The person who is sending these out, does not have to be in your address book, it has to be in their book. Also this virus takes addresses from cache on the computer, so if someone is just reading messages, it will use those.

The message never comes from the persons return address that is on the message as the sender. So if you wrote to everyone you know, who had their name used, it would do nothing, because it's the name that isn't there, that is sending them. (without knowing they are)

Did that make the mud a little clearer?

I received one from myself as I have two IDs on Prodigy. My computer was off for the four day period and the message went out on a Saturday while I was out of town.

I don't have myself in any of my address books...

The only solution is to have everyone get and use anti-virus software. It's not the address books, not the internet, not you or me. It is the person who think's they don't need to protect their computer, so we all get these stupid messages.

By the way, I use Netscape, which just receives a blank message and is immune to this virus. If you choose to switch to Netscape, you won't have to worry 99% of the time, because the worms attack IE and Microsoft loopholes.

I still run Norton and a firewall, just to be considerate for other peoples sake.