# I had a BIG stack of e-mails ... it was SOBIG, in fact, it was SOBIG.F! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 25, 2003, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-big-stack-of-e-mails-it-was-sobig-in-fact-it-was-sobig-f/197486 "2003-08-25T10:19:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2003, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-big-stack-of-e-mails-it-was-sobig-in-fact-it-was-sobig-f/197486/1 "2003-08-25T10:19:18Z")
Got to work today and discovered I had **2,400** e-mails in my in box. I got a job at a newspaper (which, incidentally, enabled me to give up the life of a telemarketer – yay for me!) and they put me in charge of the letters. And thanks to the Sobig.F worm, I had tons of e-mails regarding “wicked screensaver” and “that movie” and such to plow through coming back from my weekend. My mail program was frozen for about 10 minutes after I called it up. Anyone else having big, big Sobig.F fun? ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2003, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-big-stack-of-e-mails-it-was-sobig-in-fact-it-was-sobig-f/197486/2 "2003-08-25T10:39:36Z")
Not me, personally, but people I know who’ve come to work, opened up their email accounts, and freaked. Then freaked even more when I told them why, and what caused it. It’s been a day of teaching folk how to do mass-deleting. ---
**Author:** ![Mooney252](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7c8e57/32.png) [@Mooney252](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mooney252)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2003, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-big-stack-of-e-mails-it-was-sobig-in-fact-it-was-sobig-f/197486/3 "2003-08-25T10:56:53Z")
On Thursday, 5 of 8 morning e-mails had a virus attached. Today: 25 of 29. I’m considering closing my mail e-mail account and altering my e-mail address on all of the web pages that I run. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2003, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-big-stack-of-e-mails-it-was-sobig-in-fact-it-was-sobig-f/197486/4 "2003-08-25T11:24:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mooney252 \* > \*\*I’m considering closing my mail e-mail account and altering my e-mail address on all of the web pages that I run. \*\* Better still, use a bit of JavaScript to put the mailto link on the page, but not readable by the spambots. I use the following (put in your own details and remove square brackets): ```auto ``` E.g. ```auto ``` ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-big-stack-of-e-mails-it-was-sobig-in-fact-it-was-sobig-f/197486/5 "2003-08-26T05:58:41Z")
Today was very exciting. I had to repair a flaw in my anti-Sobig defenses. Even though it was just Microsoft Outlook, I felt like a SECRET AGENT doing battle with the forces of world domination! ---
**Author:** ![kitarak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kitarak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitarak)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-big-stack-of-e-mails-it-was-sobig-in-fact-it-was-sobig-f/197486/6 "2003-08-26T06:58:13Z")
To be honest I don’t really know. I’m getting alot of what looks like spam recently, but I have for quite a hile, and nothing seems overtly virusy. It just all goes straight to delete without reading, so I can’t tell if it’s anything nastier than ordinary spam… ---
**Author:** ![acrossthesea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@acrossthesea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/acrossthesea)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-big-stack-of-e-mails-it-was-sobig-in-fact-it-was-sobig-f/197486/7 "2003-08-26T06:59:06Z")
This is all why I’m glad I still have windows 98. ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-big-stack-of-e-mails-it-was-sobig-in-fact-it-was-sobig-f/197486/8 "2003-08-26T07:23:31Z")
Well, **kitarak** , are you getting lots of messages with subject lines like these? Re: Wicked screensaver Re: That Movie Re: Your details Re: My details Re: Your application Re: Thank you! Those are Sobig.F hallmarks. ---
**Author:** ![Flamsterette\_X](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/41988e/32.png) [@Flamsterette\_X](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flamsterette_X)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-big-stack-of-e-mails-it-was-sobig-in-fact-it-was-sobig-f/197486/9 "2003-08-26T07:55:44Z")
I get a lot of spam anyways, but lately I’ve noticed emails with the very subject lines that **Snooooopy** describes. Not a whole lot of them, but they’re invading my inbox nonetheless. Fortunately, I only open the emails that I want to read… which means that all my spam goes straight to the trash can. F\_X ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2003, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-big-stack-of-e-mails-it-was-sobig-in-fact-it-was-sobig-f/197486/10 "2003-08-27T00:43:39Z")
My main account _never_ gets spam, so imagine my surprise to have recieved in excess of 1400 SoBig e-mails! Not quite up to **Snooooopy** ’s level, but pretty respectable none-the-less! Our contract IT services provider has a lot to answer for, including leaving us wide-open to the Blaster worm, too. ---
**Author:** ![Rasa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rasa/32/3578_2.png) [@Rasa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rasa)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2003, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-big-stack-of-e-mails-it-was-sobig-in-fact-it-was-sobig-f/197486/11 "2003-08-27T01:50:48Z")
I have 6 separate email accounts that I have to check at work. We have about 100,000 customers. I had 11,986 emails in my mailbox the day the virus hit last week. I spent all day downloading and deleting. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2003, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-big-stack-of-e-mails-it-was-sobig-in-fact-it-was-sobig-f/197486/12 "2003-08-27T02:03:46Z")
Jeez, I feel pretty puny by comparison with **Snooooopy** and **Tranq** and especially **Rasa**. Last Tuesday, a mere 178 SOBIG.F emails, with the characteristic titles that Snooooopy described, found their way to my Yahoo! mail free account. The LAN staff at work had already warned us well, so I knew what I was looking at, the moment I saw it. Deleted pages of emails without opening. ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2003, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-had-a-big-stack-of-e-mails-it-was-sobig-in-fact-it-was-sobig-f/197486/13 "2003-08-27T02:54:57Z")
Whoa! **Rasa** wins the kewpie doll!