Josh & the Winxp patch

For a second I thought this was going to be a demented IL*-specific spoof of _James and the Giant Peach_.

Is this what you're talking about?

I haven't sent you email in months, Gareth. Is it from iastate.edu or ellipsis.cx? Either way I suspect it's not actually from a machine that I have or have had email on, just something from somewhere else that harvested my address. The machines I have access to wouldn't likely get this virus.

Josh uses Bubble Boy's computer!

Groan, Tracer. Groan.

Okay, I think there's a malicious individual/computer program that's sending viruses using ilx addresses- today I received this from "sterling clover", with the subject "an excite(sic) game" :

This is a excite game
This game is my first work.
You're the first player.
I hope you would like it.

This is all the text contained in the mail, but hotmail lists its size as 111kb, so it probably came with some kind of unhealthy attachment that hotmail deleted before I received it. (Though it didn't say that, so maybe this is some kind of secret self-opening attachment that's destroying my system as I type.) Unless Sterl is sending emails while drunk, I'd advise all to be wary.

You should copy that text to the poetry thread.

Ok this is actually not an answer but the same concern Gareth had, i too received an email titled A WinXP Patch. all it said was "this is a winxp patch. I hope you would enjoy it" Thankfully i did not open it from my machine but from my university. either way i don't know what this does or if it is a real virus.. if Gareth has the answer please email me

well nothing seemed to happen afterwards (although i did get that australian virus about a month later which totalled my pc)

Damn those Australians!!!

well it was my own fault for having one in the house!

I've been getting loads of emailed viruses recently - four or five a week. I have my preview pane turned off so I can delete them safely as they arrive. One had 'recluse' as the sender - this was shortly after I posted on the recluse thread so I wondered if it was some vindictive lurker on these boards, or maybe the name was just generated automatically somehow.

you should never have anything turned on that automatically opens mail anyway, it's a terrible idea

use netscape or mozilla mail, i haven't had any viruses since i switched over

we got this "a winxp patch" incident too. The sender does not have the mail in her sent items folder, but the recipient sees her as the sender.

How can I tell who really is sending this stuff?

Hi - I was just reading this all... today i got an email sent to me from some website saying i tried to send two of their subscribers emails, but since my email wasn't part of their subscription database, it would't send them to it. they included the original email messages i supposedly sent. it said:

"this is a winxp patch. i hope you enjoy it."

and the other one just had "questionaire" as the subject.

i don't know how this person sent these two emails with these text in them, in my name but they did.

is this a virus? should i be worried?

Just happen to come across this message board while searching for an answer to the same WinXP patch you guys are talking about. Same thing happened to me except on a listserv. A friend's email account kept sending messages to our listserv but all the messages had a From: title from a different account, including mine! No idea whats causing this but the only words in the body of the message were "This is a WinXP patch, hope you like it" If anyone has some answers I'd love to hear them.

I am unsure if any of the questions posted have been answered but, Yes! The emails that were received with the same or possible different heading are something to worry about.

I received the email with the title "A WinXP patch". My Outlook was set to auto preview. The moment I saw it, I knew something was wrong. When you get that feeling do not shut your system down.

First: Here is an excellent site to check your system for a virus. Nothing to download and it only takes a few moments;
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/housecall/start_corp.asp

Second: Open a second browser screen and look up the virus that the programs located on the system.

Third: Print up the document and wait unit the scanning program completes it job. Next attempt to delete the virus using the program. If it will not delete then you will need to removed it manually. Don't worry the instruction are easy to follow.