Warning!!

[Whyzman]

Just saw this on BlackViper's site:

Warning: If you receive an E-Mail message from “support@microsoft.com,” with a size of 69 KB to 72 KB, do not open them. It is a virus that will spread to everyone in your address book (if you use OE).

[jabarnutcase]

Yikes! That's pretty sneaky...Although I would be suspicious right away if I were ever to get any email "support" from Microsoft! :p

[Whyzman]

Hehe...yeah, especially if it was free! :rolleyes:

[jabarnutcase]

Gee- You don't suppose it really is from Microsoft, and they've just come out with a whole new line of anit-Virus software they're trying to market do you? :confused:

What a coincidence....Just received that exact email you described. Think I'll check it out.

Whoops! :eek:






(Just kidding) :D

[Mark Miller]

MS never sends e-mail about anything, you either have to pay or subscribe. Come to think about it nobody in the computer world sends anything except if it's a sales pitch. I have gotten to the point that I don't open anything unless it's from here or from a small group of friends [2]
Mark:D :D

[kayofcircles]

Here I am..once again slightly off topic. But what Mark just said about not opening anything much unless it's from here or his two friends reminds me of my uncle's email this morning. He is getting spammed big time. He is in his late seventies, not very puter savvy, and running (oh, geez) ME and MSN. Oh yeah, with Norton Internet Securities on that ME. Said he got 16 pieces of spam Friday, and 19 yesterday. I am frustrated that I can't get to Oregon to work on that puter for him, but I don't even know what to tell him to do..that he might be able to do, you know? Maybe call MSN and try to get his email addy changed?

[Mark Miller]

Hi Kay,
If he is using MSN he is probabably using Outlook Express. If he is using IE6 then it is OL6. What I am trying to get at is that OL6 has really good spam filters in the mail program, maybe you can walk him through it. Sorry to get off track.
Mark:)

[kayofcircles]

Mark: OL6? Do you mean OE 6? And..YOU could walk him through it cuz I am still back at OE 5...:D Seriously, though, he really isn't capable of "hanging in" that long anymore..the whole thing of changing puter stuff stresses him too much and he gets shaky and uncertain. That's a lot of what makes me so angry..:mad:..about the viri and the spam..there are a lot of people, not all of them older like my uncle, that get hurt by this kind of needless, tacky "stuff." My uncle is thinking seriously about giving up on email..and he's been too scared to surf much for a long time.

[Mark Miller]

Sorry to hear that Kay,
My mother-inlaw is the same way. I have convinced her that surfing is okay but I am still having trouble with e-mail. It is to bad because all her grandchildren are always sending pics and my son has his own so there are even great grand children pics. and yes I did mean OE 6
Have a great Holiday!!!
Mark:D :D

[Paul Komski]

There's all sorts of ways of filtering mail and using third-party programs, but the best way IMHO is to get a new eMail addy and a new MSN passport; that spam is just gonna keep on coming.

Its a bit like changing banks, everyone thinks its going to be a real hassle but it doesn't take long to send the new details to one's contacts/buddies etc.

Having done (or better still in advance of) that, for a small annual fee (if you use one of the cheap domains) you can park the domain name at companies such as freeparking. You don't need to use the domain for a website but can easily set up your own eMail forwarding. When you start to get spam again, no-one except you knows the real eMail address which you therefore don't need to change, so all you do is change the forwarding address and let your friends know.

Example:
Get a real eMail addy called: mymail@myisp.com
Get domain name called: domainname.com
Give out your new addy as me@domainname.com
Logon to your parked domain and arrange that...
Forward all mails for me@domainname.com to mymail@myisp.com

If get loads of spam again:-
Give out your new addy as newname@domainname.com
Logon to your parked domain and change to ...
Forward all mails for newname@domainname.com to mymail@myisp.com

mymail@myisp.com is never ever given out.

One can set up multiple domain eMail addies (name1@domainname.com, name2@domainname.com, etc) and distribute them to different groups of contacts, and make all of them forward to your real eMail addy if you want to. This can have the advantage that when you start to get spam again, you may have an idea from where it originated because of the particular domain eMail address that it is using.

And ... finally LOL ...
It is usual for domain eMail addresses to have a default address to forward to. Thus anything that is not specified in your list as a domain eMail address but is sent to the domain gets sent to, say a Hotmail or similar account or to a POP or Webmail addy also provided by the domain parking company.

This "catch all" account can be viewed, cleared, etc as you think fit. It means that any mails sent to an outdated addy (say you removed myname@domainname.com from the list) it would get sent to this account and wouldn't be "lost". Any contacts mis-spelling the first part of the address would also have their mails directed to this account rather than them getting bounced. It is also where any future spam will get dumped eventually.

Similar things can be done with real webhosts - and the site is always available for you when you ever decide to use it.

[Sylvander]

Hey Kay!

What you should do is get your uncle to install MSN Messenger and Netmeeting.
Then you can talk to him PC to PC for free.
Then if he "shares" his desktop and "Grants Control" and you accept:
You can download software from the web to install on his PC [from your PC] (to help protect him) and you could demonstrate how to use "Mailwasher" etc.

I've been doing this with an 85 year old whiz kid in Oregon and it worked great until something went wrong and now I cannot fix it because she cannot share or grant control.

[kayofcircles]

As far as I am concerned, my uncle has made three big mistakes. The first was buying an HP with ME on it..just to get it running right, he had to pay a guy to come over to their retirement home and fix it for him. And subsequent times when ME wouldn't play with old printer or old scanner, and then didn't want to play with new printer or scanner either. Then he bought Norton Internet Securities...puter guy had to come out again. Then QWest (ISP) "gave" all their customers to MSN. Well, I bailed..and went to AT&T but uncle stayed with MSN. Puter guy again...sigh. So you can understand why he has gotten afraid to "touch" his puter, and why I responded by laughing to your suggestion, Sylvander, of installing anything else!

Mark..I have been thinking about your suggestion, and will go looking for OE 6 "instructions" as soon as uncle emails me back about version. Suspect you're right about him having IE 6, because I remember him having big problems after the changeover to MSN..but need to confirm that. My cousin lives in the area, and might be able to do the mail filters for him if I obtain the instructions for her to follow.

And Paul...good idea! Too complicated for uncle, but will keep it in mind for everyone else. All my spam goes to Hotmail Junk folder..and so far, that's the cheapest for me personally.."free"..:D And I rather have my fingers crossed that he won't have to change his addy. I too am concerned that the spam will just multiply..but the whole reason that he's getting it in the first place is because many of his friends are "hooked" on the forwarding stuff and have never mastered the blind carbon copy concept...sigh. So, even if he changed addy, but then gave it to same group..might end up in same place.

[bassman]

PAUL,
That even confused me a tiny bit :confused: :eek: :D

KAY,
I think the best thing for your uncle to do is just create a new user name on his account. It has been a while since I looked at MSN, but I believe you have the ability to have several user names on one account. If he was able to go thru the initial setup, adding a new name will be easy. He would then send an E-mail to all the folks he wants, notifying them he will only be accepting mail at this new addy and simply delete everything that comes to the old one.
The real problem here is, as long as he is using the Commercial saturated MSN product (to include "Hotmail") he will be subject to this junk and have to do this every time the spam starts again. I recommend he gets into a discount ISP that does not use this kind of tactic to inflict sales on it’s customers.
I am not affiliated with them in any way, but I have used Hawk (http://www.hawkcommunications.com/index2.asp) for some time and been quite happy. He will have to research to find one that has a local phone number.

Good luck

Edit Aahhh, I now see where it starts.;) He should stop opening mail from those friends.

[kayofcircles]

Always good to "see" ya, bassman.:) I had read/heard negative things about MSN..and tried to get him to check into some other ISP over a year ago when QWest made the change, but when you're afraid to surf..well, it's hard to check into much of anything. And it was my cousin who went over and got on the phone for a LONG time (from what he said) with MSN to get email to work.

Several of my uncle's friends are veterans of WWII, from the same battleship my uncle served on. So, I wish they had learned the carbon copy thing, but they are to be commended, I think, for learning anything about puters at all..considering that my mom thinks computers are some newfangled, impossible idea. And considering also the holiday we are currently celebrating...well, I repeat what I said above. This stuff makes me very angry and although I try hard to be a good Christian, I think of virus writers and spammers as cockroaches, and some rules about "squashing" don't apply to insects in my book.

[mjc]

Hey, don't soil the good name of cockroach by associating those vermin with them...:D

[PC-Shark]

Thank you for warning!!!!