[TheForge] Virus storm

[Dann Johnson]

My ISP virus detector has been crammed full of virus suspect emails the 
past few days.

Somehow,  on Monday, my computer still got caught on one "joke"  web 
page,   that wouldn't let me off.  I  pulled the power cord to get the 
computer to stop, as even the old "Control / Alt / Delete"  keys  didn't 
seem to give me system control.  Running  a program called something like 
Spy Sweep didn't speed it up much.

I did some reading up on spyware, and one  such program boasts that their 
program can be attached via simply opening a baited  web page, and also 
that once installed, it was immune to anti spy software, and further , 
that  it would counter attack and disable  new anti spy software  being 
installed on a system.

Last night, sadly,   I  just reformatted my computer.  Decided that loosing 
all the old good stuff was worth it to lose the baggage.

It  WAS   slower than molasses in January.  Amazing how fast and nimble it 
is this morning.   I have never opened ( at least I think  that I have 
never opened) any of those garbage attachments, and  use only Eudora.  I 
don't use Outlook Express.  What I think slowed me down, was I had 
probably  picked up was a ton of spy ware programs.  I try to stay off 
unknown web pages and don't open all of the cutesy  web joke links 
sent  me.   I  keep up with all the Microsoft critical patches.  I think 
that  using a computer on the internet is something  like the flu 
virus.   Strive to avoid unhealthy environments,   but be prepared for some 
pain if you get infected.


Probably just a coincidence, but this morning,  I started getting a  new 
batch of  "returned mail"  supposedly sent by me  earlier this 
morning,   to addresses that I have never heard of.   I know my computer 
was off line and turned off during the time line that these emails were 
sent.  I rarely send out any email that has an attachment,  and 
then  only  the "safe"  jpg files.

Dann Johnson


At 05:49 PM 1/27/2004, you wrote:
>I think they got names from here as I got about half of these sent to me 
>in the last few days. Remember they take the addresses on the infected 
>computer to spoof the from address. So we shouldn't get mad at each other, 
>just check our systems
>Larry Brown