Lately I've received spam with the following text: Ordinarily, I just delete spam, but it seems that I've received a greater quantity lately, and it carries this "opt-out" paragraph. Should I follow the link to get off the mailing lists? Or am I just confirming that my email address is valid?
No. If you put your cursor over the link, look down at the bottom left of your screen. You will see the link address listed down there. In almost all cases, the URL listed there will be a series of numbers instead of the real URL that the Bank or Credit Card company would have. Spam like the ones from a Bank or "your" Credit Card company, will take you to a sniffing site that then re-directs you to either the real Bank or CC site, or one built to look just like it. When you enter any personal info, the sniffing site that you went to first then records the info that you type in on the "real" site. Ask yourself this first. How did this "organization" get your email address in the first place? They didnt unless you went to that "organization" first, and enter info there.
Correct! If you use the "opt out" then you'll find that the amount of SPAM you receive will definitely increase. Something else to consider - a large percentage of SPAM e-mail is sent in HTML format. JUST BY OPENING many of these messages, you are confirming that they have reached a valid address, thus once again increasing the amount of SPAM you receive. This is done by coding the e-mail message so that upon opening, it retrieves graphic images from a web server, and in doing so confirms that your address is valid. If you use Outlook it is a good idea to NOT USE the message preview pane. Although it may be convenient, it is also automatically opening these types of messages and increasing your chances of receiving SPAM.
I've never gone to any sites associated with the spam I'm receiving. And I've always recognized those Bank/Credit Card company emails as fraudulent and have always deleted them immediately. I do participate in professional and volunteer organizations that post newsletters and meeting minutes on the web and also send out bulletins to members. I suspect that is where my email address got out. Oh, and some other person has an email address just one digit off from mine, and I frequently get email from stuff she signs up for. That may be the leak.
Entertained. It has always been recommended NOT to use the preview pane. On a rare occasion you could receive an email with an embedded script that your computer might automatically launch. That said, if you use virus scan, firewalls, and spyware detection, and keep everything updated you should be ok. Just remember there is a rare chance of something slipping by all those detections. My recommend would be to make sure your anti virus scans your email and you have some sort of spam blocker...just an added level of security. Good Luck. :roll:
I'd suggest trying Thunderbird. It's the closest thing to Outlook and it prevents things in the preview pane, like images from being accessed unless you click on a button on your pane. Same people that are working on FireFox are helping on this. http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/
Crzy~ We run Mozilla and my husband runs Thunderbird. Except for some slight irritations with Mozilla and my school student website, all is good. I have a special email address in my OE so viruses/worms get invalid information on the first attempt and do not launch. I use the preview pane in OE and, with the exception of this GERMAN stuff, it's been fine. With my school newsgroups, the preview pane is a m-u-s-t. Of course, we also run spyware and adaware stuff, along with my virus protection and 2 firewalls. He likes to keep things extra safe since we have a wireless network...which he has also configured so passersby can't "bluetooth" it.
