wonwinglo

http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/invitation.asp

A lot of paranoia at the moment over this one,it is bogus,fake,non kosha.
Thanks for those that sent e-mails but to be honest if you have a good ( and most important up to date ) anti-virus installed there should not be any problems.

__________________
'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

Bunkerbarge

So how can a virus actually perform physical damage? Surely it is merely software and all it can therefore do is affect the software on your computer.

Anyone out there know how this can be done?

Bluewavestudios

Richard,

Some Viruses can perform serious physical damage, as rightly stated, it is a piece of software, but it is what the software is designed to do that causes the damage...sometimes wiping your hard-drive or vital files on it leaving your computer unusable...that's physical enough damage for anyone !!! Especially if you have valuable work/photos etc filed away on there, Once that has gone, getting it back is virtually impossible if it has been destroyed by the actions of the Virus itself.

A guy who lives around here got 2 years in prison for writing a virus and unleashing it on the net, it infected thousands of computers world-wide destroying millions of pounds worth of work.

Do a google on Simon Vallor and you will find the story.

Always best to keep a back up of those files somewhere - on a CD is a good place and always always make sure your anti virus is kept up to date.

As for this particular one, I have had a least 4 of these in the past 2 days, I didn't open them but just deleted them as spam.

Regards.....Mark.

__________________
I'm Only Here Coz I'm Not All There !!!

wonwinglo

http://www.howstuffworks.com/virus.htm

Richard,here is a good article on how various viruses work,they cannot burn a hole in your hard drive in the physical sense,but can do untold damage on what has been stored.

__________________
'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

Bunkerbarge

It's all a bit frightening. What on earth motivates these sick people is completely beyond me.

porschenut

Wish I knew what motivated them, but i get tonnes of these viruses, but my anti virus seems to do its job, otherwise i'd have to re-do my hard disk, but as you said, keeping backups is a good idea (i have loads of them in my room) but its great advice, shame its so hard for the cops to catch the people doing it, cos its annoying, and i get them when my brother uses my compuuter and opens every last one of his emails.
The "phisical" damage is sort of stress and stuff from having all your work trashed and spending hours fixing it up. (I should know, having to start all my coursework next year, I'm going to have to keep my backup cds even more up to date.
Thanks for the heads up on this one though.
Euan

__________________
Capitalism has its ups and downs, David Bechams salary is a down point!