Email security

This has been talked about many times, yet emails come through with a dozen or more email addresses in the heading. You can't believe how vulnerable you are making your contacts when you do this.

Do you wonder why you get viruses or excessive amounts of junk mail (Spam)? Every time you forward an e-mail there is information left over from the people who received the message before you and sent it to you, namely their e-mail addresses and names. As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses builds, and builds, and builds. All it takes is for some poor sap to get a virus, and his or her computer can send that virus to every e-mail address that has come across their computer. Or, someone can take all of those addresses and send junk mail to them or sell the addresses to spammers in the hope that you will go to the site and they will make five cents for each hit that they sell. All this because of that inconvenience over “5 cents” and because someone included visible e-mail addresses in their Forwarded message!

How do you stop it? Well, there are 4 things to do:

1. When you forward an e-mail, DELETE all of the other addresses that appear in the body of the message (at the top). You must click the "Forward" button first though; then you will have full editing capabilities for the body and headers of the message. For a professional result, this a great time to correct spelling and remove, those pesky "send this to 10 friends and your wish will come true" false promises.

2. Whenever you send an e-mail to more than one person, do not use the To: or Cc: options for adding e-mail addresses. Always use the BCC: (Blind Carbon Copy) option for listing the e-mail addresses of the folks you want to send the message to. This way the people you send to only see their own e-mail address and no one else's. If you don't see your BCC: option, click on where it says To: and your address list will appear. Highlight the address and choose BCC. This provides extra security and privacy to all the people in your address book.

3. Remove any "FW:" in the subject line. You can rename the subject if you wish or even correct spelling.

4. ALWAYS hit your Forward button from the actual e-mail you are reading. Ever get those e-mails that you have to open 20+ pages with many “Fw:” lines on them in order to read the one page with the information on it? By Forwarding from the actual final page you wish someone to view, you’re preventing their having to open multiple pages just to see what you sent. Many people will not open all those E-Mails for fear of getting a virus; so your message may go unread.

Please note that Bill Gates; MTN; VODACOM and the likes do not give away money; cell phones; etc just because you forwarded an email to everyone on your contact list! There is NO WAY that they track an email as it is forwarded by thousands of wishful thinkers around the world. Think about it: R100.00 to each who forwards an email would bankrupt even Bill Gates should he ever be foolish enough to promise this! The same applies to emails stating that if you send to a number of people within a few minutes of receiving the email you will have “good luck, receive an inheritance, receive a phone call with great news”. Likewise with the threat of bad luck should you not forward the email. It has never happened before and never will.

Have you ever received an email that is a petition? It states a position and asks you to add your name and address and to Forward it to a number of people or your entire Address Book. The email can be Forwarded on and on and can collect thousands of names and email addresses. The fact is that the completed petition is actually worth a couple of bucks to a professional spammer because of the wealth of valid names and email addresses contained therein. If you want to support the petition, send it as your own personal letter to the intended recipient(s). Your position may carry more weight as a personal letter than a laundry list of names and email address on a petition - and, again, you will protect the privacy of those in your address book and provide them additional security against viruses and spammers. Also, be aware, that the government (state, and local) and most legitimate organizations completely disregard email petitions. In order for a petition to have value and be acted upon, it is necessary to have live, verifiable signatures, usually with the signer’s legitimate mailing address.

So please, in the future, let's stop the junk mail and the viruses by working together and respecting the privacy and security of one another.