[or-roots] Virus concern

[Bill & Chris Strickland]

> Nancy Salstrand wrote:
> 
> I keep getting emails with viruses, so I am going to unsub-
> scribe from or-roots for a while until someone cleans up
> their computer.

Nancy, and others --

A lot of this current round of viruses is not being sent by anyone,
except the virus hackers themselves and their computers. But they do
steal addresses from the nether of the web, both for the addressee and
the sender, along with Subject lines, making them sort of look like an
e-mail you might actually want to open. Generally, if you check, the
subject is not a current topic, but one from last month or last year or
frequently, as of late, "Happy Allhallowmas" or "Worm Klez.E immunity",
etc.

On the infected emails, if you do a Cntl-U (or show complete headers) on
a selected e-mail, it is very likely that you will see something like
this in the first two lines:

     Status:  U
     Return-Path: <snons at i2k.com>

Unsubbing from various lists is not likely to have an impact on the
sender of these emails, nor reduce their frequency.

Setting your mail filters to automatically send these messages 
( Return-Path: <snons at i2k.com> ) to the trash, or simply not using the
internet are the only effective remedies.

There are several websites devoted to teaching you how to track your
e-mail and how to read all those mysterious headers. If you want to know
where this stuff is coming from, I suggest you check it out.

Most any e-mail server does its own virus checking and does not forward
infected messages.

Godspeed, y'all!

Bill Strickland