IMPORTANT WARNING

[brushhogxxx]

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 THE 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

[gt5bass]

I don't think so Tim

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

Thanks fer trying to help perpetuate a myth

This one has been around since around a while

[brushhogxxx]

It's Jim not Tim.

My wife works for Country Wide Mort, it came from there. If you think it is bogis, then so be it.

Whatever,

[kayaking4fish]

It's Jim not Tim.

My wife works for Country Wide Mort, it came from there. If you think it is bogis, then so be it.

Whatever,

Jim,

It is bogus. Frankly I would think Country Wide would have a policy in place to deal with this kind of stuff, rather than lend its name to further increase the hoax.

What you could do to help educate others is pass on what I did with your email.

1. I looked in the email for an obvious word combination. In this case I used "Life is Beautiful".

2. I typed it into Google

3. The first five entries that are returned from 3 different reputable web sites say that this is a hoax; one of them is Snopes and another is Symantec the maker of Norton.

Also Microsoft never contacts anyone regarding these types of things. Instead if real what they would do is fix the problem and roll it out to you on a Tuesday called patch Tuesday with other updates or fixes. Or if a fix is not possible Microsoft will post a work around to disable whatever the problem is until such time as it can be fixed properly.

Beyond that even; Norton is a product of Symantec Corporation which oldly enough is one of the above mentioned website also claiming that this email is a hoax from like 2002 I might add.

One last thing: Quote below from the email:
"AOL has already confirmed the severity, and the anti virus software's are not capable of destroying it."

Most new viruses in the wild cannot be destroyed until they are actually looked at and run on a safe machine to see what they do. Instead all good anti-virus will quarantine or delete an attachment that cannot be cleaned.

It took longer to type all this in then it did to confirm that this email was a hoax.

Don't feel bad Jim if you got duped into believing this, it happens all the time. Usually by coming from someone you trust or believe is reputable.

If allowed maybe you should forward this thread to whoever sent the email to you or maybe we can start a chain email that teaches what to look for in hoax chain emails.

Jeff

[gt5bass]

It's Jim not Tim.

My wife works for Country Wide Mort, it came from there. If you think it is bogis, then so be it.

Whatever,

Jim,

The "I don't think so Tim" was a joke... as in Al to Tim the Toolman Taylor

And yes, it is bogus, this hoax has been around fer quite a while!

[John Barron]

I got the reference Tim Allen is one of my favorite comedians

[Byron]

My son has worked for symantec in Santa Monica for several years. I called him and he laughed at me on this one. It is old and a hoax.