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Re: "Pass It Along" letters

At 02:56 PM 6/29/2003 -0700, you wrote:

   I learned something yesterday that surprised me and is worth passing
along.  When you get one of those letters that tells you to  you pass it
along to ten people,  you should know that if it's in HTML, with fancy fonts
and little pictures and such,  many such letters have code embedded in them
that collects the addresses of the people who get the letter and sends them
to a spammer.  You can avoid it by converting the letter to plain text, and
elminate any attachments with it.

Actually, you can avoid the entire problem by *NOT* passing along email. IMHO "passing along" is the equivalent of snailmail chain letters and is simply spam. Given the concern that the majority of email is spam - and this costs each and every one of us real money btw - why people pass this stuff along is beyond me. Now - before anybody points out the "righteous" uses of these notes for political or other social action uses or because they are "cute", I understand the point. Spam however is spam and unwanted or unasked for email qualifies as such.

As a helpful note, for folks who might have received this kind of software or cookie intrusion (and most have - they just don't know it) I'd suggest just about anybody would benefit from going to http://spybot.eon.net.au/ and downloading the little bit of software there. This Spybot software identifies the spyware on your system and gives you the chance of removing it. There are different types of "harvesters" that not only can obtain your email addresses but can also collect passwords and usernames as well.

I'm super careful - some would say paranoid - in my collection/downloading of software or email attachments with BlackIce and Norton running to protect my system. As my living depends on keeping my computers clean I do my best. Spybot still found 7 "suspicious" intruders on my system that I had unknowingly collected from websites as cookies that would pass along real data not simply act as a gatekeeper/recorder. Spybot cleaned my system as well as innoculated it against other attempts (some 150 different types of data collection programmes exist) to collect data. If you tend to open attachments or html emails from unknown addresses then this programme might be even more valuable for you.

And don't contribute to Internet chaff by refusing to pass along stuff. :-)

Doug


Doug Green,

Your gardening questions answered http://www.gardening-tips-perennials.com
Syndicated gardening columnist, award-winning author


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