I M P O R T A N T W A R N I NG ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! PLEASE READ!

Heed the warning. It sounds awful!!!



Anyone-using Internet mail such as Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and so on.



This information arrived this morning, Direct from both Microsoft and Norton.



Please send it to everybody you know who has access to the Internet.



You may receive an apparently harmless e-mail with a Power Point presentation ' Life is Beautiful '



If you receive it DO NOT OPEN TH E FILE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, and delete it immediately.



If you open this file, a message will appear on your screen saying: 'It is too late now; your life is no longer beautiful.'



Subsequently you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC, And the person who sent it to you will gain access to your name, e-mail and password.



This is a new virus which started to circulate on Saturday afternoon.



AOL has already confirmed the severity, and the anti virus software's are not capable of destroying it.



The virus has been created by a hacker who calls himself 'life owner'.



PLEASE SEND A COPY OF THIS E-MAIL TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS, And ask them to PASS IT ON IMMEDIATELY!



THIS HAS BEEN CONFIRMED BY SNOPES



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



1. snopes.com: Life Is Beautiful Virus
email with a PowerPoint presentation called "Life is beautiful.pps." If you receive it DO NOT OPEN THE FILE UNDER ANY...
...file, a message will appear on your screen saying: "It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful", subsequently you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR...

wow... thanks for the tip

Thanks for telling me about that

Thank you.

Queene,

This is a hoax, it has been circulated in different forms now for years. Snopes has come under fire recently, but i still consider them to be a reliable source. The fact is, Snopes lists the life owner (life is beautiful) virus threat, as a hoax.

There have been many circulated emails, that claim to have been "confirmed by snopes" When in fact, if you go to the Snopes website, you will see it is listed as a hoax.

This has also been debunked by McAfee, a leader in virus protection, as well as other sites dedicated to cause.

I know you meant well, and viruses are a threat to all of us, and this is why we need a good virus protection program. This particular named virus is simply not true.

thanks for the info.. my dad sent me this info and he got it from my aunt(his sister)

it is best to delete any and all unfamiliar email sent to you a\nyway unless you have an old computer you have isolated and only use it for email

but hey what do i know

This is why I love linux.

Straight from Snopes: This latter version is difficult to classify as either "true" or "false": The virus it references (i.e., the Mail Server Report worm) was a real one, but it's neither new nor currently rampant (as claimed in the warning text), nor does it manifest itself in the fashion described (since the "symptoms" provided in the warning are merely a reworking of the text of an earlier virus hoax). All in all, that message doesn't really merit the dire warning to "SEND A COPY OF THIS TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS, And ask them to PASS IT ON IMMEDIATELY!"

It is always a bad idea to open any unknown email attachment. Your best bet, dump windows and learn to use Linux. It's really no harder to use than windows.

Or, alternatively, don't open attachments in emails from people you don't know. And have up-to-date AV installed.

The problem with AV is the virus has to hit before it can be stopped. Often, companies are behind the ball and some of these things have incredible speed. The best answer to not catching a virus/worm is to use a linux distro or OSX. Viruses are mostly written on linux boxes so they rarely will write them to affect them (there are way more PC users so you get lots more damage that way) and OSX is not widespread enough to warrant a virus and even then, the majority of those using it are young or artsy people (who need final cut, photoshop, etc) that really don't have all the good stuff like businesses that run windows server.

Or use Linux and forget about viruses.

Do people still fall for this crap?!

Linux is NOT virus free, the more mainstream it becomes, the more it will be targeted. Count on it. I'm by no means saying that Microsoft OS's are good or reliable or safe BUT they are probably the most widely used ones by Joe Average in the world, for varying reasons.

And yes Dan, people DO still fall for this crap!!

thanks for the heads up. Good thing I normally never open any emails unless I know the person, other wise I just deleted em.

Yea what he said...come to think of it I don't know of many virus's that actually erase your PC completly, a few here and there and I've come across them but they are not as rampant as some would lead you to believe. You really have to go completly sideways on the internet to get a virus like that, more often then not if you get a message on your screen most people will pull the plug on the PC...as soon as that happens you probably damn near corrupted a lot of files anyway.

I never open attachments from anyone unless I am expecting them

Yeah it isn't 100% virus free, but it more secure and less vulnerable to viruses by default and will likely never be as insecure and virus laden as m$ OS's.

It's the complete control over the system that makes it virtually virus free... The thing about linux is it'll never be as mainstream as windows. hell, OSX is way more mainstream than linux and even that rarely has virus issues.

The only virus that almost wiped out my computer was from WINDOWS ITSELF.

I had my automatic updater enabled and it automatically installed Windows Service Pack 3. I had to take it in to a professional to have it removed and they charged me $50.




My next computer will be a MAC. I'm VERY disappointed with Microsoft.