my absolute sincere apologies for anyone who received my e-mail regarding
this insidious Microsoft and various other titled bogus stuff earlier today.
Until this is fixed, I am leaving the group. I will return. Deleting tens of
these is wearing me out not to mention that I am now alienating some people
again who are in my address book. Not knowing who to delete has made me
decide to sit back and keep the large bouquet of friends who has stayed in
touch with me despite the years regarding posts and comments I've made these
almost 8 years. I am no baby, and I'm not ticked off but I am a caring
person and I just am tired of placating and trying to be so nice and it
blows up in my face. Today when I crawl outa bed, I will start in my address
book and if I haven't heard from someone in a year, they're deleted. As
much as I still care and wonder about Starr, Jenny and a few others (my list
of names is eight years old), I must let the friendship stay in my heart and
memory and erase their addresses. I will post when I clean out the
computer. I'm just tired and have the old "I can't seem to be nice to anyone
lately" blowing up in me face so I'm just gonna go into lurk mode. I still
love my friends. You know who ya'll are. Give me time and I'll probably be
back. This was not written to get responses from ya'll not to leave. I'm
just tired is all and I've ****ed off about twelve people so far, aggrivated
some, discovered others aren't even around anymore and it all saddens me and
I can't let this rule my otherwise happy and loving character and positive
moods I normally have. Tomorrow I'm planting a tree, three asters, some
sedums, bulbs and pulling out the cleome. rain or not, or ESPECIALLY
because there's rain. And there will be no more multiple postings again. I
usually do what I say but I thought it was a good thing I had notified those
in my addy book about this thing and letting them know it wasn't them I was
suspecting, but that I'd received way too many of these things. I have
McAfee, the Window's XP true patch security program, Outlook's mail guard,
BellSouth's mail guard and another patch to keep out viruses and worms. This
wasn't something my computer alone had. BellSouth is so inundated with it,
they've gone into automated messages for now. Never did I accuse anyone
that they'd "given" me this thing. It's world wide. It's because we visit
each other in newsgroups. And I will NOT let it keep me from coming to the
ONE newsgroup I come to, read, respond to and write to. I've come here for
eight years and be hanged if one more asshole will drive me away and cause
me to unsubscribe. Total lack of electricity will be the only thing
stopping me,
my love and care comes to you all, I'll holler back when I have a clearer
head about me and my feelings settle down. (I just hope I didn't **** off
Victoria, and I doubt I'll even hear back from Zhan

madgardener up on the ridge, back in Fairy Holler overlooking English
Mountain in Eastern Tennessee where a gentle fall rain is coming down
outside giving the air a wonderful smell and making the frogs and toads sing
like the Autumnal chorus, with harmony pipings from the crickets

Hi Mad,

Hope you get this....feel free to keep me in there, I enjoy hearing from
you.

LeeAnne

"Madgardener" wrote in message
.. .
my absolute sincere apologies for anyone who received my e-mail regarding
this insidious Microsoft and various other titled bogus stuff earlier
today.

Relax, release, relief.

I've learned that spam or these blasted M$ security thingmajigs is
usually from someone else, not the address on the header. I've gotten
somewhat irate messages from an individual down in Australia.

When you clear out your machine, you'll still notice people that get
your address as the sender on more spam. I run Netscape, usually with
Java/JS/cookies/Smart Update off. I'm sure folks around the world get
trash with my -old- address on it.

Most likely, a harvester sucked up your address and some hacked site
or spammer or both are using it to misdirect people. It doesn't make you
a bad person, it just means someone else is using your address.

http://members.aol.com/emailfaq/emailfaq.html
http://www.spamfaq.net/

--
Reply to me at louis little punctuation mark ohland with the same ISP

Madgarder,

I am a long time lurker here and enjoy reading your posts...don't let the
virus matter scare you away from the NG and here's why:

The latest virus-laden e-mails that many of us have received (and are still
receiving) are coming from a spammer that has harvested e-mail addresses
from usenet (the newsgroups of the world). I participate in many microsoft
newsgroups and most, if not all, techies there are receiving mass quantities
of said virus. It is not originating from your computer/desktop/laptop...it
is begin blasted from some worm/virus script kiddie's computer using spoofed
e-mail addresses and real e-mail addresses cultivated from the very set of
newsgroups that we like to peruse and post.

There is one solution to making sure your 'real' e-mail address is not
harvested by one of the 'spambots' that do the dirty work. Go into the
properties of your newsgroup account where you set up the e-mail address and
reply-to address. Add some extra characters to these e-mail addy's to
ensure that a harvester that collects will be scooping up an invalid e-mail
address...example: com.

It will be apparaent to any logical net user to remove the illogical
characters to send a successful e-mail.

Don't forget to run a good anti-virus/scanner program on your desktop,
updating your virus definitions on a very regular basis.

Please reconsider the drastic measures you have thought about taking. While
I understand the abuse and heat you may be taking for the virus situation,
if it is in connection to the latest "Microsoft Update" viurs/worm, it is
not your problem and/or fault. Any concerned netizen would know the origins
of this particular virus is from an e-mail harvester. If your system did
get infected by the virus, symantec's website has a removal tool that you
can use....



Hope we can keep you around...

Sean


"Madgardener" wrote in message
.. .
my absolute sincere apologies for anyone who received my e-mail regarding
this insidious Microsoft and various other titled bogus stuff earlier
today.
Until this is fixed, I am leaving the group. I will return. Deleting tens
of
these is wearing me out not to mention that I am now alienating some
people
again who are in my address book. Not knowing who to delete has made me
decide to sit back and keep the large bouquet of friends who has stayed in
touch with me despite the years regarding posts and comments I've made
these
almost 8 years. I am no baby, and I'm not ticked off but I am a caring
person and I just am tired of placating and trying to be so nice and it
blows up in my face. Today when I crawl outa bed, I will start in my
address
book and if I haven't heard from someone in a year, they're deleted. As
much as I still care and wonder about Starr, Jenny and a few others (my
list
of names is eight years old), I must let the friendship stay in my heart
and
memory and erase their addresses. I will post when I clean out the
computer. I'm just tired and have the old "I can't seem to be nice to
anyone
lately" blowing up in me face so I'm just gonna go into lurk mode. I still
love my friends. You know who ya'll are. Give me time and I'll probably
be
back. This was not written to get responses from ya'll not to leave. I'm
just tired is all and I've ****ed off about twelve people so far,
aggrivated
some, discovered others aren't even around anymore and it all saddens me
and
I can't let this rule my otherwise happy and loving character and positive
moods I normally have. Tomorrow I'm planting a tree, three asters, some
sedums, bulbs and pulling out the cleome. rain or not, or ESPECIALLY
because there's rain. And there will be no more multiple postings again.
I
usually do what I say but I thought it was a good thing I had notified
those
in my addy book about this thing and letting them know it wasn't them I
was
suspecting, but that I'd received way too many of these things. I have
McAfee, the Window's XP true patch security program, Outlook's mail guard,
BellSouth's mail guard and another patch to keep out viruses and worms.
This
wasn't something my computer alone had. BellSouth is so inundated with it,
they've gone into automated messages for now. Never did I accuse anyone
that they'd "given" me this thing. It's world wide. It's because we visit
each other in newsgroups. And I will NOT let it keep me from coming to the
ONE newsgroup I come to, read, respond to and write to. I've come here for
eight years and be hanged if one more asshole will drive me away and cause
me to unsubscribe. Total lack of electricity will be the only thing
stopping me,
my love and care comes to you all, I'll holler back when I have a clearer
head about me and my feelings settle down. (I just hope I didn't **** off
Victoria, and I doubt I'll even hear back from Zhan

madgardener up on the ridge, back in Fairy Holler overlooking English
Mountain in Eastern Tennessee where a gentle fall rain is coming down
outside giving the air a wonderful smell and making the frogs and toads
sing
like the Autumnal chorus, with harmony pipings from the crickets

properties of your newsgroup account where you set up the e-mail address and reply-to address. Add some extra characters to these e-mail addy's to ensure that a harvester that collects will be scooping up an invalid e-mail address...example: someone@NO
SPAMsomewhere.HEREcom.

This *may* not be possible, it depends on the ISP, not the browser.

Some notes: Important to mung the address to the right of the at sign,
since any spam finds no such server. Next, some / most spamware can
search for and remove "spam" or other common words from a link.

What I had to do after being autospammed - set up two new addresses.
My ISP only allows people with valid accounts to send or recieve
messages. I use one as a throwaway. Hate to do it, because the spammers
will eventually harvest it and the server will have to turn the messages
away. But I tried....
My second address, in my sig, is spelled out. It is a valid address,
it works, but it is NEVER put on the web in it's full form.
Unfortunately, it's just a matter of time till somebody's infected
computer will start to spam me. Just like atomic decay.

I would NOT use a reply-to address in my messages, unless you want
that address being spammed as well.

Mad, everyone's way too sensitive about this stuff. Don't stay away,
you're one of the best things about this group.

Callen in VA

LeeAnne wrote:

Hi Mad,

Hope you get this....feel free to keep me in there, I enjoy hearing from
you.

LeeAnne

"Madgardener" wrote in message
.. .
my absolute sincere apologies for anyone who received my e-mail regarding
this insidious Microsoft and various other titled bogus stuff earlier
today.

I wish you wouldn't leave the group, I enjoy your posts very much.
Shell


"Madgardener" wrote in message
.. .
my absolute sincere apologies for anyone who received my e-mail regarding
this insidious Microsoft and various other titled bogus stuff earlier
today.
Until this is fixed, I am leaving the group. I will return. Deleting tens
of
these is wearing me out not to mention that I am now alienating some
people
again who are in my address book. Not knowing who to delete has made me
decide to sit back and keep the large bouquet of friends who has stayed in
touch with me despite the years regarding posts and comments I've made
these
almost 8 years. I am no baby, and I'm not ticked off but I am a caring
person and I just am tired of placating and trying to be so nice and it
blows up in my face. Today when I crawl outa bed, I will start in my
address
book and if I haven't heard from someone in a year, they're deleted. As
much as I still care and wonder about Starr, Jenny and a few others (my
list
of names is eight years old), I must let the friendship stay in my heart
and
memory and erase their addresses. I will post when I clean out the
computer. I'm just tired and have the old "I can't seem to be nice to
anyone
lately" blowing up in me face so I'm just gonna go into lurk mode. I still
love my friends. You know who ya'll are. Give me time and I'll probably
be
back. This was not written to get responses from ya'll not to leave. I'm
just tired is all and I've ****ed off about twelve people so far,
aggrivated
some, discovered others aren't even around anymore and it all saddens me
and
I can't let this rule my otherwise happy and loving character and positive
moods I normally have. Tomorrow I'm planting a tree, three asters, some
sedums, bulbs and pulling out the cleome. rain or not, or ESPECIALLY
because there's rain. And there will be no more multiple postings again.
I
usually do what I say but I thought it was a good thing I had notified
those
in my addy book about this thing and letting them know it wasn't them I
was
suspecting, but that I'd received way too many of these things. I have
McAfee, the Window's XP true patch security program, Outlook's mail guard,
BellSouth's mail guard and another patch to keep out viruses and worms.
This
wasn't something my computer alone had. BellSouth is so inundated with it,
they've gone into automated messages for now. Never did I accuse anyone
that they'd "given" me this thing. It's world wide. It's because we visit
each other in newsgroups. And I will NOT let it keep me from coming to the
ONE newsgroup I come to, read, respond to and write to. I've come here for
eight years and be hanged if one more asshole will drive me away and cause
me to unsubscribe. Total lack of electricity will be the only thing
stopping me,
my love and care comes to you all, I'll holler back when I have a clearer
head about me and my feelings settle down. (I just hope I didn't **** off
Victoria, and I doubt I'll even hear back from Zhan

madgardener up on the ridge, back in Fairy Holler overlooking English
Mountain in Eastern Tennessee where a gentle fall rain is coming down
outside giving the air a wonderful smell and making the frogs and toads
sing
like the Autumnal chorus, with harmony pipings from the crickets

I'm sure my address is also being used as I'm receiving hundreds of
"undeliverable" messages for emails I never sent. My machine is absolutely
clean; no viruses or spyware. I apologize also to those receiving this bogus
mail, but I too have received over 1000 bogus notices for MS updates. I just
updated my spam filter to include the most common of these which helps. So
far I've been lucky enough to not have ticked off anyone and/or their bright
enough to know what's going on. Such are the risks of a public email
address.
I recently read an article in a tech mag about someone who released a worm
that made infected machines go to the MS page and install updates to protect
the machine. The worm would self-destruct in 2004. If such a thing could be
legalized, it would be great to protect the ignorant from themselves. The
rest of us would also benefit. As for the newsbot problem, try some of the
listed work-arounds, get a discardable email address used only for newgroups
or new-territory surfing, try a proxy surfer, get a good spam filter.
Hang in there.
Gary

"Madgardener" wrote in message
.. .
my absolute sincere apologies for anyone who received my e-mail regarding
this insidious Microsoft and various other titled bogus stuff earlier
today.
Until this is fixed, I am leaving the group. I will return. Deleting tens
of
these is wearing me out not to mention that I am now alienating some
people
again who are in my address book. Not knowing who to delete has made me
decide to sit back and keep the large bouquet of friends who has stayed in
touch with me despite the years regarding posts and comments I've made
these
almost 8 years. I am no baby, and I'm not ticked off but I am a caring
person and I just am tired of placating and trying to be so nice and it
blows up in my face. Today when I crawl outa bed, I will start in my
address
book and if I haven't heard from someone in a year, they're deleted. As
much as I still care and wonder about Starr, Jenny and a few others (my
list
of names is eight years old), I must let the friendship stay in my heart
and
memory and erase their addresses. I will post when I clean out the
computer. I'm just tired and have the old "I can't seem to be nice to
anyone
lately" blowing up in me face so I'm just gonna go into lurk mode. I still
love my friends. You know who ya'll are. Give me time and I'll probably
be
back. This was not written to get responses from ya'll not to leave. I'm
just tired is all and I've ****ed off about twelve people so far,
aggrivated
some, discovered others aren't even around anymore and it all saddens me
and
I can't let this rule my otherwise happy and loving character and positive
moods I normally have. Tomorrow I'm planting a tree, three asters, some
sedums, bulbs and pulling out the cleome. rain or not, or ESPECIALLY
because there's rain. And there will be no more multiple postings again.
I
usually do what I say but I thought it was a good thing I had notified
those
in my addy book about this thing and letting them know it wasn't them I
was
suspecting, but that I'd received way too many of these things. I have
McAfee, the Window's XP true patch security program, Outlook's mail guard,
BellSouth's mail guard and another patch to keep out viruses and worms.
This
wasn't something my computer alone had. BellSouth is so inundated with it,
they've gone into automated messages for now. Never did I accuse anyone
that they'd "given" me this thing. It's world wide. It's because we visit
each other in newsgroups. And I will NOT let it keep me from coming to the
ONE newsgroup I come to, read, respond to and write to. I've come here for
eight years and be hanged if one more asshole will drive me away and cause
me to unsubscribe. Total lack of electricity will be the only thing
stopping me,
my love and care comes to you all, I'll holler back when I have a clearer
head about me and my feelings settle down. (I just hope I didn't **** off
Victoria, and I doubt I'll even hear back from Zhan

madgardener up on the ridge, back in Fairy Holler overlooking English
Mountain in Eastern Tennessee where a gentle fall rain is coming down
outside giving the air a wonderful smell and making the frogs and toads
sing
like the Autumnal chorus, with harmony pipings from the crickets

"Madgardener" wrote in message
.. .
my absolute sincere apologies for anyone who received my e-mail regarding
this insidious Microsoft and various other titled bogus stuff earlier
today.







Please don't leave this board. I also enjoy reading your emails. Besides that,
I know a lot of people who are getting these Microsoft things and they've never
read this message board.
Sue in Mi. (Zone 5)

Sorry, gotta vent. Just came home after 5 days out of town on a
family emergency. I've spent all night trying to get through the
1000+ infected msgs. that came while I was gone.

I don't blame madgardener per se, but I have to ask:
How can anyone smart and savvy enough to manage usenet still be using
outlook x-press? It may not be a factor in the deluge we're going
through, but it certainly opens you attack by every bored teen and
antisocial geek in the world.

Get Eudora, get netscape, go do a google search to find some other
program, but don't mess with outlook--do us all a favor.

k
For more info about the International Society of Arboriculture, please visit http://www.isa-arbor.com/home.asp.
For consumer info about tree care, visit http://www.treesaregood.com/

I have to "mess with Outlook Express" because I have Windows XP professional
and the e-mail program, Outlook that can handle the massive e-mails does
fine but doesn't allow me to use it for going to the newsgroup. I am trying
to get another provider to the newsgroup, but that doesn't have anything to
do with my lack of being smart and savvy (thanks for that, though, I didn't
think I was savvy, smart about some things yes, ignert in other things
deffinately) it has to do with not willing to return to Netscape
(BellSouth doesn't support Netscape communicator anymore, and they're my
internet provider. and for $9.60 a month, I can't beat it with a stick) I
will keep attempting to improve and one day will have the ISDN lines they're
connecting to our house in three weeks and might have to change my internet
address as it is. I won't know how to act not being
after being so for 8 years............I'll keep ya'll posted, I promise.
Thanks for the words of encouragement and the chastising, you mean well and
you're not blasting me. I'm over the others blaming me for my post, but it's
the absolute last time I let anyone know about a problem in the future. By
the way, I have the newest purchased version of McAfee antivirus available,
and am now subscribed to MailGuard.net so I'm doing better than I
was...........
madgardener
"Babberney" wrote in message
...
Sorry, gotta vent. Just came home after 5 days out of town on a
family emergency. I've spent all night trying to get through the
1000+ infected msgs. that came while I was gone.

I don't blame madgardener per se, but I have to ask:
How can anyone smart and savvy enough to manage usenet still be using
outlook x-press? It may not be a factor in the deluge we're going
through, but it certainly opens you attack by every bored teen and
antisocial geek in the world.

Get Eudora, get netscape, go do a google search to find some other
program, but don't mess with outlook--do us all a favor.

k
For more info about the International Society of Arboriculture, please
visit http://www.isa-arbor.com/home.asp.
For consumer info about tree care, visit http://www.treesaregood.com/

In article says...
I have to "mess with Outlook Express" because I have Windows XP professional
and the e-mail program, Outlook that can handle the massive e-mails does
fine but doesn't allow me to use it for going to the newsgroup. I am trying
to get another provider to the newsgroup, but that doesn't have anything to
do with my lack of being smart and savvy (thanks for that, though, I didn't
think I was savvy, smart about some things yes, ignert in other things
deffinately) it has to do with not willing to return to Netscape
(BellSouth doesn't support Netscape communicator anymore, and they're my
internet provider. and for $9.60 a month, I can't beat it with a stick)

Don't bother changing providers, they aren't the problem. You are only
one of thousands if not millions of people who got infected using Outlook
and it's not your fault. Many people just get computers and use whatever
is installed on them to use the Internet. That's certainly
understandable; you shouldn't have to be a computer geek to use the
Internet.

That said, it's always good to use email and newsreading products that
are not made by the same company, namely Microsoft. Microsoft integrated
these functions so closely into their operating system even they don't
know what kind of backdoors that exist which became obvious in this
current flood of email.

My server, brandylion.com, is getting flooded with those emails now,
well over 10,000 large messages killed. They don't do anything but
register into my rejected email logs now since my server doesn't run
windows but I wouldn't blame this situation on any one person. A vast
majority of the Internet got hit who didn't know any better and it's
causing massive turmoil. I feel sorry for those folks with yahoo
accounts that are getting hit.

I would suggest using a different email program which you can get free
from Netscape or Mozilla (www.mozilla.org) or Eudora (www.eudora.com).
Use a third party newsreader. My favorite is Microplanet Gravity which I
originally paid $35 for but now has become freeware. You can download it
at:

http://cws.internet.com/news-gravity.html

The bottom line, don't use Outlook or Internet Explorer for anything.
You don't have to and you'll be a lot less likely to become infected with
any viruses out there as long as you never consciously execute any
attachments that come your way (and they will).

This virus has hit everyone and it's severe. Right now fix your PC so it
stops sending email without your knowledge and that will end it. That
you're getting email from others will take awhile before everyone else
fixes their PCs. I consider this problem 95% Microsoft and 5% the people
who discovered the exploit and instead of writing a white paper on this,
they unleashed this virus on us all.

In article ,
Mark Anderson wrote:

Don't bother changing providers, they aren't the problem. You are only
one of thousands if not millions of people who got infected using Outlook
and it's not your fault. Many people just get computers and use whatever
is installed on them to use the Internet. That's certainly
understandable; you shouldn't have to be a computer geek to use the
Internet.


Gimme an "L"
Gimme an "I"
Gimme a "N"
Gimme a "U"
Gimme an "X"

Whassat spell?

No viruses.
Free.
Easy.

Remember, all of this is a *design feature,* not a bug.



This virus has hit everyone and it's severe.

Well, no. Not a single Linux, or BSD user I know has
been affected by the virus other than to have received
some easily-filtered spam. No doubt there are some
folk using Windoze emulators who have been hit, but
nobody using a Unix variant alone. Mac OS X is also
immune.

And this is only the beginning. Remember that when
you accepted the XP license, you gave Microsoft the
right to inspect *and modify* **any** file on
your computer at any time. Microsoft has plans
for this.

For a look at the future for MS users, see:

http://www.aaxnet.com/editor/edit029.html#mspath

There's a reason that the NSA, DoD, etc. are slowly
switching to Linux/BSD.

See:

http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/

and

http://tinyurl.com/etoi


billo

Xref: kermit rec.gardens:250388

The message
from "Louis Ohland using a throwaway address!"
contains these words:


Most likely, a harvester sucked up your address and some hacked site
or spammer or both are using it to misdirect people. It doesn't make you
a bad person, it just means someone else is using your address.

That isn't what happened in this case.

Marylin/madgardener decided it would be helpful to send an
email+attachment called "mass Microsoft fake email messages" to the
occupants of her addressbook, including myself.

To quote from her:

" I thought it was a good thing I had notified those
in my addy book about this thing"

"I'm over the others blaming me for my post, but it's
the absolute last time I let anyone know about a problem in the future."

M has apologised for sending her email and I accept that. Imho it's a
worse error of her judgement to publically slate its recipients, while
playing to the gallery for sympathy for herself.

Janet.

On Tue, 23 Sep 2003 19:27:33 +0100, Janet Baraclough
wrote:

The message
from "Louis Ohland using a throwaway address!"
contains these words:


Most likely, a harvester sucked up your address and some hacked site
or spammer or both are using it to misdirect people. It doesn't make you
a bad person, it just means someone else is using your address.

That isn't what happened in this case.

Marylin/madgardener decided it would be helpful to send an
email+attachment called "mass Microsoft fake email messages" to the
occupants of her addressbook, including myself.

To quote from her:

" I thought it was a good thing I had notified those
in my addy book about this thing"

"I'm over the others blaming me for my post, but it's
the absolute last time I let anyone know about a problem in the future."

M has apologised for sending her email and I accept that. Imho it's a
worse error of her judgement to publically slate its recipients, while
playing to the gallery for sympathy for herself.

Janet.

Just for the record, I received the same message e-mail from Marilyn
(note correct spelling!), and had absolutely no problem with it. She
is one of the dear friends that I have met through contacts started
some time ago in this newsgroup and will remain so always.

Geoff