I put “person” in quotes because I don’t know that it’s an actual person. It may be an automated message-sending system or something like that.
Anyhow, for the past two or so months I’ve been getting a 200+K attachment from a few email addresses (the most previous one is jbixby@hrl.lib.state.va.us, from “whom” I’ve gotten an attachment twice). Netscape email does not have any blocking features that I could find, so I can’t prevent the file from getting into my inbox. And I’m fairly certain the person doesn’t mean well.
Sounds like you’re a victim of the SirCam virus. The persons with the virus are probably not even be aware they are sending email to you. SirCam tends to favour random attachments of around 200k. It’s tailing off now, but a month or so back I was getting about 10 of these a day, often repeatedly from the same addresses.
Best thing to do is use a email application that allows you to preview the email waiting for you before downloading, and letting you delete the offenders before downloading the rest. I do this every time now, you get very adept at spotting the SirCams. It also allows you to kill spam before it gets any further. Unfortunately I don’t think Netscape allows this. I recommend Pegasus. It’s free and does everything you could possibly want.
The worse thing you can do, of course, is to open the attachment.
Sircam typically includes one of the following lines in the body of the message: “I send you this file in order to have your advice.” or “I hope you can help me with this file that I send.” or “I hope you like the file that I sendo you.” or “This is the file with the information that you ask for.” There are also variants in Spanish. It can have any subject line, usually taken from the random attatchment it has glommed onto.
I’ve gotten gobs of these. I have a filter set up to automatically delete anything with “I send this file in order to have your advice.” in the body. If you can’t do that, then you’re just stuck deleting them, I guess!
Oh, so that’s what I have been getting in my email as I don’t open it. Well, I usually write them back saying their computer has a virus. I never hear back from them again. But then there is the next person with that virus & then again I write them back…
The first time I got it I thought it might have been a FOAF saying “can you edit this for me?”
The PC I DLed the file to couldn’t even read it. It got random words and such, and evidently it (the first file I got) had some value (it was a report on something, IIRC).
I did, in addition, email this person back and curse them out for sending me an attachment that large without warning. Apparently it didn’t work, as I’ve gotten the thing again a few times.
I have to use a web-based email provider, as I need to be able to check my email wherever I go. So for me the best bet is Netscape email, since I don’t want the spam-feed Yahoo would give me (even though it does give an extra MB of space).
I don’t know if all of the emails that you are receiving are coming from the same place. For the email that you mentioned in the OP, you could try going to the website http://www.hrl.lib.state.va.us/handley/default.asp and clicking on “Email the Librarian” and asking for assistance from them.
If this is not a virus and just anoying person remember that turn about is fair play. I had a problem with someone a while back they kept on forwarding me crap. SO I did a search for “free stuff” or “giveaways” and signed their email up for every concievable offer. Eventually they were burried under an avalanche of junk email.
