 (FROM THE US NAVAL OBSERVATORY) |
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Morpheus: Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.
We now have a Blog!
From what you describe it sounds like one of your
corespondents is infected with the SirCam Virus (Properly it
is a Worm, not a Virus).
SirCam works by sending out random files, usually
large ones, from the infected machine. The owner of the
machine has no idea that their machine is spewing out
their private data for the world to read, or look at
their pictures. Since they don't know the machine is
sending you data, requesting them to stop may not help.
SirCam reads the address book of the infected machine to
decide where to send the messages. 99+% of the time it is a
machine that is using Outlook Express for the email client
that is infected. Outlook is notorious for getting virus
infections.
Every one should always make sure their virus checkers are
up to date. Your own machine maybe free of viruses but the
person sending is not.
According to my husband you can do the following to find
out who is sending you these messages, with out having to
take the time to download them, or wait for your provider to
delete them for you:
Click on the START button, then click on the 'Run' menu
item. The wording of the 'Run' line has changed from
version to version of Windows, so it may say some thing a
bit different.
Type 'telnet' .
Under C)onnect click R)emote System.
Where it says 'Host Name' type in your mail sever name.
Examples:
mail.csonline.net
or
mail.usachoice.com
or
pop3.usachoice.com
or some times it is a number
like
206.101.113.7
Since I don't use usachoice.com I'm not sure of what you
need to type there exactly, but you can find out by looking
in your current email program under the 'Settings',
'Options', or 'Preference' section (the wording depends on
the version and type of software you are using) where it
talks about servers.
Where it says 'Port' replace the word 'telnet' with the
number 110, then click on the 'C)onnect button'.
You also need to know your email name and password, these
are ALMOST always the same as what you use to logon to
your internet provider. Look at your settings above to
find out if your not sure.
In telnet by default you usually do NOT see what you are
typing, you can change this setting if you want to. It is
under T)erminal/L)ocal Echo.
This is what I get when I telnet into Nick's email account
at csonline.net:
+OK X1 NT-POP3 Server mail.csonline.net (IMail 6.06 769250-12)
Now we need to identify ourselves. We need to supply
our user name and password. Your user name would usually
be in your Email address. So we type:
user nick (or whatever user name you have)
And the server replies with:
+OK Welcome (or some other text)
Next thing, we need a password, so we do:
pass your-password
And the server replies with:
+OK maildrop locked and ready (or some other text)
Or with:
-ERR Bad login
If you supply the wrong password.
These are the basic commands for dealing with your mailbox
to get rid of any large message you don't want.
user your-email-name (this is NOT your email ADDRESS)
pass your-password
list message-number
top message-number 0
retr message-number
dele message-number
rset
stat
quit
In the case of the 'list' command the message-number is optional,
with no number given you see a list of the size of every
message in your mailbox.
The 'top' command takes a message-number followed by a zero, '0'.
The 'stat' command tells you how many messages are in your
mail box, and the total size of all messages in your mail
box.
Now, we want to see what we have, so we first type 'list'
to see the list of emails we currently have (unless, of
course, we have 0 new messages).
For each email, we would get a separate line which will
contain a message number (a number that identifies each
message) and a number that would indicate the size of
each message.
Here is a example:
user nick
pass [Nicks Password]
list
+OK 2 messages (1695 octets)
1 849
2 846
Now if you see in the list a message that is more than 500K
you can delete it by saying 'dele message-number'.
Note that no messages will be deleted until you type the
'quit' command.
If you change your mind and decide that you do not want to
delete the message you can type 'rset', then no messages
will be deleted, unless you already did a 'quit' command.
Once you have done the 'quit' command the deleted messages
are gone forever and no one can get them back.
If you want to see who the messages are from you can
get a list of the messages headers (The From: and Subject:
lines are part of the headers), you type:
top message-number 0
This does NOT down load your email, it just shows you who
the messages are from.
If you want to delete a message so that you will not
download it use the 'dele' command followed by the message
number. For example you want to delete message number 10
because you know you are not interested in that subject,
say:
dele 10
If you want to read a message you say:
retr message-number
Here is a complete example, we connect to our mailbox,
check who the messages are from, want to read then delete
message number 2:
telnet
mail.csonline.net
110
user nick
pass [Nicks Password]
stat
list
retr 2
dele 2
quit
Always remember to use the 'quit' command last, or no one
will be able to send you any mail. When you are doing this
kind of operation, or when your normal program is
downloading your mail, new mail is held in a buffer that
you don't have access to. Your new mail will only show up
after you disconnect from your mailbox with the 'quit'
command. Your normal email program takes care of all of
this kind of stuff for you.
Note that you can use this technique to check/read/delete
your messages from almost any computer on Internet, you
do not have to be using your home machine.
This is what I got when I did the example above:
+OK X1 NT-POP3 Server mail.csonline.net (IMail 6.06 769250-12)
user nick
+OK welcome
pass [Nicks Password]
+OK maildrop locked and ready
stat
+OK 2 1695
list
+OK 2 messages (1695 octets)
1 849
2 846
top 2 0
+OK 846 octets
From: bpaddock@csonline.net (Bob Paddock)
To: npaddock@csonline.net
Subject: Woof
Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2001 07:32:06 -0400
retr 2
From: bpaddock@csonline.net (Bob Paddock)
To: npaddock@csonline.net
Subject: Woof
Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2001 07:32:06 -0400
Woof!!
dele 2
+OK msg deleted
quit
+OK POP3 Server saying Good-Bye
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Office1000 For all of your office supply needs. |
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If hyperspace navigators get paid by the hour, then what is the pay-scale in a place where time has no meaning?
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(FROM THE US NAVAL OBSERVATORY) |