MAKADIYOS
DEFINITION:
            THE ACT OF RECOGNIZING, BELIEVING, FOLLOWING, AND PRAISING A SUPREME BEING KNOWNED AS GOD.
POSITIVE EFFECTS:
- NORMS OF PERSONAL AND COMMUNITY LIFE ARE FORMED
- CHARITY IS DEVELOPED (GENEROSITY & ACT KINDNESS)
- LESS VIOLENCE AND CRIME
- DEVELOPS A HARMONIOUSE RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHERS
NEGATIVE EFFECTS:
- CONFLICTS AMONG BELIEVERS
- CONFLICTS BETWEEN DIFFERENT RELIGIOUS GROUPS
- CONFLICT BETWEEN CHURCH AND GOVERNMENT
- USING RELIGION TO EXTORT FROM BELIEVERS
- USING RELIGION FOR IMPRESSION AND PUBLICITY
RECOMMENDATION:
            FOR BELIEVERS, CONTINUE THIS ACT FOR A GOOD REASON, HAVE FEAR IN YOUR GOD AND FOLLOW THE SCRIPTURES RIGHTLY.
            FOR NON-BELIEVERS, FOR THE RESPECT OF HUMAN BELIEF, NEVER MOCK OR USE THE NAME OF ANY RELIGIOUS GROUP FOR PERSONAL NEEDS OR INTEREST.





INFP General
Imagine a deep lush valley, caressed by flowers and trees that eternally blossom, inhabited by animals that serve as gentle companions and by people who spend their days loving, creating, and selflessly serving humanity. This is the world of the rare (only about 3 percent of the population) Idealistic Philosopher: the person who is forever striving to live in a perfect world where love and harmony abound.
INFP when in love
As an idealistic Philosopher, you believe that love requires a profound emotional and spiritual connection. You may also believe that, to attain this desired state, you will have to endure a great deal of pain and sacrifice. Yet all the suffering will be worth it once you find your perfect love. When that blessed day comes, you will be a complete person, as you and your partner will work together to make the world a better place. In the beginning of a relationship, you tend to idealize your mate as the greatest person in the world; you'd easily give up your life for him or her. Later, when reality intrudes, you may find yourself disappointed as you realize that no real human being can match the fantastic images of love and romance you created in your imagination. Fortunately, despite your disillusionment, you somehow recover and begin to accept the flaws of your partner, ever so slowly, while still wishing you could change him or her into the perfect image you had when you first fell in love.
INFP where to meet
Where can you meet an Idealistic Philosopher? Idealistic Philosophers love writing, psychology, the arts, and relationships, and are drawn to activities that involve a crusade or mission. You can bump into them at bookstores, especially in sections related to the preceding topics. You can also find Idealistic Philosophers at the theater, art galleries, and museums - often walking slowly, by themselves, lost in their thoughts.




After years of marriage, many couples are out of the habit. Caught in the aftermath of neglect, they somehow lose the knack. A predictable pattern that can bring sudden death to relationship.
Now, how do we preserve marriage? For like us who are married, we should know how to nourish it and preserve it. And for those couples, who have a hanging relationship, there is a great deal that you both can do to improve it and the good news is that is never too late to begin.
Here are powerful ways to preserve your marriage and endure that your relationship remains healthy and vibrant across the years.
Nurture the spiritual side of your marriage.
Marriages benefit when couples shape their common life together by the various biblical passages that call them to authenticate ways of living and relating. Here are some examples. Honor one another above yourselves. Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Live out in your marriage the biblical call for humility. Do nothing out in selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than you.
Make your relationship the top priority.
Avoid taking the relationship for granted. Don’t permit a myriad of external activities to infringe on the priority or your marriage. If they are not carefully monitored, a wide range of activities can slip in and erode time from you and your partner.
Be each other’s best friend.
To be each other’s best friend, couples need to consistently offer each other trust, caring, confidentiality, expression of deepest feelings and thoughts, respectful listening and fun together.
Be quick with forgiveness.
 This is essential for healing the hurts within a relationship. A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers. Without the balm of forgiveness, both partners are left hurt and struggling. When you choose to bear anger at your partner, you build a wall around yourself.
Overlook slights and irritations.
 Avoid going into battle mode over very irritation that comes via your partner. Be selective about what’s really worth discussing and working on. Mull over what really matters.
Learn to fight fair.
Really listen. Don’t attack. Never threaten to end relationship.
Avoid perfectionism.
Take care not to seek perfectionism in yourself or your partner. It’s terrific to have high standards, principles and policies but not so high as to be unreachable and not so rigid as to be inflexible and unbending. If you expect perfection, you’re sitting yourself up for a life of discontent.
Never go to bed angry.
Accentuate the positive.
Finally, always work to nurture your hopes, not hurts. Whenever you become frustrated with your relationship or angry at your partner, take a breath and pause to place the focus on your hope, not your hurt. Even though there may be present pain, work toward and anticipate a god outcome. Faith, hope and love from a powerful trinity for sustaining and transforming relationships.





Defining the Question: This step involves narrowing possible topics and then choosing the question to be the focus of your research. Your question should be specific. You may need to gather more information before you decide on your final question. Ask yourself:
Specifically, what do I want to know? What is the purpose of asking this question? What will the answer tell me? Can this question be answered through research? (Can I describe how I might answer it?)
What do I expect to find once I've conducted my research?
Locating Resources/Gathering Information & Materials: This step helps you to become smarter about the topic you are researching and how you can research it. The more information you have, the better research question you can ask. To help you gather information, ask yourself:
What do I know about my topic? What additional information would help me? How can I use different sources of information (experts, books, articles, computer databases) to gather the information I need?
Where will I conduct this research? Where are the organisms or events I want to study?
What resources are available to me--time, equipment, people, money, facilities, etc.?
 Planning the Research/Developing Data Collection Methods: This step involves making a very specific plan about how you will conduct your research and collect your data. In the end, your procedure should be clear enough so that someone else could follow it exactly. To plan your research and develop your procedure, ask yourself:
How will I answer my research question/test my hypotheses? What data do I need to collect? How will I collect these data?
What equipment or supplies do I need?
Do I have a reference point (control) with which to compare my data?
To answer my question, do I need to manipulate variables?
How many (samples, sites, tests, etc.) do I need?
What record-keeping techniques (e.g. data sheet, journal) will I use? Are my data collection techniques organized and thorough?
Are there sequential steps to my research? If so, what are they? How will I plan my time?
Collecting Data: Be sure that you write down all of the information (data) that could affect the answer to your research question. When you collect the data, ask yourself:
Am I recording all relevant data?
Can I read and understand my notes?
Am I keeping track of what I did at each step?
Am I being objective in my data collection?
 Organizing & Analyzing the Data: This step gives you the chance to pull together the data you've collected and look at it more closely. Compare and contrast the information you've gathered to see the results of your research. Ask yourself:
How will I organize and summarize the data I've collected?
What do my data show? How should I present my data graphically so that others can see the results clearly? (e.g. bar graphs, tables, pie charts, line graphs, etc.)
Are the results significant? Are there tests I might use to tell me if the results are significant?
Interpreting the Data & Drawing Conclusions:In this step, stand back from your data and look at it more critically. Decide what conclusions you can draw. Ask yourself:
What alternative hypotheses might explain these results? Am I considering all relevant data, including extremes or "oddball data" in my analysis? How might my sampling or data collection methods have affected these results?
What answer do my results provide to my original question? How do my results compare to what I expected to happen (my hypothesis)?
What can I conclude from my results? How do my conclusions affect the community or "big picture" (implications)?
Communicating the Results: Now it's time to share your work. Ask yourself:
Who is my audience? What is the best way to communicate to my audience? (e.g. written report, oral or poster presentation, video, etc.) What visual aids will help my audience clearly understand this research?
Have I addressed all of the following components of my research in my communication?:
·         Introduction to question, purpose of this research and why it is interesting or matters
·         Description of methods used to collect data
·         Results
·         Conclusions
·         What questions are raised by my research? How do others respond to my work?




            The most common blunder when the topic of a computer virus arises is that people will often refer to a Worm or Trojan Horse as a Virus. While the words Trojan, worm, and virus are used interchangeably, they are not the same. Viruses, worms, and Trojan Horses are all malicious programs that can cause damage to your computer, but there are differences between the three, and knowing those differences can help you to better protect your computer from their often damaging effects.
            A computer virus attaches itself to a program or file so it can spread from one computer to another, leaving infections as it travels. Much like human viruses, computer viruses can range in severity; some viruses cause only mildly annoying effects while others can damage your hardware, software, or files. Almost all viruses are attached to an executable file, which means the virus may exist on your computer but it cannot infect your computer unless you run or open the malicious program. It is important to note that a virus cannot be spread without a human action, (such as running an infected program) to keep it going.  People continue the spread of a computer virus, mostly unknowingly, by sharing infecting files or sending e-mails with viruses as attachments in the e-mail.
            A worm is similar to a virus by its design, and is considered to be a sub-class of a virus. Worms spread from computer to computer, but unlike a virus, it has the ability to travel without any help from a person. A worm takes advantage of file or information transport features on your system, which allows it to travel unaided. The biggest danger with a worm is its ability to replicate itself on your system, so rather than your computer sending out a single worm, it could send out hundreds or thousands of copies of itself, creating a huge devastating effect. One example would be for a worm to send a copy of itself to everyone listed in your e-mail address book. Then, the worm replicates and sends itself out to everyone listed in each of the receiver's address book, and the manifest continues on down the line. Due to the copying nature of a worm and its ability to travel across networks the end result in most cases is that the worm consumes too much system memory (or network bandwidth), causing Web servers, network servers, and individual computers to stop responding. In more recent worm attacks such as the much talked about .Blaster Worm., the worm has been designed to tunnel into your system and allow malicious users to control your computer remotely.
            A Trojan Horse is full of as much trickery as the mythological Trojan Horse it was named after. The Trojan Horse, at first glance will appear to be useful software but will actually do damage once installed or run on your computer.  Those on the receiving end of a Trojan Horse are usually tricked into opening them because they appear to be receiving legitimate software or files from a legitimate source.  When a Trojan is activated on your computer, the results can vary. Some Trojans are designed to be more annoying than malicious (like changing your desktop, adding silly active desktop icons) or they can cause serious damage by deleting files and destroying information on your system. Trojans are also known to create a backdoor on your computer that gives malicious users access to your system, possibly allowing confidential or personal information to be compromised. Unlike viruses and worms, Trojans do not reproduce by infecting other files nor do they self-replicate.
Combating Viruses, Worms and Trojan Horses
            The first steps to protecting your computer are to ensure your operating system (OS) is up-to-date. This is essential if you are running a Microsoft Windows OS. Secondly, you should have anti-virus software installed on your system and ensure you download updates frequently to ensure your software has the latest fixes for new viruses, worms, and Trojan Horses. Additionally you want to make sure your anti-virus program has the ability to scan e-mail and files as they are downloaded from the Internet. This will help prevent malicious programs from even reaching your computer. If this isn't enough protection, then you may want to consider installing a firewall as well.
            A firewall is a system which prevents unauthorized use and access to your computer. A firewall can be either hardware or software. Hardware firewalls provide a strong degree of protection from most forms of attack coming from the outside world and can be purchased as a stand-alone product or in broadband routers. Unfortunately, when battling viruses, worms and Trojans, a hardware firewall may be less effective than a software firewall, as it could possibly ignore embedded worms in out going e-mails and see this as regular network traffic. For individual home users, the most popular firewall choice is a software firewall.  A good software firewall will protect your computer from outside attempts to control or gain access your computer, and usually provides additional protection against the most common Trojan programs or e-mail worms. The downside to software firewalls is that they will only protect the computer they are installed on, not a network.
            It is important to remember that on its own a firewall is not going to rid you of your computer virus problems, but when used in conjunction with regular operating system updates and a good anti-virus scanning software, it will add some extra security and protection for your computer or network.

 




Boot viruses:
            These viruses infect floppy disk boot records or master boot records in hard disks. They replace the boot record program (which is responsible for loading the operating system in memory) copying it elsewhere on the disk or overwriting it. Boot viruses load into memory if the computer tries to read the disk while it is booting.

Examples: Form, Disk Killer, Michelangelo, and Stone virus
Program viruses:
            These infect executable program files, such as those with extensions like .BIN, .COM, .EXE, .OVL, .DRV (driver) and .SYS (device driver). These programs are loaded in memory during execution, taking the virus with them. The virus becomes active in memory, making copies of itself and infecting files on disk.

Examples: Sunday, Cascade
Multipartite viruses:
            A hybrid of Boot and Program viruses. They infect program files and when the infected program is executed, these viruses infect the boot record. When you boot the computer next time the virus from the boot record loads in memory and then starts infecting other program files on disk.

Examples: Invader, Flip, and Tequila
Stealth viruses:
            These viruses use certain techniques to avoid detection. They may either redirect the disk head to read another sector instead of the one in which they reside or they may alter the reading of the infected file’s size shown in the directory listing. For instance, the Whale virus adds 9216 bytes to an infected file; then the virus subtracts the same number of bytes (9216) from the size given in the directory.

Examples: Frodo, Joshi, Whale
Polymorphic viruses:
             A virus that can encrypt its code in different ways so that it appears differently in each infection. These viruses are more difficult to detect.

Examples: Involuntary, Stimulate, Cascade, Phoenix, Evil, Proud, Virus 101
Macro Viruses:
             A macro virus is a new type of computer virus that infects the macros within a document or template. When you open a word processing or spreadsheet document, the macro virus is activated and it infects the Normal template (Normal.dot)-a general purpose file that stores default document formatting settings. Every document you open refers to the Normal template, and hence gets infected with the macro virus. Since this virus attaches itself to documents, the infection can spread if such documents are opened on other computers.

Examples: DMV, Nuclear, Word Concept.
Active X:  
            ActiveX and Java controls will soon be the scourge of computing. Most people do not know how to control there web browser to enable or disable the various functions like playing sound or video and so, by default, leave a nice big hole in the security by allowing applets free run into there machine. There has been a lot of commotion behind this and with the amount of power that JAVA imparts, things from the security angle seem a bit gloom.
The Worms of the Net
            The first encounter with a computer virus is a mixture of thrill, suspense, comedy and later tragedy. It is comical at first to see your programs act funny and show comical messages. This is accompanied by an element of suspense when you realize that your computer has been infected, but you don't know what it will do, or what it can do. When important data is lost and you have to re-format your hard disk, the story becomes tragic. But when your anti-virus package (you have one, don't you?) detects the culprit and deletes it, you are filled with pride and satisfaction. The same old story of a Hollywood blockbuster.
            Computers generally pick up viruses from infected files over a floppy (who uses these nowadays?), a network or the mother of all networks, the Internet. Research shows that the main culprits for the spread of these unwanted guests is the Internet. Infected files are attached to anonymous messages and sent to thousands of people who unknowingly download and execute the file attachment, creating a havoc on their machines as well as the network the are on.
            Many people configure their mail clients to automatically forward the mails they receive, assuring that the infected file is generously distributed to other people too.
            Detection and removal of computer viruses is a thriving industry today. A philosopher has rightly said, someone's troubles are a boon to others. Major players in the field of Virus detection and elimination are Symantec (Norton Antivirus), Network Associates (Mcaffee Viruscan), Datafellows (F-Secure) and Trend Micro (PC-cillin). These are international players. Besides, regional antivirus software are also available, which are modified to suit local needs.
Trojans: The Method of Infection
            The most simple method is to send a trojan via email. So you receive a message saying that a wonderful file is attached and it will coerce you to click on it. This one is for dumb heads. I assume you are not one of those who click every attachment without scanning it with an up-to-date AV.
            Secondly, you may receive a file from someone you know and the file looks harmless enough. On clicking you find a small application running, so you rest assured that the file was not a trojan. Here is where the ingenuity of the hacker comes into play. What he does is that he joins the trojan horse with an harmless application. . Such joiners are widely available on the Net. (If you want one, try Joiner). He designs a new icon for it using Micro Angelo. If he uses sub 7, the best and the most dangerous trojan according to me, then the latest version comes with an inbuilt icon changer. So one can easily assign a mp3 icon to a sub 7 server. (More on sub seven later)
            If you are an experienced net user (I assume male, though I am not gender biased), you can easily restrict yourself from falling prey to above methods. But can you resist the feminine charm? This is one of the most widely used and successful means to catch a prey who is not a fool. For this, you need ICQ (I don't need to tell you about this, right?). So you may meet someone on random chat claiming to be a sultry babe from Amsterdam. She arouses your erotic senses and then says that she wishes to send you an erotic photo of herself. Naturally, no male (Here I am talking about normal males, not those rare ones who can resist such a temptation) would like to miss such an opportunity. So you get an incoming file request, say pic.jpg. Now you know that trojan has to be an .EXE file, so this cannot be one. So you receive it and click it.
            The file is indeed a Jpg file joined with a trojan. But it is a fact that though you can bind an exe file to a Jpg one, the final file has to be an exe. What the hacker does is that he renames the file as pic.jpg.exe. ICQ shows this as pic.jpg. So you end up making a fool of yourself.
Subseven – Beware of this one!
            Last time we saw how Trojans work and what general facilities they provide. Today we look into "Subseven" – the most dangerous Trojan available on the net. Its ferocity lies in its simplicity. It is so simple to use that any Tom, Dick and Harry can use it. IQ level required to use subseven is below normal though to infect people you do need to have sufficient intelligence.
            The interface of subseven is a bit bunched up. But the power it imparts is tremendous. On the left pane you have options like Connection, key/messages, advanced, fun, extra fun etc. Each of these is a menu that offers much more usability. The connection tab allows you to scan IP addresses to search for a particular victim infected by the subseven server. It also allows you to get all information about the victim including his home address and telephone number!!.
            The key tab allows you to send keystrokes to the victim. So if you press Ctrl+Alt+Del on your PC, you can effectively boot you victims PC. Also the most powerful feature of subseven is that it allows you to retrieve offline keys. These are the keys you just enter before you go online. 90% of time, these are your dial-up username and password. So next time you see a deficit of 50 hours in your newly acquired internet account, you know whom to blame.
            One of the unique and outstanding feature of subseven is The Matrix. After you have connected to the victim's PC, you can activate the matrix and whatever you type is displayed in green letters on your victims screen.( Remember "Wake up Neo").
            The advanced tab, as the name suggests offers more power to you. You can search files, modify the registry, get cached passwords (passwords where you chose the "Remember password option"), open the PC as a ftp port, etc. In short, it can really mess you up.
            Most people seem to like the fun part of subseven. Here you can activate the screensaver, change screen resolution, get access to web cam (i.e. if the victim has one), etc. The extra fun has options to reverse mouse buttons, shut down windows, change time-date, etc.
            The latest version of subseven is 2.2. This is packed with more features like Text-speech where whatever you type is spoken out on the victims PC. The revolutionary feature of this version is the "icon-changer". Now one can assign any icon to the subseven server. So you can find subseven servers in Winamp, Ultraedit or real player icon and if you are not careful, you are doomed. The fact that subseven is most dangerous because no antivirus seems to detect it. I tried fully updated versions of Mcaffee 4.03 and Norton Antivirus 2001 and they were helpless against the power of subseven. Mcaffee 5.12 does detect subseven Trojan 2.1 gold but I am not sure it'll be able to detect the latest version about to release.
            The purpose of this article is not to promote destructive activities using subseven. I want you to acknowledge the genius of the person who invented this deadly tool (His name is Mobman). What I don't understand is that why don't they put their genius minds to creative purposes. Though it can be argued that Subseven can be used as a creative tool if used in proper direction. As they say, technology is a good servant but a bad master.
            If you want to play with this subseven thing, be prepared to face the music yourself. If you are not careful then you may infect yourself and there will be no way to save you from the hands of eagerly waiting hackers.
Symptoms of Virus Infection
10 virus symptoms
1.      Programs take longer to load. Memory-intensive operations take a lot of time to start. 
2.      A change in dates against the filenames in the directory. When the virus modifies a file the operating system changes the date stamp. 
3.      The floppy disk or hard disk is suddenly accessed without logical reason.
4.      Increased use of disk space and growth in file size-the virus attaches itself to many files. 
5.      Abnormal write-protect errors. The virus trying to write to a protected disk.
6.      Strange characters appear in the directory listing of filenames. 
7.      Strange messages like "Type Happy Birthday Joshi" (Joshi Virus) or "Driver Memory Error" (kak.worm) appear on the screen and in documents. 
8.      Strange graphic displays such as falling letters or a bouncing ball appear on screen.  
9.      Programs may hang the computer or not work at all. 
10.  Junk characters overwrite text in document or data files.
Your guide to safe computing
Listed below are some of the steps recommended by experts to safeguard your PC from viruses. These are a compilation of my past experiences and magazine sources.
1.      Write-protect your floppy disks when using them on other computers. 
2.      Remove floppy disks from drives while booting. 
3.      Change a setting in the BIOS that enables your PC to boot from the C-drive first. 
4.      Use a good anti-virus program to scan floppy disks before copying files. Recommended ones are Norton Antivirus 2000 and Mcaffee 5. 
5.      Install software only from original write-protected disks with the publisher’s label. 
6.      Do not install pirated software, especially computer games. 
7.      Activate watch-guard programs (monitors) that look out for suspicious activity. 
8.      Use the update service offered by software vendors and update the anti-virus software every month. 
9.      Scan the entire hard disk twice a month. 
10.  Scan files downloaded from the Internet or those transferred through a network. 
11.  Prepare a rescue disk with critical system files. Preferably, it should be bootable. 
12.  Keep the original CD-ROM or diskettes containing the operating system handy.
Kak Worm - An Internet Virus
            In the ongoing series on computer viruses, we have already given considerable attention to the anatomy of a virus, its symptoms and modes of infection. In this article, I am going to talk on worms. These are a special type of viruses in the sense that they are more to annoy you rather than cause destruction. We will also take a look at kak.worm, the latest offering of the underground in this category.
            A worm is a self-contained program or set of programs that can propagate from one machine to another. Unlike a virus, the computer worm does not need to modify a host program to spread. First notable instance of a worm is the Internet Worm, which supposedly originated in 1988. It infected almost 6000 machines connected to the Internet running Sun OS and UNIX. This figure may not sound alarming today when there are millions of machines connected to the net but it was a total chaotic situation then when the ration of infected machines to the total was substantial.
            The most important characteristic of a worm is that it must be able to send one or more executable program/s to target client machines connected to a network before it can function. After the worm establishes itself, and is executing on a new machine, it can then spread to other machines on the Internet. Earlier versions of Win 95 (OSR1) did not provide remote execution facility and hence the number of worms for the PC platform was few. But today, worms are lot more intelligent than they used to be. Written mostly in Visual Basic script (VBScript), they today use intelligent algorithms to avoid detection and promote mass spread.
            Today, worms use email clients as their mode of infection. The actual modus operandi may vary from worm to worm. I take the case of kak.worm to illustrate the way a worm spreads and executes:
Method of Infection
            Kak.worm consists of the main .vbs file Kak.htm which resides in the Windows folder along with Kak.reg which contains all the configuration of the worm. This attaches the kak.htm as a signature to all outgoing mails of the infected computer. This signature is not visible and it needs not be executed in order to get infected as uses the loophole in Outlook Express preview window. So as soon as you view the mail, you are infected.
How does the Worm work?
            The worm adds a .HTA file in the Windows/system folder. There is a registry key in the Run folder (Run Regedit.exe and then go to Local Machine/software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Run) which starts this HTA file each time Windows starts or reboots. Also the Autoexec.bat is modified and a entry is added in the startup folder. So it attacks from 3 directions (registry, autoexec and startup), in case one fails.
What does it do?
            As said earlier, it does not cause data loss. It gives an irritating Driver Memory Error on startup and sends itself along with all your emails.
How do I remove it?
            Change Folder options to show all files. Then deleted kak.htm and kak.reg from windows folder and the .hta file from system folder. Then remove the registry key of the .hta file from the previously specified location. Delete the startup entry and the entry in the Autoexec.bat. If you are not comfortable with registry editing, you can go to Symantec.com and search there for kak.worm. They have a patch to remove kak. To fix the Outlook Express preview loophole go to Microsoft.com. There are lot of valuable resources on viruses on the Net. Check the Virus section of links. Also searching for kak.worm on Google.com may give you what more you are looking for.
Melissa
            Until now, we have seen the anatomy of a computer virus, its modus operandi and symptoms. To complete this series, I am going to discuss few of the most deadly virus species. These may not be the latest in the offering but are important study materials because they are the source of inspiration for new variants. First on this list is Melissa.
            Also known as WM97, Melissa made its first appearance in late 1998. According to its nature, it is a Macro virus. Specifically targeted at Microsoft Word 97/2000, this is supposed to be the first in-the-wild virus which accelerates its spread via email.
            If you have Microsoft OutLook98 installed (Latest variants also known to work with Outlook Express 5), the virus will send itself to the first 50 names in your address book.
The message sent by the original Melissa variant contains this subject:
    Important Message From xxxxx
(Where "xxxxx" is the name of the sender, who is most likely someone that you know and who is probably unaware that they are infected.) This is not the only subject of the infected mail you may receive. Different Melissa variants have their own subjects. Try to recognize the pattern of the subject rather than the subject itself.
This e-mail is accompanied by an attachment List.doc (may be different also). This may contain sultry pornographic material. When this file is opened, Melissa lowers the computer security levels and permits use of all macros without warning.
The virus sets the registry key:
   HKEY_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Office\Melissa?
to a value of "... by Kwyjibo" and emails copies of itself to the first 50 people in your address book, if the above key is not already present. The virus will infect the default template file and all newly created documents on the infected system. So all word documents created henceforth will be infected. if the minute of the hour matches the day of the month, the virus will insert into the current document the message 
"Twenty-two points, plus triple-word-score, plus fifty points for using all my letters. Game's over. I'm outta here."
Damage caused by this virus is variant dependent. Some are known to damage data and corrupt files. Since this is an old virus, all latest anti-virus software readily detect this virus. This is only if you have a virus scanner on all the time. If not, take the following precautions.
1.      Scan all emails with attachments.
2.      Never open any executable attachments unless you have specifically requested the file. (MS Office files, such as MS Word documents and Excel Spreadsheets can contain programs that are automatically executed when you open these files.)
3.      Whenever you run a new program for the first time, run an integrity check to make sure that nothing changed on your PC that shouldn't be. This will help protect against threats like Happy99 and Melissa but will also prevent damage from poorly designed or buggy programs.
4.      Unless you absolutely need to use macros, disable them. (This applies to any program that is foolish enough to have macros that can be executed automatically without the user being aware but the threat is greatest with MS Word and MS Excel.)
Note: In MS Word2000 make sure your security setting is set to "high" (click on Tools/Macro/Security). This will give a warning before executing any document with a macro.