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Generally speaking, a text-only e-mail message won’t include a virus.
Any downloadable files (including document files) attached to the message,
however, are another matter. Avoid using an attachment if it can
be included in the body of a message. Be aware that the "Warning:
Such and Such is a virus e-mail" messages going around on the Internet
are usually hoaxes. These messages are designed to scare people.
Clicking underlined Internet link text inside an e-mail message can lead
you to a Web site designed to install a Trojan Horse on your system.
Never visit a link in an e-mail message unless you know the person who
sent the e-mail. In writing e-mail messages, one should use common
sense. For example, use clear subject lines that relate to the message.
It’s acceptable protocol to change a subject line as a means of indicating
it is being responded to by a recipient. You should cover only one
topic per e-mail, because no one likes reading long messages.
Attachments
If you get an e-mail message from anyone with an attachment ending in .js, .jse, .vbs, .scr, shs, .shb, .exe, .com, .bat, .scr, .pif, or .vbs, just delete it. You risk acquiring a virus by opening any of these attachments. However, if you just must open one of these attachments (or any other), download it to a floppy disk and then use your anti-virus software to scan the disk for a virus. If you want to send large files as attachments, check out Yahoo’s Briefcase online service. It’s a handy, free way to move and store up to 30 MB of data. Just upload files into your briefcase, and then use the service to send your e-mail message with a link to the file. No single file can be larger than 5 MB. Virus programmers will often attempt to disguise their programs as another file by naming it something like wacky.jpg.vbs. When opening the attachment in Windows, you’ll see the wacky.jpg, but the .vbs extension, is omitted. Such a file extension could be dangerous to your system if it's a virus or a worm. If you ever see a file attachment that has an icon that looks like a light blue 'S', do NOT open it. Microsoft, in an attempt to make their products more friendly, has the default for double-clicking an e-mail attachment as an 'OPEN' command. You can add a layer of security by changing this default to an 'EDIT' command. With WinMe go to the Control Panel and select the Folder Options icon. Now, select the File Types tab, and a small flashlight will appear. When the files are displayed, find one with one of the aforementioned extensions, select it, and click the Advanced tab. Next highlight Edit and press the Set Default button. With Win95/98 go to an Explorer window and select View, then Folder Options. Click the Files tab and scroll through the file types. You will see the extensions in the small window at the bottom. When you find a file with one of the extensions, click Edit, select Edit from within the Actions list, and click the Default button.
Address Finder
MESA is an acronym for Meta Email Search Agent, described as "the largest e-mail address book worldwide." The next time you're trying to locate someone's e-mail address, try it. Mesa will do the search through Yahoo, Bigfoot, IAF, Populus, Suchen.de, and WhoWhere.
AOL Instant Messenger
To save messages/conversations you’ve had with friends or family members,
click File in the chat window and then Save. Name the file and choose
a file format. If you choose AOL Rich Text format, you can view the
file through your Internet browser. If you want to view the file
in a text editor, choose Text Only and save it in a folder such as My Documents.
Blind Carbon Copy (BCC)
One of the big problems with group e-mails is getting people to respond
to them. If you send an e-mail to 40 people, most won't respond to
it. Studies show that people are much more responsive if they think
they were the only ones queried by your message. There's a way to
obtain more responses. The key is the BCC line in the address portion of
your e-mail. BCC means "blind carbon copy." Anyone whose address
is put there will only see the address in the To line. To send a
note to a bunch of people, you put your address in the To line. Then
list all recipients in BCC. Each recipient sees your address in the To
and From lines. There is no evidence on the e-mail that it went out to
other people. This is the best way to forward jokes, stories, poems,
etc. All e-mail programs have a BCC options. In Outlook, if BCC isn't
showing, create a message, and from the View menu, click BCC Field.
In Outlook Express, click View, All Headers. In Netscape, click the
To button, then double-click BCC. In AOL, put the BCC addresses in
the Copy To box, using parentheses. BCC is available in Eudora, Hotmail,
and Yahoo in the new message window.
Contact Information
If it's important for the recipient of an e-mail to ever get in contact
with you, be sure to include your name, e-mail address, and other pertinent
contact information at the bottom of the message sent to them. You
should not rely on the e-mail address that appears at the top or bottom
on most e-mail messages. You never know what e-mail program your
recipient may be using or what special setting he or she may have in place.
Some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) strip return information out of
your e-mail. To protect yourself from missed replies, you should
always include your phone number, home or office address, if appropriate,
and e-mail address at the end of your important messages.
E-mail Access
If you have 2 or more e-mail accounts and want to access them when on the road, check out Mail2Web which is a free service that allows access to various e-mail accounts. For more features try MailStart. It allows you to check five e-mail accounts, stores up to 20 MBs of files, maintains an address book, and provides a calendar and bookmark all for $15 per year.
When reading through a lot of online forums, you’ll probably notice some users employ clever tricks to hide their true e-mail addresses from spammers. You can use the same tactics to help protect your e-mail address. For instance, if your e-mail address is smith06@isp.com, you might want to enter your e-mail address as smithDELETE06@isp.com. It should be clear to most users that they should remove DELETE and ERASE when emailing you, but spammers will record the address as smithdelete06@isp.com.
E-mail Address Finders
If you don’t know the e-mail address of someone, there’s a good chance it can be found at one of the following e-mail address directories:
There are also places where you can type in an e-mail address and check its validity. Before you type a long note or message only to have it returned to you because the address was invalid, use one of the sites below: <http://www.addresses.com/email_verify.php> and
<http://www.server2.com/Tools/ValidateEmail.asp>.
E-mail Address Encoders
Hiveware’s Enkoder Form 5.1 and WillMaster Possibilities’ Advanced Email Link Generator With Advanced Anti-SpamEncoder are both free services that will generate the code required to mask your e-mail address from harvesters. These people use special software to copy your e-mail address from your Web page and target it for future spam messages.
E-mail Decode
Spam is a troublesome problem for all computer users. To combat it, users should report the spam to the offender’s ISP. Spammers forge e-mail messages to make this task difficult for most people. Nonetheless one can still access the pertinent information to pass along to their ISP. To determine the origin of an e-mail message, you must view the full header. Using Outlook Express as an example, right-click on the message, choose Properties, click on the Details tab, and then click on the message Source button. To learn how to view full headers with other e-mail clients, visit spamcop.net. The Received: block and the Message-ID: are the most difficult lines to forge for the spammer because they are added after a spam message leaves the offender’s computer. These sections contain clues to the message’s source. On an unforged message, the Message-ID: line is added by the mail server that sends out the message. It usually ends with @ and the domain of the sender. When the domain names in these two fields don’t match, it’s a sign that the sender is trying to remain anonymous. Every computer message passes through three machines, the senders’s, sending mail server, and the recipient’s mail serve, and each adds a Received: line. Because the Received: lines reveal exactly where a message has been, spammers sometimes try to confuse matters by adding fake Received: lines to their messages. Any forged Received: lines appear at the bottom of the list. The server name in the from clause of the Received: line can be forged very easily by the spammer. Receiving mail servers can check the true identity through reverse Domain Name Server, which shows the sending server’s IP address. Now you can look up the IP address of the named server to see whether the data in the headers is accurate or has been forged by the spammer. To find the domain name associated with the IP address, you’ll need a whois utility. There are three whois databases to check for different parts of the world. A search at Geektools checks all three. Often, companies send out spam in this business. You therefore may need to visit its web site. In this case you will need to use traceroute utility to find the next service provider up the chain to send your complaint to. A good traceroute utility is samspade. Since this effort is not a particularly easy one, you want someone else to do all of this legwork. If that’s the case, then sign up for SpamCop’s free reporting service.
Finally, beware that you may receive some questionable e-mail messages
from “doofuses” using decent imitations of pages from AOL, EarthLink, EBay,
Yahoo, and other well-known ISPs. These messages will be asking you
for credit card numbers and passwords. These e-mail impersonators are trying
to take advantage of you so they can steal your identities. When
it comes to e-mail messages, be safe rather than sorry.
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