The first few things to keep in mind is that email is generally not encoded or
secured. That means most anyone can at some point read it if they get a hold
of it. If you are talking about things that you do not want others to read,
use email encryption, or any one of a number of tools that you can use to keep
others from reading your email. ( see
www.tucows.com
for any number of email encryption programs. A simple way to make it pretty
secure and unreadable without a great deal of fuss is to simply use Winzip or
most any of the file compression tools. You would simply write your email with
anything from Notepad to the biggest most powerful word processing program you
have ( provided the person on the other end also has the means to read those
file formats ) then save the document to a file. Zip the contents of that
document with a password and then perhaps send the password in another email or
by way of another mode such as telephone or letter. This relatively simple
method of encrypting files is enough to keep most from reading them. Even
sending audio messages with programs such as Purevoice can make files a bit
hard to read unless the person knows to get the PureVoice encoder/decoder
software.
The next thing to keep in mind is spam ( unwanted email ) does not just go
away. Unless you are clever enough to have started out online by setting up a
personal email box, sent it only to your closest most trusted friends, never
used that email to set up accounts by instead had a box already set up for a
junk mail drop, chances are you have some degree of a spam problem. I know I
am tired of get rich quick, instant weight loss, increased sex drive, or
bigger breast offers showing up in my email box. ( if not even less welcomed
email that is ) To combat spam effectively you have to understand a few basic
points. First off, spam is generated by people who are professional in the
business of sending out bulk mailings. They get paid per thousand emails sent
by addresses they have bought from places that obtain these lists from
information you
often have sent out when you sign up for an offer or some item online. In some
cases even signing up for a mail service will generate more spam as they seem
to get your addresses almost as fast as you sign up for the box. How to
fight this problem? Well the first thing is do not bother to ever reply to
the spam. At best it does little good and at worse it will just confirm to the
email spammer that someone is actually at this email box. ( many of them use
wild card generators to send out bulk mailings that just cover all possible
email addresses on a given ISP or mail server.) Sending any mail back to them
is telling them that the email box works and has someone reading the mail
there, or to put it another way you go from the C list to the A list for
getting massive amounts of spam. For every one of the remove me links found
on spam perhaps ten or more do not even have a box that is form real. Even if
you do get thru to a working mailbox or form, as I said the best you are likely
to get is removed from that spammers list which in all likelihood just puts
your name up for sale to the next group of spammers anyway, or worse they just
do not send the same offer to you for a week or so.
The best place to fight them is from your own computer if you know what you are
doing. First off look at the message properties. If you look at it closely in
the header you can often see an IP address where the message entered the
network. Do a lookup on this address and see who controls that server. Then
email that server owner telling them you do not enjoy getting spam from his
sever. Most of them do not like their bandwidth being taken up by spammers
either and will look into it and if it is the case they may even dump the
spammers account. The next thing to do is to try to use a mailer. Many email
servers can be picked up by way of a mailer. If you use the block sending and
Message rules sections of these programs you can selectively filter the email
and then treat it as you would wish. For example in my case I have my Message
Rules set up to the point I see about five percent of the spam I used to. The
rest is deleted without any further action on my part. Sooner or later the
spammers will get to the point they will no longer bother sending spam to this
type of email address. If you do not or cannot have the email based on your
computer most of the web based email also has block sender on the address book
function on the accounts. Some have spam filters which can filter spam to boxes
or just refuse anything not addressed only to you personally. These actions if
used are often far more effective than following the directions on the spam to
stop getting it. Following the instructions by a spam operation on how to no
longer get their spam is akin to being robbed and when the thief overlooks your
watch you stop and remind him to take it as well.
I will also add several of the spam ( junk mails ) you get are just remote web
address calls. They open a webpage in your mailer or when you open the mail.
These often have counters on them and the spammer gets paid off by how many
hits are on the counters on the site not the mailing. So if you do not open
spam they do not get paid for sending it. If they notice they are not getting
paid for the spam they send out sooner or later they may go away. You should
also be very sure of your antivirus softwares status as far as handling email
from people you do not know. They are not at all above sending trojan horse
programs with their emails to track you online or gleen other information about
you. You can complain about all this but sadly many of these operations are
outside the country you likely reside in so there is often little that can be
done by others but as I have already said, there is a lot you can do yourself
to keep from being a victim of the email spammer.
There are a few email tools and sites listed below. They provide some type of
secure email function. Visit them if you wish to secure your email so it is
private and in some cases anonymous.
http://www.securenym.net/
http://www.my-hyper-send.com/
http://www.1on1mail.com/Navigation.html
I personally do not use any of the above services. The placement of them here
is not an endorsement on my part.
Another item to keep in mind is if you are using a mailer like Outlook Express
it is an excellent idea to turn off opening attachments as these can often
habor virus or trojan files. If you look in the MESSAGE or TOOLS area on most
of the mailers they have provisions to block senders or even make rules to
handle a given message based on keywords or subject or body text strings.
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