E-mail viruses wouldn't spread so rapidly if everyone practiced netiquette. The "newer" viruses not only look in the Address Book but also search the hard drive, this means they can use addresses found on stored e-mails to propagate themselves and they also choose an address at random to use as the "from" address, therefore making them difficult to trace.
Solution: When sending messages to several people at once, use the BCC: feature. To access BCC: in Microsoft Outlook Express, open a message and click "View" then click "All Headers". Add your address to the Address Book, send the message To: yourself and BCC: everyone to whom you wish to send the message. The only address appearing on the message will be your own. The recipient then will not have to scroll through a mass of e-mail addresses to view the message.
Ask your contacts to make sure they delete all the block of identifying information before forwarding. It's very simple to do......just highlight the previous information and hit the delete key.
If the BCC: method and the practice of deleting previous identifying information was widely used, viruses wouldn't be able to propagate so easily.
Scenario 1 - I send an email to 10 people using To: and/or CC: all the e-mail addresses show on the header - that's 11 available e-mail addresses and each of those 10 people forward to another 10 using To: and/or CC: without removing the previous information. Now there are many more available e-mail addresses and so on, and so on. If eventually that email reaches an infected PC, the virus would have loads of email addresses to use to propagate itself.
Scenario 2 - I send an email to 10 people using BCC: the only address that appears is ONE....mine. If the recipients forward using BCC and delete the previous block of identifying information, then there is only ONE available address and so on, and so on. If this email reaches an infected PC it can only get ONE email address to use to propagate itself!
THIS IS JUST PLAIN COMMON SENSE !!
Solution: When sending messages to several people at once, use the BCC: feature. To access BCC: in Microsoft Outlook Express, open a message and click "View" then click "All Headers". Add your address to the Address Book, send the message To: yourself and BCC: everyone to whom you wish to send the message. The only address appearing on the message will be your own. The recipient then will not have to scroll through a mass of e-mail addresses to view the message.
Ask your contacts to make sure they delete all the block of identifying information before forwarding. It's very simple to do......just highlight the previous information and hit the delete key.
If the BCC: method and the practice of deleting previous identifying information was widely used, viruses wouldn't be able to propagate so easily.
Scenario 1 - I send an email to 10 people using To: and/or CC: all the e-mail addresses show on the header - that's 11 available e-mail addresses and each of those 10 people forward to another 10 using To: and/or CC: without removing the previous information. Now there are many more available e-mail addresses and so on, and so on. If eventually that email reaches an infected PC, the virus would have loads of email addresses to use to propagate itself.
Scenario 2 - I send an email to 10 people using BCC: the only address that appears is ONE....mine. If the recipients forward using BCC and delete the previous block of identifying information, then there is only ONE available address and so on, and so on. If this email reaches an infected PC it can only get ONE email address to use to propagate itself!
THIS IS JUST PLAIN COMMON SENSE !!
