great lessons on e-mail, viruses, etc.

great lessons on e-mail, viruses, etc.

A friend who is a computer expert received the following directly from a system administrator for a corporate system.  It is an excellent message that absolutely applies to ALL of us who send e-mails.  Please read the short letter below, even if you think you already follow proper procedures

Do you really know how to forward e-mails?  50% of us do; 50% DO NOT.
Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail?  Do you hate it?  Every time you forward an e-mail, there is information left over from the people who got the message before you, namely their e-mail addresses and names.  As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses builds, and builds, and builds, and 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 his computer. 

Or, someone can take all of those addresses and sell them or send junk mail to them in the hopes that you will go to the site and he will make five cents for each hit.  That's right, all of that inconvenience over a nickel!  How do you stop it?  Well, there are several easy steps:

(1)  When you forward an e-mail, DELETE all of the other addresses that appear in the body of the message (at the top).  That's right, DELETE them.  Highlight them and delete them, backspace them, cut them, whatever it is you know how to do.  It only takes a second. 

To begin forwarding something, you MUST FIRST click the "Forward" button, and then you will have full editing capabilities to remove the many addresses, headers, footers and other junk appearing on the message.  If you don't click on "Forward" first, you won't be able to edit the message at all.

(2)  Whenever you send an e-mail to more than one person, do NOT use the To: or Cc: field s for adding e-mail addresses.  Always use the BCC:(blind carbon copy) field for listing the e-mail addresses.   This way the people you send to will only see their own e-mail address.  If you don't see your BCC: after you have clicked 'forward'....click on the view on the top toolbar - then "all headers"  The BCC: will appear for you and that's it, it's that easy.  When you send to BCC: your message will automatically say "Undisclosed Recipients in the "TO:" field of the people who receive it.

(3)Remove any "FW :" in the subject line.  You can re-name the subject if you wish or even fix spelling.

(4)  ALWAYS hit your Forward button from the actual e-mail you are reading - do NOT go back to the first screen you viewed . Ever get those e-mails that you have to open 10 pages to read the one page with the information on it?   By Forwarding from the actual page you wish someone to view, you stop them from having to open many e-mails just to see what you sent.

(5)  Have you ever gotten an e-mail that is a petition?  It states a position and asks you to add your name and address and to forward it to 10 or 15 people or your entire address book.  The e-mail can be forwarded on and on and can collect thousands of names and e-mail addresses. on its various branches (you sent it off in a dozen directions, remember?)  A FACT: The petition is actually worth a couple of bucks to a professional spammer because of the wealth of valid names and e-mail addresses contained therein.  A FACT: If you want to support the TOPIC of the petition, send it as your own personal letter to the intended recipient. A FACT: Your position WIll carry more weight as a personal letter to your congressman/congresswoman/representative than a laundry list of names and email address on a email. A FACT: Petitions of this type are of no value to the congress or organization without a personal SIGNATURE (not a typed name) and address, city, state, zip, and often a phone number. (Actually, if you think about it, who's supposed to send the petition in to whatever cause it supports?  And if there is somewhere to send it, it most likely is not a valid email address anyway. Also, there are so many 'branches' of the email floating around with many of the same names on them, which would immediately make them INVALID and of NO VALUE anyway. You may sign a petition for a single cause just ONCE and be counted but ONCE..And don't believe the ones that say that the e-mail is being traced.  It just ain't so! You can verify this by searching for "Petitions" at www.snopes.com 

Some of the other e-mails I hate include:

1. The one that says something like, "Send this e-mail to 10 people and you'll see something great run across your screen."  Or sometimes they'll just tease you by saying 'something really cute will happen'  IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN!!!!!  (Trust me, I'm still seeing some of the same e-mails that I waited for 10 years ago!)  

2.  I don't let the bad luck ones scare me either  They get trashed. 

3.  Before you forward an 'Amber Alert', or a 'Virus Alert', or some of the other e-mails floating around nowadays, check them out before you forward them.  Most of them are junk mail that's been circling the net for YEARS!  Just about everything you receive in an e-mail that is in question can be checked out at Snopes.  Just go to www.snopes.com .  It's really easy to find out if it's real or not.  If it's not, please don't pass it on.

So please, in the future, let's stop the junk mail and the viruses.

Finally, here's an idea!!!  Let's send this to everyone we know (but strip my address off first, please) using the BCC address field.  This is something that SHOULD be forwarded, so do it.  Thanks!

PS ~ Don't forget to delete the junk and promotional stuff at the bottom of the message added on my someone's server, but leave the verification that it has been scanned by your system and is virus-free.