Fool Mail Worms in Outlook Express
This document was originally created for Microsoft Outlook Express (now called Windows "Live" Mail). The technique can be used in just about every address book or contact list, as the concept is transportable.
You may want to try this to attempt to prevent viral worms from using your email list in Outlook Express to send it to your friends. It won’t stop a virus from getting into your PC (You need anti-virus software, with current weekly updates to do that). But it may prevent its spread to your friend’s mailboxes and alert you to its presence.
Open your Outlook Express Address Book as if you were adding a new friend’s name to it. As a first name enter !000 (exclamation point and three zeros). As a new mail address, enter Worm Alert. (If it tells you that is not a valid address, just say Yes to add it, or OK. Then finish as usual by selecting ADD, ENTER, OK etc. By entering it as !000, that places it at the top of your address list. The worm will try to send a message to that address and, when it discovers it is undeliverable to the bad address ‘Worm Alert”, it will not try the remainder of your list, saving your friends a hassle. The other benefit is that you will receive a message to your inbox that a message to “Worm Alert” was undeliverable and you then know a worm got in and needs to be deleted from your system.
