Computer and E-Mail Smarts

In this high tech’ age of communication computers are as close to a necessity as you can get, yet those reluctant to own one are resistant, because of the fear of the unknown. The more we can enlighten the reluctant and the fearless, the safer we all become on-line.  One does not have to be a computer wiz, genius, geek, nerd, or whatever you prefer to call them.  One just needs to be aware and conscious of the hazards awaiting today’s electronic communications systems.  Computer users who do not take the precautions to protect, or think they have protected themselves are most likely to be responsible for spread viruses and Trojan worms without even knowing they are doing so.  They are a threat to the most sophisticated computer user. The worst of it is that they don’t care, until their computer crashes and they don’t know why.  Of course I know a number of people who just go out and buy another computer when that happens — attributing the problem to the age of the computer. After all, it’s easier to buy a new computer than to figure out how to protect the one you have? …If you know someone like that, do yourself a favor, tell them to not send you e-mail or set your e-mail to block anything you might get from that person.  We need to become more considerate of those we communicate with on-line.  We like hearing from our friends and relatives and in many cases use our e-mail to communicate with those we do business with.  Some of the things we can do to make our e-mail experience more enjoyable for both the sender and receiver are:

• Read what you forward to others.  Many people don’t bother to read the e-mail they receive before forwarding.  If it is something you don’t care to read, what makes you think someone else wants to read it. 
• Highlight and delete multiple headers (the block of e-mail addresses at the top of the e-mail) No one wants to have to scroll through a thousand e-mail addresses before they get to the content of the e-mail.  This is especially annoying to someone who is extremely busy with little time for meaningless e-mails.  Retiree’s have a tendency to think everyone has as much time on their hands as they do, (I’m guilty – but I’m getting better). 
• Don’t forward a dozen e-mails at a time, especially if they have been forwarded multiple times before.  If the receiver is using a secure e-mail server, he/she must open each forward individually – needless to say it takes time to do so.  E-mail servers only check the first forward for viruses, if yours opens e-mail regardless of the number of forwards – its not a secure server. 
  • It’s the un-secure email servers and those who go on to open the second (unchecked) forward that allow viruses and Trojan worms to be forwarded to the recipients of the supposedly innocent e-mail. Contrary to belief, one does not have to open an attachment to be infected; all you need do is open the e-mail. 
• Don’t send frivolous e-mail to a person’s work, or military e-mail.  Most business e-mails do not allow e-mail with attachments any way.  But sending e-mail to a buddy at work, is costly and time consuming for the company.  Reading and answering frivolous e-mail by employees costs companies hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.  This additional cost is passed on to the consumer. 
• Don’t open e-mails with executable (files followed by “.exe”, “.com”, “bat”, etc., attachments, unless you absolutely know who they are from.  It has become extremely popular to forward movie clips, (.mov) and Microsoft Power Point Presentation files, (*.PPD, *.PPS, etc.), and Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Files,(“*.PDF”) files.  These could be potentially dangerous and contain very damaging viruses. They can contain “macro’s”, (self running files with in a file). If this happens, you usually can’t shut the machine down fast enough to stop the damage from destroying your computer.  Many viruses will wipe out the “boot sector” of the hard-drive, causing you to have to replace the drive or at the very least re-format and start from scratch.  That’s if you are lucky.  In other cases, the virus will over write the BIOS,and you won’t even know until the next time you try to boot up the computer.  The BIOS (Basic Input Output System) which runs the boot-up instruction sequence to start the computer.  Once booted, the BIOS usually is no longer needed and the destructive virus will not be noticed until the user attempts to boot the computer and nothing happens.  This problem cannot be corrected easily as the BIOS will vary from machine to machine and without the BIOS ID number you usually can’t even buy a new CMOS chip. (The chip the BIOS is burned onto).  
• Don’t forward e-mails designed to embarass or shame people into forwarding to um-teen people.  This type of e-mail is designed to collect e-mail addresses for devious reasons, such as identity theft or to be sold to and used by spammers.  They are usually in the form of petitions, (which are not legal or acceptable without a signed signature), or religious e-mail that look innocent and are nice to get, but can be the worst type to forward.  If you feel a need to forward, be sure to remove all the headers and DON’T return to sender.  There is a good chance the senders computer has a tracking cookie which is tracking and recording the information.  Most household computers are connected to the internet by cable, or DSL modem and are on-line as soon as they boot up.  You don’t need to be signed in for this information to be collected and transfered.  I love Jesus, but I believe Jesus will forgive us if we don’t forward these e-mails.  That is not what he meant by “If you deny me before man, I will deny you before My Father.”  My sister believes me to be a heathen, but I refuse to forward these.
• Don’t forward duplicate e-mails.  If you are on the same e-mail list of a mutual friend or relative, don’t send an e-mail you know you got from one mutual e-mail buddy and send it to another that person has already sent it to.  A quick scan of the header will devulge this information. 

The name of the game is “Common Sense” and “Courtesy”, be aware and weary when on-line.  There are thousands of hackers out there just waiting to crack your I.D.  And, it seems we are more than willing to accommodate them. 

When doing business on-line: 

• Make sure your anti-virus/spyware definition files are up to date before doing any business on-line. 
• Assume someone is looking over your shoulder. (If your machine is infected, the “spybot”, (robot spy software), may be recording and sending every keystroke you are typing.  Spybots, are tiny programs usually placed in a small hidden partition created by a virus.  In some cases, it will continue to run, even after you have found and eliminated the virus which might be located in the main partition of your hard-drive. 
• Look for the little lock icon in the lower right hand corner of the screen, and look for the “s” in the hyper-text link in the address bar at the top of your browser.  I.e.: “https//” (secured) vs “http://” (not secured).  Do this before you send any information via the internet.  
• Know who you are giving your personal information to over the internet.  
  • Protect yourself.  Pick and use a credit card for your on-line purchases.  Determine the maximum amount you will ever charge for on-line purchases and have your bank limit the maximum allowable amount to charge on that card to that amount.  They may have a bottom limit, if so limit it to the least amount they allow. 
  • You can also purchase limited debit (gift) card, which can be purchased at most department stores.  The cash can be replenished on them and they work the same as a credit/debit card except you don’t receive a monthly invoice.  
    • There are some precautions you must take when purchasing these cards.  If they are hanging on a rack in the open, there are recorded incidents where people who have received them, find it has already been used when the go to use it.  Devious persons have been known to record the numbers and monitor them on-line.  When they see the card has been activated, they will make a charge on-line and have it delivered to an address they can easily recover it from.  They know who is working and not home during the day, or it might be an unsuspecting neighbor who trusts them, and has their packages delivered to the perpetrators home, etc. Just be aware and careful.

Courtesy and common sense go along way.  Be considerate of to those you communicate with and make them aware of the hazards they may not be familiar with as well.  Use common sense when browsing the internet and doing business on the net.  And get into the habit of deleting e-mail headers.

Good luck & Keep safe