I was just informed by a friend that there is a new virus out that's worse than Melissa. According to him, if you receive an e-mail entitled "It takes guts to say Jesus", DO NOT on your life open that thing.

-- Peter Errington (petere@ricochet.net), February 03, 2000

Answers

Peter, your friend is responding to a hoax. You can learn more information about this hoax here. You should probably tell your friend to check Symantec's anti-virus website at http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/vinfodb.html before he passes on any virus information. This way, he won't pass on these hoaxes in the future.

-- (hoax@hoax.hoax), February 03, 2000.

Number one: Don't use any version of Outlook or Outlook Express. Practically all of these E-mail bombs are written in Visual Basic for Applications, so use an E-mail client that doesn't use VBA. I use Eudora Pro 4.2 myself.

Number two: NEVER NEVER NEVER open any attachment unles you KNOW who it came from personally. And even then don't open it in the E-mail program. Navigate to the attached file and scan it with a virus- checker or two and inspect it before you open it. You'll stop a great number of bad things from coming in this way.

O d d O n e, who has caught hundreds of virus/trojan attacks but has never lost data from any of them...

-- OddOne (mocklamer_199@yahoo.com), February 03, 2000.

Darnit, messed up my E-mail. Darn rented fingers... This one's correct.

O d d O n e

-- OddOne (mocklamer_1999@yahoo.com), February 03, 2000.

Good advice Hoax, but thanks for the potential heads up Peter.

-- Dee (T1colt556@aol.com), February 03, 2000.

Dee:

It's not a "good heads up". It's a hoax. It's not a good thing to pass these type of hoaxes along. I spend the greater part of my day dealing with these hoax virus alerts while doing tech support. I've spent far more time with these hoaxes then I've ever spent with real viruses. Sorry, I know you're trying to be nice but, in this instance, you're wrong.

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), February 03, 2000.

Peter, it was kind of you to try to warn everyone. Unfortunately, that's just what these hoaxsters count on. And, of course, no good deed goes unpunished. The person who started the hoax is the one who should be attacked, not the unwitting victim.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), February 03, 2000.

Not attacked, no, but corrected. One should always check the validity of a message like this before passing it along. Check that Symantec site, or CIAC, or any of the other hoaxbuster sites. You'll save yourself some embarrassment and the rest of us some time.

There was another thread recently with that tired old "Internet Tax - Bill 602P" hoax. *sigh*

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), February 03, 2000.

Well Peter...there ya have it buddy. LOL

Nipped in the bud! This is one squared away group. =)

-- Dee (T1colt556@aol.com), February 03, 2000.