Maurice Weitman on wed 10 sep 03
At 7:45 PM -0400 on 9/10/03, Lois Ruben Aronow wrote:
>I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If you have a web site,
>or subscribe to a public group, such as Clayart, you will get these
>emails.
>
>There are computers who troll the internet looking for email
>addresses. These addresses, in turn, are added to mailing lists,
>sold, and the rest is in your mailbox.
Hi, Lois,
There are simple ways to avoid much of this. On most web pages I
code, I have used ascii codes in names and/or email addresses in the
place of some or all of the letters.
For instance, most 'bots look for at signs and periods/dots in the
same word. Changing dots to "." and at signs to "@" in your
page's HTML will display the address properly on the page, but
obscure the fact that it's an address. They also look for other
tags, such as "mailto" so I change that HTML command to "mailto:"
Although it's certainly possible that there are some 'bots that look
for these as well as the plain text, I can say that I get very little
spam to addresses on my web pages that are encoded that way.
As for our addresses being placed on the web through the clayart
archives, well, yeah, that's regrettable and quite a nuisance.
That's why I use momud1 instead of my "real" address. When momud1
gets on too many spam lists, I'll change it to momud2, etc. You and
others who have your own domains can do the same, or one may choose
to use one of the free accounts, like yahoo, hotmail, etc., or
sneakemail.com, which I use for many online stores, usenet postings,
and other lists.
I've written to Mel mentioning this and other concerns I had about
our archives and the list, but haven't heard back from him.
Regards,
Maurice
Dupre CTR Marcy M on wed 10 sep 03
Yep. Near 'bout five or six times a day, I have won some lottery somewhere,
or I am suddenly the most trusted best buddy of some guy I have never heard
of, who wants to give me $$$BIG$$$ bucks for letting me be the intermediary
for his/her finances.
If Nigeria had 1/10th the money these people want to get out of the country,
they would have none of their current problems. The United States would be
going to them for loans...
There's also the "Have a computer? Put it to work!" folks who want you to be
"in on the ground floor" of an entirely new enterprise. "NOT A SCAM" they
say, just bring ten friends and your application fee is waived.
Sadly enough, there are people who mean well, who fall for this stuff every
day. That's how the spammers and scammers stay in business. Don't try to
back-track through their electronic trails and catch them, either. Because
I work on a military base, through military firewalls, and run regular
(daily) security checks, we get weekly briefings on the latest and greatest
scams and schemes out there.
There are new "data harvesting" hacks that are so sophisticated, you will
not--under "normal" circumstances--know they are there. If your system
accepts an email, this little attachment nestles itself on your system, and
every time you order something from an on-line company, every time you pay a
bill electronically, every time you use you bank account number or credit
account number, this little electronic spy sends the information to his
owner in an encrypted, compressed data packet. Takes about a hundredth of a
second for a "data squirt."
My wife and I have cancelled all our on-line purchases (with the possible
exception of Amazon), closed out all out PayPal and EBay accounts, and will
not do any on-line banking. Call me paranoid, if you wish.
Then come sit in with me for one of the weekly briefings. This is another
form of warfare. No one dies, they just get financially ruined and their
identity is stolen.
We all would like the world to be a better place to live. Sadly, it is not.
With every advance in technology, there come new advantages and new problems
with technological abuses.
Be safe, be careful, be certain,
Tig
in Springfield, VA
Lois Ruben Aronow on wed 10 sep 03
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If you have a web site,
or subscribe to a public group, such as Clayart, you will get these
emails.
There are computers who troll the internet looking for email
addresses. These addresses, in turn, are added to mailing lists,
sold, and the rest is in your mailbox.
As of today, my web counter shows 35 visits from the country of Niger.
that is more than Australia or singapore or japan......
So do you think there are that many potters in Niger interested in my
work? No way. They have trolled my web site, found my email address
(which, by the way, isn't posted, but linked to. =20
So I have won the lottery, called for to aid nigerian widows, I can be
bigger, harder, and last loner, and have 100s of women wanting me.
(Yep, got that one this morning). My husband, who uses his computer
only to do internet banking and order from amazon (and look at my web
site) gets almost no spam.
>Yep. Near 'bout five or six times a day, I have won some lottery =
somewhere,
>or I am suddenly the most trusted best buddy of some guy I have never =
heard
>of, who wants to give me $$$BIG$$$ bucks for letting me be the =
intermediary
>for his/her finances.
>
************
www.loisaronow.com
=46ine Craft Porcelain and Pottery
New Work for Summer 2003
New Show and Retail information
| |
|
