Please could I bend your ears
I have a lot of you lovely feckers on my e-mail contact list and I'm sure you all have a chunky address book too.
So Protect It! Pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
In recent weeks, I have been receiving lots of SPAM mail from those of you who haven't changed your account password since you set up the account. I know - it's a pain thinking up some fresh new 'private' word which you will instantly forget because you let the browser sign you in 'automatically'.
But this is a serious issue - when a hacker gets a hold of your password - they can make a dog's dinner of your account - and it's legally your responsibility for whatever they get up to - in your name. So all those chain-mail letters begging you to
- free up locked away funds in Ghana-based banks,
- order all those 'member enhancing' drugs online,
- spend a week e-mailing the letter on to everyone in your address-book so you get a free camera/laptop/holiday in Florida
are YOUR Responsibility - even though it was a viral infection of your account that already sent a duplicate of itself to EVERYONE in your address-book already!!!!
Needless to say - the reason the net resources sometimes are so slow you could ride bare-ars*d to London faster than get an e-mail from someone in your own home-town is because of the infestation of SPAM mails making the rounds of the web time-and-time-again!!!
SAFE PRACTICE Recommendations are:
1] Change your password regularly - at least every three months, or if you do as much mailing as me - every month!!
2] Never use the same password a second time around - always start with a 'clean' new combination of Upper-case ; Lower-case and numbers - to construct your new password.
Very few special characters are allowed in addys - such as the underscore and the hyphen .
3] Try to think of something that is NOT:
- including your name/username/nickname/pet-name
- or has your date of birth included
- is obvious to someone who has slight or limited knowledge about your life and habits
If it's too relevant to yourself, others can use the information for nefarious purposes with little or nothing you can do about it.
4] It's also important that, if your mail service uses 'Security Questions' to confirm that you are actually the original account holder, that you change these questions at the same time as you change your account password. Otherwise, the SPAMmers change these when they take over your account, and prevent you getting back into it. Never save e-mails in your account that are from important business connections - copy and paste the content to a Word document and save that elsewhere on your PC then delete the e-mails. SPAMmers can gain access to your account details for almost anywhere if they take over your e-mail account.
5] Whenever you receive a SPAM mail - even if it purports to come from someone you'd ordinarily trust - use your browser's 'Junk' / 'Phishing' facility to mark the mail as SPAM - then it will help reduce the amount that gets passed around. Delete the person's e-mail addy from your addressbook or their infected addy will continue to send on SPAM ad-infinitum until they regain control of their account. Closing the account does not stop the SPAM either.
6] If you receive any mail with links in it - make sure it's something you trust or don't click on it. Your bank/business accounts would never send you mails asking you for passwords/ID verification online - so if in doubt - DELETE IT and report it to the relevant body concerned.
Protect yourself
Protect your friends
Protect your database
Here Endeth the Lesson
Join the most popular community of Irish swingers now
Login
E-mail SPAM - help to stem the flow .. .. ..
I get about 20 emails a week from a friend of mine and each one of them has a link to some online drugs store. Now he isnt actually sending them to me, and he hasnt a clue about how they are being sent from his email account, but Marie what you say above sounds like he's been hacked. I'll tell him about what Ive learned from your post, but the thing is he's a little hands on and would ask where I seen this advice on the web, as he would like to read it himself. That leaves me in a bit of a quandry, cos I cant tell him I seen it on a swing site 
Great post Marie as usual :thumbup:
Great post Marie as usual :thumbup: Awhhhh AliColWic :giggle:
I feel your quandry :giggle:
... and when I stopped giggling, I figured that if you tell your friend that you've had advice from 'techy whizz-kids' at work/college/your bank etc - then he'd not enquire further on your sources.
I'll put the Undertaker on Standby for when your enbarrassment gets the better of you :giggle:
I feel your quandry :giggle:
... and when I stopped giggling, I figured that if you tell your friend that you've had advice from 'techy whizz-kids' at work/college/your bank etc - then he'd not enquire further on your sources.
I'll put the Undertaker on Standby for when your enbarrassment gets the better of you :giggle:
Marie,
All that advice you gave is sound and definitely a good idea but spam email may not be from the person it appears to be. It's really easy to make an email appear to come from whomever you want.
If their account was hacked then unfortunately you're on a spam list and it's very hard to get off it :sad:
