resurrectionsong

June 02, 2003

Only the Dumb are Infected

Computer users who are foolish enough to believe that Bill Gates would email them personally, are instead opening emails that are infected with Sobig-C.

Quick lesson for those not quite quick enough to figure it out on their own:

Bill Gates is not emailing you unless you own something that he wants to buy, crush, or mock. Okay, I'm probably making up the part about mocking.
Don't open emails from sources unknown. Even if it turns out to be "harmless" spam, it isn't. Here's a nasty secret from a guy who helps the marketing department with their spam-campaigns: we know if you open it. We can track your response--did you simply ignore it, open it, or actually follow the link? I know the truth.
I don't know of any virus that can infect your computer simply by being mass-deleted with the rest of the spam. You have to open them to set them to down their nefarious little path.
If you do receive an executable (a .exe) file from someone unknown, for heaven's sake please don't run the damned thing. No one is really trying to send you a free porn screen saver, they're just playing on your insatiable desire to see nekkid women. I sympathize, but don't be a fool.

Remember that Bill Gates is as likely to take interest in you as that guy from Afghanistan/Nairobi/Somalia who's trying to wire you millions of dollars to get his poor dead uncle's money out of the country (or however the hell that stupid scam goes).

If Bill Gates sends you an email out of the blue, please remember these words: Only the dumb are infected.

Read the story.

Posted by zombyboy at June 2, 2003 12:00 AM | TrackBack

Comments

No shit huh? Idiots.

SageOne [sager1219@attbi.com]

Posted by: A visitor at June 2, 2003 05:15 PM

You have to admit, it is kind of hard to imagine Bill Gates sending somebody a virus -- why would he need to do *that* to screw up people's computers when 98% of them already run Windows?

McGehee [flyover@mcgeheezone.com]

Posted by: A visitor at June 2, 2003 05:18 PM

I'm glad someone said it.

Posted by: zombyboy at June 2, 2003 05:21 PM

I open spam if I feel like it. But my e-mail program is set to text-only. Scripts don't work, and I also have my prog set not to confirm reading.

But anyone who believes they are getting an e-mail from Bill Gates (unless they know him or work for him) needs their head examined.

Kathy K [noway@dev.null]

Posted by: A visitor at June 2, 2003 06:29 PM

Are you really "a guy who helps the marketing department with their spam-campaigns?"

Ccome baaack from the Dark Side.

Claire [seven37@sonic.net]

Posted by: A visitor at June 2, 2003 06:30 PM

I know for a FACT that Z helps the marketing department with their spam. How do I know? Because I am the sorry SOB who write their first spam sending program. Damn me! At least I had the guts to name the application Spammer. Of course, marketing never seemed to feel bad about the name. They seemed to actually revel in what they were doing...

Posted by: stmpjmpr19 at June 2, 2003 07:27 PM

Kathy, that's even better advice--but being the graphics geek that I am, I can't tell people to go text-only. It's too damned ugly. Horrible, isn't it?

I'm sorry, Claire. It's true. I'd like to apologize to all of you right now. If it makes you all feel better, though, I'm the kind of guy that forced them to leave a visible "take me off your spam list" button on all of our emails. I'm kind of like an anti-spam evangelist trying to bring the evil marketing department back to the light. Somewhere, deep down inside, I know those marketing folks still have souls...

SJ, you realize that part of the reason I'm not feeling too guilty about helping with the spam is that I get to share the blame with you.

Posted by: zombyboy at June 2, 2003 07:58 PM

Everytime that I think about working at that place I want to take a shower. I feel so dirty...

Posted by: stmpjmpr19 at June 2, 2003 08:04 PM