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'R.D.D.'
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irates eat Spam.
This month issue dedicated to avoiding piracy and junk email. If you
use your computer to access the internet for browsing or email for any length of
time you likely have been exposed to some sort of virus or worm and more likely
a heaping serving of spam email.
Pirates: Are ye one? I tend to use and recommend open
source freely distributable software programs and utilities - because I am cheap
and yet fairly honest. Often I am asked to repair a computer system where the
users mysteriously have no idea where the original disks are for pricey software
like Windows 2000 or Microsoft Office Pro or even relatively inexpensive
utilities like Norton Antivirus. In a situation like this I am of no help. All I
can suggest is that the piratees or piraters go out and acquire the missing
software disks for themselves before I can fix the hardware. Some of these
clients are unaware they have started wearing eyepatches. They otherwise
consider themselves upstanding law abiding citizens and of course, occasionally
sometimes original software disks are misplaced or lost, but usually the
piratees end up admitting that some friend or relative computer geek did them a
favor and updated the computer for them. All this puts them or their company at
risk of contracting viruses and worms or losing valuable information to spyware
or even of being ratted out by a unhappy former employees or competitors and
possibly sued by some big software company.
See also:
Spam: In the old days it was something of a status
symbol to get lots of email. It meant that you were popular and in the loop. Not
so today. How many of those emails are from valid customers or friends or
relatives? My current situation is maybe 1 or 2 of 100 good emails show up
in my basket. On November 19, 2003 Telus implemented a new Spam Filter feature
for all email users with them. By default the email is scanned and flagged with
'Telus detected Spam' in the first part of the email subject. If you desire you
can log onto your account online www.telus.net/youraccount.html
with your user id (i.e. the part of your email before the @ symbol) and
current password. Click on email 'Options' and then 'Spam Control'. You then are
given 3 options:' On - Tag' (default), 'On - Delete', or 'Off'. If you set your
account to 'On - Delete' the system detects and erradicates known junk
email before it even hits your inbox. Cudo's!
Another approach. With your standard Telus ADSL account you are
given up to 3 email accounts. With other ISPs you can purchase additional email
accounts or you can set up a free hotmail or yahoo email account (ask you kids
how). Most people only use the main account set up for them at
installation. I suggest you set up three - say the first for general junk,
the second for family only, and the third for your hobby or home business. Only
give the private email addresses out to trusted friends and family. Reserve the
first email account for the rest of the public. Never post your private email
accounts to websites or user groups for email lists. Give out the main public
one on registration forms and websites. It then gets all the junk and the good
stuff comes straight to your private email accounts. If you are serious about
spam, you can keep your main public email account and change the private email
accounts from time to time (say once a year on New Years Eve?). If your friends
can't get you on the current private email, they can send a request on the
public email to find out the current private email address.
What to do, what to do? I recommend PURCHASING and installing your own
Norton Anti-virus
(just remember to turn on the automatic virus definition updates and you are set
for the year), but consider also some of my other favorites (because they are
useful and hey .. free!). Merry Christmas!
- AVG 6.0 Anti-Virus System - free to single-computer home and office users.
Download from www.grisoft.com.
- ZoneAlarm free firewall - provides solid PC protection for the
non-commercial home user. Basically, it sits between your computer and the
internet connection and blocks attempts by programs (out there or on your
computer) to get information from your PC. It's free for personal and
non-profit use (excluding government and educational entities). See www.zonelabs.com.
- Ad-aware - Free scanner for Scum-ware/Spy-ware. Go to www.downloads.com
and do search for 'ad-aware'. I also like SpyBot Search & Destroy which
does basically the same thing. I use both to be thorough. Search for 'spybot'.
- Popfile (open source email analyzer) train the program over time to detect
what you consider good and bad email. See popfile.sourceforge.net
for documentation on obtaining and installing the program.
- Mailwasher (freeware - see www.mailwasher.net
) accesses your POP3 email account directly to identify and (optionally)
automatically delete identified spam email from your account. It works using
lists of known email spammers along with user customizable include/exclude
keywords. However, free version only works with Windows and standard email
accounts .. i.e. not on your Hotmail or other free html based email accounts.
- Although the download can take a bit of time, the Symantec (Norton)
AntiVirus website also provides a free web-based version of their virus
scanner. Check out www.sarc.com
and click on the link for 'Free Security and Virus check'. Works best on
high-speed connections.
Enjoy.
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