Janet Kaiser on wed 24 mar 04
A lot depends on both your ISP and your e-mail client, Rachel.
This is my personal "take" on the facts of life in cyberspace and
how I try to stay squeaky clean...
We all have to be aware that as soon as we go online, it is like
walking into a crowded room in a lot of mixed company. People you
know, people you don't, folk you heard about, others that are
frankly scary and you wish you were nowhere near!! And just like
you cannot do a lot to prevent breathing in their bugs and
viruses, you cannot actually prevent those viruses entering your
system. But there are some things you can do to prevent
developing those infections yourself and hence becoming a carrier
ready to infect everyone you come into contact with. From
irritating coughs & colds through to serious life threatening
disease... The latter is usually only going to be possible if you
get up really close and become very, very intimate with someone
already infected and infectious...
That is when all Mama's warnings apply to more than your social
intercourse! Now adhering to all the advice in those those
AIDS/HIV lectures really pays off... Yup, as soon as you get
down and dirty, you have to be protected in some way. That is
basically our "Anti-virus" software and it is not by some chance
that one of the major packages (Norton?) uses the term "immunize"
or "innoculate" when checking all the files on you hard drive
and/or any other drives/disks you set it up to check.
I think of each e-mail anyone opens as that silly childhood game:
"chicken". You really take a calculated risk each time you
download e-mail and then open each individual one (especially
using M$ Outlook or Outlook Express). The malware (let me use one
word for trojan + worm + virus + malicious code :o) attached to
an individual e-mail will already be on the hard drive, unless it
is not downloaded for one of several specific reasons...
For example, some ISPs delete buggy mail so you are not even
aware it was sent to you. You are very lucky if that is the case!
Some spam detecting programmes will necessarily prevent you
downloading the infected mail from an "unknown sender". That's
why the "spoofed" addresses from Clayart are an extra "threat",
because it can look like an infected mail came from a Clay
Chum... Perhaps one you never "talked" to before, but certainly a
familiar name.
There is also the possibility in some e-mail clients (=3D the
e-mail programme you are using) of blocking all mail over a
certain size from downloading to your PC. I can do that... Leave
mail over 5 or 10kB (for example) on my server and just be
informed it is there. "Bad Stuff" is generally going to be 20kB
or more, although I stay very aware that some malware writers out
there must have been victims of the dot.com crash. They must be,
because there is some good sophisticated coding going into this
shit!!
Anyway... Once my mail client informs me I have mail from
so-and-so and over so much size, I can then go into
www.mail2web.com and after entering my ISP, account name &
password it lists all my mail. Yes, I am checking out my mail in
my account on my server via a web site!! Scary stuff, isn't it?
(Do not ask me how that works, but just goes to show how
"accessible" any mail can be! No wonder e-mail gets
"leaked")!!!???
Anyway, that is just my strategy. I am sure there are others.
Indeed, you can change to having web-based mail and nothing
else... A Hotmail or Yahoo account.
My method is only really helpful if you do not expect to receive
too many bone fide images and/or documents and other stuff sent
as "attachments" from business partners or clients... Even then
it is an option because you can still download the whole e-mail
on demand... At least you can in my e-mail client and I think
Eudora and some others are just as versatile. They also show what
attachments are actually part of a mail, although I think this
wonderful feature of "delete attachment" is peculiar to
Calypso/Courier??
Yes, it has been a steep learning curve of recent years and it is
still advisable to be absolutely conversant with which files are
going to be a threat and which are probably benign. Seeing and
recognising the symptoms of a virus is part of the prevention as
well as the cure! Even then a healthy dose of cynicism is still
advisable. When a mail saying "check this fax" arrives and then
an attached .zip file opens when you click on it... Well, let us
just say that even if it came from the Pope, I would NOT TOUCH
that mail LET ALONE OPEN THAT ZIP FILE!!! Even or really in my
case *especially* from my best friends, because a couple are
definitely not to be trusted (one being far too nosy and "only
taking a peek" and another is too dumb to learn their lesson even
after being spanked several times! They both keep getting
infected... Either one or the other with each new wave!)
Anyway... Rachel... This will not reduce infected mail, but will
help keep you more "low profile" in cyberspace.... Change that
line "reply address" in your e-mail set-up tools > accounts >
properties. That way your e-mail address is not out for spambots
to harvest quite as much. It could also be that worms will
possibly currently send to you (instead of Clayart/Mel) when an
unanswered mail of yours is on an infected pc, just as when your
friends and family get infected and you become a major recipient
and therefore more likely to infect others! It only takes a
second through lack of attention, tiredness or distraction and
POW!! "You have the marmalade"
NOW: REALLY ON TOPIC... A BIT OF HISTORY FOR SALE...
Just read page 18 in The Independent Monday 22 March 2004, that
"Poole Pottery sells its history to safeguard firm's future". The
WHOLE ARCHIVE will be auctioned on March 31st! Of the three
illustrations in this article there is to most gorgeous little
model of a kiln with tiny pots and stuff inside! Sadly just black
and white... Made in 1973 marking the firm's centenary and
expected to fetch =A31,500 to =A32,000
Apparently Poole Pottery began in 1873 when Jesse Carter, a
builder's merchant and ironmonger bought T. W. Walker's Patent
Encaustic and Mosaic Ornamental Brink and Tile Manufactory. Seems
that Karen Ford (an artist) talked her husband into saving the
firm which was placed in administration because the previous
owners "took their eyes off the potter's wheel to concentrate on
property interests in the Dorset seaside town"..!!! Other
interested parties were only after buying the good name and, were
then going to relocate to the Far East...
With 70 jobs on the line, it is good to know that they may be
saved even if it is a shame that such a complete collection is
going to be split up... We are talking about a major maker here
with a huge comemorative and trinket production over 130
years!!... I bet the Christie's Catalogue is pretty good too...
May be a collector's item in itself...
Sincerely
Janet Kaiser
*** IN REPLY TO THE FOLLOWING MAIL:
>To everyone else, maybe someone can help me out because even
with all
>these options correctly set in Outlook Express, it doesn't
necessarily
>keep viruses from showing up. I can't figure this out myself.
They still
>are received when I check my mail. I don't have to open them and
they do
>get blocked and quarantined by my antivirus program, but almost
every day
>I am getting an attempted virus email. How do I stop that? How
do I block
>them from even getting downloaded on my server. I can't block
the sender
>or any keywords because they are totally random everytime. I use
Norton
>and if anyone can help me out I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks for
>any help.
>Rachel
*** THE MAIL FROM S.E.W. ENDS HERE ***
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