One of my friends accidentally sent me this virus, fortunately my Norton caught it and quarantined it before it could be opened. Also, many of my friends ALSO recieved this virus, from many different persons on another chatboard.

Please be careful with your e-mails, it looks like this is one NASTY little virus!

Debs --------------------

To read more about it see:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.badtrans.b@mm.html

at LEAST the following people have this virus on their computer:

[SNIP]

The virus goes through the address book, and replies to people that have sent you email and sends the virus back. The subject looks real, but the message is a virus.

I have verified that these viruses are NOT being sent via the XXXX [Chatboard name deleted for privacy] mailing list!

Everyone on the list above (and maybe more):

YOUR COMPUTER IS INFECTED WITH A VIRUS!!

AND IT DOES TO DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER!!

It installs keystroke logging Trojan horse

Please, update and run your anti-virus software. If you don't have any anti-virus software, you better get some FAST!!

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2001

Answers

I read that this was just Outlook/Outlook Express users (or something like that). I never activated Express on my home computer, it just wouldn't click, so I have been relying on one of the hotmail type accounts, which is increasingly loaded with spam. Sounds like a reasonable tradeoff. However, we have Outlook at work, and I can access work e-mail from home. It occurred to me that I might not want to do that. These viruses are definitely getting trickier.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

Our HelpDesk folks say I'm protected at home.

Wonder if I really trust them...

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

outlook is always vulnerable. LOL

lately, Netscape has been vulnerable to some, but usually it isn't.

I have found that ZoneAlarm actually 'seals' email from time to time. I find that most encouraging for a free product.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

According to my Norton anti-virus report, I was almost infected with Nimda32, again from an email this morning. I wonder it that's making the rounds, too? I'm not savvy about computer viruses. So much to read! So little time.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

Nimda32 is still around. It zapped the place I used to work at just a week or so ago. AGAIN! makes I think 7 times now.

The MIS guy sent an email around in the beginning telling people not to open certain emails, so of course people did exactly that over and over again. Idiots! Idiots I tell ya! LOL He finally shut down the entire mail server system [they had three when I was there] and erased everyones mailboxes. There was some screaming from those that hadn't saved stuff to their own hard drives. No one listened.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

I remember when our voicemail system was shut down years ago, and everyone's messages (read and unread) erased. All to appease a relatively senior attorney who had sent a not especially discrete message to his office honey, but the idiot entered a group destination instead. (He's in my section. It is especially embarrassing to me that someone in my section would be so technologically incompetent.) I think the office figured out that no one would ever be bailed out this way again. And of course, it didn't really matter, because just enough people heard the message to keep the legend alive. And then the photo directory came out. No one up in my office could figure out why she was interested in him...

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

$

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

Barefoot, probably $, but also common interest in some fetish? Like, I didn't realize how many people in my city were interested in some practices that involve leather objects until this little shop opened in the space that used to be a coffee and bagel place (I went there for a bagel! No lie!).

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

ah, the smell and feel of leather...

oops!

LOL

You may be right!

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

Dan's work place is hit again, I think, he has not been able to send mail out today.

we finally got the pay version of PC cillun, and still run the Zone alarm...plus all my mail systems now go through a vius catcher...then let's me know when a virus was caught and contained...I am getting viruses from advertisments!!! what a crock!

the last 17 viruses it caught and contained were from ads, or people I never heard of!

leather???? new stuff?? or the soft, suble, aromatic used kind????

I mean used with horses!!!! hehehehehe..

there is nothing sweeter then the sweat of clean soften leather and horse sweat...mmmmm...you city folk have no idea what you are missing!!!! ;^ )

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

Actually, I think the place Meemur referred to sells stuff that is used on human playmates, although I'm sure there items that can be used for cross purposes. [pardon the pun]

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

Barefoot's right -- human playmates. What a shock! Of all the businesses to open in that spot, that's the one I least expected. I know Deb's going to ask where it is -- bet she can guess! Short North, of course. And, yes, I was there during the day.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

But back to protection against computer viruses. I've heard that Zone Alarm can mess up Windows programs, like Excel and Powerpoint. I don't know the details. Have you had any software compatability problems since you installed your Zone Alarm, Barefoot? (Or anyone?)

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

Did any of your neigbors see you there? whadja buy? whadja buy? ROTFLMAO

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

none attributed to ZoneAlarm.

And I have the ones you mentioned. Which, btw, I have set to never ever connect to the internet.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

Barefoot, I do have that software connected to the net at times -- it's a necessary part of my work at times. Funny, until I connected with a certain local college network, I never had daily problems with viruses -- maybe one every six months, if that. I'll do some more reading about Zone Alarm.

As to your question about who saw me and what I bought. I hope *no one* I know saw me. I'm sure I looked like an idiot standing there with my mouth hanging open. I had turned the corner expecting to enter a coffe shop and instead came face-to-face with a poster of a guy wearing a leather straightjacket. How would you have felt if one of your snack places had suddenly become XXX-rated, of the kinky type, to boot? Well, you're male. Maybe you would've had the courage to open the door and go inside. I shut my mouth, took a quick look around, and beat a hasty retreat to the Tim Hortons much farther down the street.

I'm not a prude, Barefoot, but I had coffe and donuts on my mind at that point, not kink.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

coffee. . .coffee. . .I keep dropping e's and forks today.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

I have not had any trouble with software incompatability with Zone Alarm. I do know that there is a problem with the answering machine thingy, but I don't have it installed.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

Thanks, Diane.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

Meemur,

Accccckkkkkkkkkkk!!!!!!!! That place has gone to hell in a handbasket lately! (Talk about sickening - it used to be decent for the "straights", but now...) I hope PM Art Gallery can move someplace a little nicer - their family business must be the only bright spot there now...

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

I was waiting for your response, Deb. Yes, it's gotten 'way gnarly down there. The coffee place was in the "transition" area, but there is no transition area any longer.

I don't intend to return to that area until I've heard the crowd has changed, which it might. Isn't rent awfully high down there to support marginal businesses? Then again, maybe there is enough of a leather crowd in Cols to support it. Then again, I don't want to know that.

Did you say there was property for sale up in your area? (;

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

Meemur,

Sorry for the delay, I've had to do some chores, one-handed no less (I burst a blood vessel in one of my fingers on my right hand. It's really swollen and a purplish color - have been icing it today.)

Anyway, land for sale: There sure is, but if you can afford it, you are a richer woman than I! It's approx. $10,000 - $25,000 an acre up here. If you go to the surrounding counties, such as Licking, Knox, Union or Madison (London) counties, I think you can pick up something a bit cheaper.

If the real estate bubble is ready to burst, you might want to wait a while and see what you can pick up much more reasonably. (Heard on 610 WTVN tonight that the average house cost here in Central Ohio is $140,000 - $190,000, AND that to be able to afford a home, people would have to be making at least $12/hour to do it. Doesn't surprise me any, my brother's land value waaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy out in the sticks has doubled in the past three years: 5 acres now worth $46,000. Absolutely crazy.) You know we're in a bubble when a Real Estate agent tries to sell you acreage in Knox county, with NO mineral rights at $8,000 an acre...

Sorry for the rant - I've been looking for land around here for years now, and can't find anything remotely reasonable! Grrrrr....

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

Ouch! I hope you heal soon! Yucky.

Yeah, I know land is high. I was looking around Powell. That's why I added the smiley. Since I work downtown and will for awhile, so anything in Licking and Knox is too far. Right now, I have a 9-minute drive if I leave before 7:15 am, and I'm not anxious to increase that.

I also have been looking in Upper Arlington, over near KB's. He offered me his house, but it's about the same size as mine, and I'd like about 1100 - 1250 sq feet if I do move.

The only reason, though, I'm looking at homes is there is a plan to put in a new strip mall down the street. If they go through with that, it will increase the cut-through traffic ten-fold. As it is, I can barely get out of my drive during rush hours.

The recession *might* put a damper on that plan, but DeForney ("I stopped the Morse-Bethel Connector") wants this mall, and he's been getting his way an awful lot lately.

Going to bed. Hope you're better soon!

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001

Licking County? I should talk, there's a place called Lizard Lick near here. And in England I lived near Leighton Buzzard, Deadman's Cross, Old Warden, Letchworth--can't remember the others off hand. Some lovely village names they have in England!

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2001

Meemur,

Thanks! Still a little swollen, but not quite as bad (so it seems) this a.m.

Good luck on finding the house! Upper Arlington (or maybe the Hilltop) sound like pretty good choices? Or how about (dare I say it) Clintonville? ;-)

OG,

Licking Country got it's name from frontiersmen (can't remember exactly, thought there was a reference either to Simon Kenton or Boone when he was kidnapped by the Shawnee). There are quite a few salt springs, called "licks" back during the frontier, all in Licking County (many down south of Newark). Hence the name...

Licking is also known for the number of Mammoth remains found and for the Newark Earthworks (Hopewell? Indian mounds - miles of them).

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2001

The liberal or the ultra-liberal part of Clintonville, Deb? (: (: (:

OG, there is also Blue Lick Road near Lima (Ohio), which is not far from Wonder Lick Road.

A little more history: Ohio is known historically as "The Gate way to the West," and many, many groups of pioneers from NY, MA, and points east passed through here. The unlucky ones got bogged down in the Great Black Swamp in NW Ohio. Once such group, German Mennonites, had to over winter in what we know call Bluffton. By the following spring, they were disheartened with travel (so it's written) that they settled and were among the first to being paving the roads and draining the swamp.

Today, American genealogists who "lose" track of a family's migration are told to carefully check the Ohio records. It's amazing how many of the "missing" do turn up on our tax rolls and in local accounts.

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2001