Email Safety
How to protect yourself  
   © Linda Lee

                                                                                                                                                                                        

  Spam is the scourge of the Internet! According to recent statistics, an incredible 75-80% of all email can be classified as Spam!

The dictionary defines Spam simply as “unsolicited email,” but it’s much worse than that.
It is a direct invasion into your privacy. Just like junk snail-mail, junk email takes up space in your mailbox , wastes your time and is a general nuisance.

• How did they get my email address?
• How can I tell if this is a legitimate email?
• How do they know my name or my friends name and use it in the subject line?

Well, the bad news is that once your email is posted anywhere public on the web, your address becomes fair game for all.

Spammers are exceptionally creative when it comes to getting information they know that people don’t want them to have. 

The ingenious use of special programs and "harvesting robots” sniff out thousands of websites. 

They collect any and all email addresses they find, including yours.

Unfortunately, this includes legitimate, often necessary lists, like any parent volunteer lists or school activities with contact information posted on a website. 

Any sports team lists, any type of hobby forums or newsgroups where you allow your email to be public will place you at risk. 

Even your job may post employee emails somewhere that is publicly accessible.

 People who create Spam lists hunt for all these options and more. 

They plan to exploit your email address as much as possible.

Spammers were cunning enough realize how valuable a list of legitimate email addresses are an asset simply waiting to be sold! 

They stop at nothing to find every possible way to root out information.

A Spammer typically sells multiple lists of email addresses. Once your email address is on one list, it is often merged with others and resold repeatedly. 

In the worst case, your email becomes virtually impossible to remove.         

 Often changing your email is your only recourse.

But until they begin receiving the dreaded Spam, most people have no clue that their addresses have been found, harvested and sold.

One rule used to be never opt out of  any email you got, but since the can-spam act went into effect it would appear to have had some effect in this area.

I started actually using the opt out in much of the spam I receive and it seems to be reducing my spam by about 60%, so I'm not sure if  this old rule still applies.

•                           When You Sign Up For Anything, Read The Privacy Policy!

                                     This is your best chance to legitimately opt-out of mailings.

Often when you sign up at a website on the Internet or enter contests, at the end of the sign up, there will be a box allowing you to "opt out" of further emails or selling your email address to "interested parties"

This is a legitimate way to keep down your Spam.

Unfortunately those cunning Spammers realize many people have no idea if they signed up , or where they have been, so they send fake "opt out, opt in" emails asking you to click the link to do either.

Once you reply to this email, the Spammer learns: 

1.       Your email is live and valid
2.       You open and read Spam
3.       You follow instructions…such as ‘click this to be removed'.

Dictionary Attack

How they use a mass attack to find you.

Another tactic of Spammers is the  Dictionary Attack

Massive amounts of Spam are sent to random addresses from a targeted domain. 

Automated software will generate every combination of a name, such as jjones@____, jjones1@___, jjones2@___ etc.

The hope is that some of it –even a small percentage- gets through to valid addresses. 

Spammers wait to get a ‘bounced message,’ or ‘error message’ that says the email isn’t valid.

When that doesn’t happen guess what-your address has just been just been “confirmed live” and will be added to their email list, which they will sell for money.

Why doesn’t blocking this junk email with your email message settings stop this?  

Because Spammers use fake names and fake return addresses, and they rarely use the same ones twice.

Prevent Spam!

• Get multiple email addresses!

Paid providers allow you multiple addresses.

Get two, three or even four addresses.

(Some people don’t even know this is available from your provider.)

Have a ‘Spam’ address for anticipated Spam mail.

• Whenever you are asked to provide an email, always give out your alternate "Spam" email address.

I have one for pure Spam, like contests, product advertising and samples, general information websites, like

Real estate or home improvement sites.

Then I have an email for my purchases on the web.

Then I have an email for business only.

 One for friends.

If having multiple emails is not an option or provided for you, two large reputable companies offer free email addresses.

Check out www.hotmail.com at MSN or   www.mail.yahoo.com at Yahoo and Google has gmail.                                    

Or you can do a search for “free email account” to find hundreds of other choices. 

They’re offered free to get you and your wallet to their website and their advertisers.

Why Do I Need Different Email Accounts?

To keep your legitimate, live address from falling into the hands of unscrupulous Spammers.

As you find interesting Internet sites, appealing offers or contests you want to enter, don’t use your primary email address.
When your children sign up at websites like

www.disney.com

www.lego.com

www.starwars.com

www.nickjr.com

have them use a second- or third- email account.

Email Safety Basics

• Use a secondary account anytime you give your email address to anyone other then family and friends.
• Limit your primary email to personal or business correspondence.
• Use a second or third or fourth email address for any public forums or venues
• Ask family and friends to not give out your email and to not or sign you up or refer you for anything online.
• (Just like they wouldn’t give out your telephone number.)

Otherwise, you will join the ranks of people wasting time opening Spam.

A quick word here on forwarding email to mass/bulk addresses:

Please don’t do it!

Constant forwarding clutters up peoples Inbox, and it is intrusive. Remember that Spammers siphon off addresses from “group” emails.

Beware of chain letters! Rumors, angel blessings, jokes, and please check out your facts before sending out again!
Break the cycle and check www.snopes.com first!!

Guess where else Spammers collect address? You got it- from all those relentless chain letters.

If any of these fall into a Spammers hand you can forget about avoiding bad luck, you just found it!         

 Instead of missing out on some great opportunity if you don’t forward a chain letter to ten of your friends, (thus giving out ten live addresses)
those annoying chain letters circulating the Internet could be cursing you with an Inbox stuffed with Spam!

Recently I had to create yet another email address for friends who insist on mass forwarding me and others every rumor.

Such as the one that said your cell phone number needs to go on the "do not call" list, (this is false)  mass prayers, chain letters, (where I surely should be dead by now for all the ones I have deleted!)  angel blessings , poems, jokes, cute photos of animals and children that come their way.

Check out common email ‘urban legends’ like this one first!!! 

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Thousand Dollar Bill from Microsoft or anywhere else!
Status:   False.

Origins:   No, you're not going to be receiving money, merchandise, or free trips from Bill Gates (or anyone else), no matter how many people you forward this message to. Tracing all recipients of an e-mail message is not yet technically possible, and even if it were, Bill Gates certainly wouldn't be testing software that performed such tracking by blindly sending messages out to the Internet with a promise of financial reward to the recipients.

First and foremost, e-mail tracking programs do not exist. That folks continue to fall for myriad varieties of these leg-pulls is in part attributable to netizens having caught so many references to these non-existent programs that the new hoax is able to continue building on an already partially-constructed platform of belief.

(As with every other technological issue, the statement "e-mail tracking programs do not exist" becomes less and less true every day. It is possible in some cases to determine who has read a particular mail message, but there is no method of doing so that will work with all the myriad of e-mail programs out there or keep track of who forwarded the message to whom.)

Once again, e-mail tracing programs do not exist. Any "get something free" come-on or "help a sick kid" appeal which specifies an invisible program is keeping track of who received an e-mail and who it was then sent to is a hoax. Any such note. No exceptions. Not even ones not yet listed on this page.

Likewise, missives which offer no explanation of how the e-mails are being tallied are also hoaxes. Unless you are e-mailing a copy to a central tabulating point every time something is forwarded on, nothing is being counted, traced, tracked, or any other verb that would result in you getting free cargo pants from the GAP or inspiring an unnamed millionaire to donate just a little bit more towards the care of an injured child.

With all that said, we can begin looking at the various forms this jape has so far taken. And it's going to be a long, strange journey indeed.

The following message began circulating on the Internet around 21 November 1997: ( and I just got this from someone Dec 2007!) 

• Never add your name to mass group mailings. 
• Never send out a group mailing with all your friends’ emails listed in the CC: at the  top.
• Respect others right to privacy by not giving out their email in mass emails
• If you find something worth passing on, something that good, email it to one person at a time using the BCC feature all email programs offer.

HOW TO USE BLIND CARBON COPY OR BCC

(directions for Microsoft Outlook)

To send an e-mail message

   1. On the toolbar, click the Create Mail button.
   2. In the To or Cc boxes, type the e-mail name of each recipient, separating names with a comma or a semicolon ( ; ).

      To add e-mail names from the Address Book, click the book icon in the New Message window next to To, Cc, and Bcc, and then select names.

 To use the BCC box, on the View Menu, select All Headers
   3. In the Subject box, type a message title.
   4. Type your message, and then click Send on the toolbar.

 This will allow you to still send your mass emails, while respecting the right to privacy and protecting all your recipients email addresses.

All my suggestions will certainly help protect you and cut down on your Spam. Unfortunately, Spammers are often criminals, and they are getting more sophisticated at finding ways into your Inbox

If you are still inundated with Spam, change your email address. Start over fresh, armed with this new prevention.

Be cautious when giving out your email address.

Email is a wonderful way to contact others and keep in touch. Be safe and enjoy!