this week, I won't be opening it. Since the computer always tells me if there is an attachment, I don't see that there is a problem opening one that doesn't have one (?)

-- mary (mlg@aol.com), November 30, 2001.

there is a way to check if the email address showing is really the email address it originated from. In your email program you can select to view "full or 'all' headers. Then you compare the email address show to the i.p. path. It'll look something like this;

Received: from hbgimc03.state.pa.us ([206.224.21.20]) From: XXXXXX, XXXXX"

By comparing the path to the email address, I can see they both match @state.pa.us and can basically assume it's a real email address.

-- Dave (something@somewhere.com), November 30, 2001.

Dave, want to come over and educate me? I feel so dumb about all this stuff. I need to take a general class, instead of finding everything out by accident!

-- Melissa (me@home.net), November 30, 2001.

hmm, I'll try that again, Lusenet doesn't post certain sentences that contain certain characters. If you set your email to view full or all headers, you'll probably see what I'm trying to describe.

Received: by hbgimc03.state.pa.us with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21); Fri, 30 Nov 2001 12:29:55 -0500

From: "XXXXX, XXXXX" XXXXXXX@state.pa.us

both the path and the shown email match, therefore it's most likely not a fake email address.

-- Dave (something@somewhere.com), November 30, 2001.

don't feel dumb Melissa, 6-7 years ago I knew nothing of computers. I've never taken any classes, just figured it out like you said. If a high school dropout like me can learn it, so can you. ; )

One thing that's helped me alot with computers and Windows is exploring, clicking on everything I can to see how it works.

-- Dave (something@somewhere.com), November 30, 2001.

I do that too Dave, but then I forget what I did!! Like right now I have totally messed up the bar that goes across the top of the screen I don't like the way it is but I can't get it back to the way it was. Very frustrating. I have started taking notes when I do certain things so I can remember what I did!

-- Melissa (me@home.net), November 30, 2001.

It never occurred to me that there was any distrust of each other on this forum. I have seen only the opposite. Yes, there is some worry over opening e-mails that might have been sent out by this virus (or perhaps even a troll), but as for any of us deliberately sending a virus....well, as ol' Crocodile Dundee would say, "No worries, mate." :)

The only worrying I've seen here is when people post that either they or another member might have the virus, a warning to hopefully prevent any of the other forum members from getting it also. Just an example of how we all care for each other on this forum. The whole world should be so lucky as to have this many friends who worry about them.

And as Ardie is always saying, This too shall pass! I'm sure it will be over soon and life and the forums will get back to normal.

-- Lenette (kigervixen@webtv.net), November 30, 2001.

For what is worth, I was told to put, !0000 , as the 1st name on my email address book, and leave the rest blank, this causes the down loading virus to think you have no addresses in your "book" and it doen't pass on. So far so good!

-- Thumper (slrldr@yahoo.com), December 01, 2001.

im male and looking for good virises

-- patrick luke mannion (smokey418@hotmail.com), September 18, 2002.

i want to no how to send virirs to peoples computers i have to no because everyone is mean to me plz tell me how to

-- elena stav (doggydoggrover@hotmail.com), October 17, 2002.