10/01/08 Email 101
Newk's Nook: Yeah, I know, we all use Email & understand the ramifications. Every once in a while it is good to go back to the basics. In the event that we’ve forgotten,, I've listed some of the rules.
SUMMARY: Help determine an e-mail's country of origin. Have
you ever received an e-mail where the sender's address didn't end in
.com, .edu, or .org, but instead .ie, .pl, or .vi? These abbreviations
are called Top Level Domain codes, and they can signify the country of
a user sending an e-mail message. SUMMARY: E-mail with brief subjects may not get read. If
you want your electronic mail messages to be read by their intended
recipients, you should consider creating subject lines that are more
descriptive than just "Hello", "Hi", or "Info". Busy individuals scan
through large numbers of emails daily, and they may see such subject
lines and decide to skip your message. Also, many spam and
virus-created e-mail messages use short, one-word subjects, and
aggressive spam filters may automatically flag such messages as junk.
Thus, your messages may never reach their recipients. SUMMARY: Why sending passwords by email is a huge security risk. If
you are ever asked in an electronic mail message to send a password by
e-mail, never, NEVER, NEVER do so! It doesn't matter if the electronic
mail message looks official, as the 'from' address in an electronic
mail message can be forged. It doesn't matter if the e-mail claims to
be from an administrator of the online service you are using. Don't
respond directly to the e-mail! SUMMARY:
Be VERY careful about electronic mail attachments - even if the sender
seems to be a friend or family member! You need to read this tip. Did
a friend or family member just send you an electronic mail attachment
that you weren't expecting? Surely your co-worker checked the file out
first? Of course your mom would not send you something that would harm
your computer, right? SUMMARY: Help keep even more junk mail from reaching your inbox. It
may be tempting to respond to spam messages, telling the sender that
you want to be taken off their mailing list. However, this may prove
quite ineffective. Many times, if you respond to such email, you are
just telling the spammer that "Hey, my e-mail address is read by a live
person!" Thus, you could end up just getting more spam. SUMMARY: Reasons why e-mail attachments sometimes don't reach their destinations. Many
people like sharing files, such as screensavers, mini-games, or
greeting cards, with their friends and families via e-mail. However,
nowadays, more and more attachments are not getting through. In fact,
you may have sent an email to someone with an attachment and found out
later that the attachment, and quite possible the email itself, never
made it to its destination. SUMMARY: Find out whether that e-mail you just received is actually an urban legend. Ever
receive an e-mail message talking about something that seems too good,
too wild, or too unbelievable to be true? If so, the e-mail may contain
an urban legend, a story told often enough and spread around to enough
people that it gains an air of legitimacy, though the information is
completely false.What Country is That Sender From?
Sample Country TLD codes:
.cn - China
.de - Germany
.fr - France
.ie - Ireland
.jp - Japan
.us - United States
.uk - United Kingdom
For a complete list of country TLD codes, visit this page from IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority):
TLD Codes: http://www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm
Remember
though - e-mail addresses can be forged. If you receive spam from an
e-mail address ending with one of these TLD codes, the e-mail may not
actually have originated in said country.Avoid One-Word Subjects
Never Send Passwords Via Email!
1)
Electronic mail is not safe and secure. E-mail is unencrypted, meaning
that messages can sometimes be intercepted between you and the
destination and read.
2) More than likely, the organization
claiming to ask for your password isn't really the person asking for
such information! If you provide your password to just anyone, then a
stranger can login to your service as you and cause all kinds of
trouble! For example, America Online constantly reminds its users that
they will never ask for password or account information by e-mail. Even
so, every day people receive spam claiming to be from AOL stating that
due to computer failure, they must re-enter their password or respond
to an e-mail asking for a password. DON'T!
You have to be
careful on the Internet. Never provide private information by e-mail,
and certainly never send any passwords using e-mail, especially to
someone claiming to be a higher-up at your ISP or another company.Think That Attachment is From Your Friend?
Nowadays,
you MUST be safe. Why not ask your friend or family member in a
friendly e-mail if they really meant to send you the attachment?
Why
am I saying this? It's not to upset dear ma. But, thanks to the newest
viruses that spread through email, many peoples' computers are becoming
unwitting accomplices to the spread of rogue software. There are
viruses that can affect peoples' machines, causing them to e-mail
innocent looking attachments that are actually viruses to everyone in
their address box. Worse yet, some of these viruses actually can make
the e-mail look like it came from someone else!
That's right.
For example, say you have a friend, Bob, who uses e-mail software that
contains an address book. Let's say that your name is in Bob's address
book, but so is that of a mutual friend, Bill. Unfortunately, there are
viruses that cause e-mail to be sent to you that are made to look like
the e-mail came from Bill!
A virus may have actually sent the attachment that SEEMS to be sent by your friend or family member.
When
it comes to e-mail attachments, be safe. Scan EVERY attachment, no
matter who sent it, and don't open an attachment unless you're sure it
is safe and the sender meant to mail you the file.Don't Respond to Unsolicited Mail
However,
if you do receive email from a reputable mailing list and want to stop
getting such email, it is OK to politely ask to be removed from such a
list. Many reputable email lists even contain links that you can click
to be removed from such lists.My Attachment Didn't Get Through
For various reasons, some companies,
Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and some individuals have started to
filter out all email containing attachments from ever reaching their
inboxes. Why?
1. Attachments normally take a while to download, causing slowdowns for dial-up users.
2. Many attachments tend to be games or in the entertainment category, a real no-no for some companies.
3.
With the growth of viruses and worms spreading over the Internet via
attachments, many people and organizations, instead of virus scanning
every individual attachment, tend to filter them out altogether.
So
next time you want to share a game or other attachment with someone,
first make sure it's ok with the recipient to send the file. Then,
after sending the file, ask the recipient if they got the attachment.
If not, you now at least have an idea why that may be the case.Avoiding Passing Around Urban Legends
Don't embarrass yourself and waste others'
bandwidth. Before you spread a story you just received with 50 of your
closest friends, consider checking out the following websites to see
whether or not you just received an urban legend. And, if so, please
*politely* inform the sender with the exact URL to the site where you
found the legend. Don't be crass or a snob about it; many people just
don't know how to check these things out!
AFU & Urban Legends Archive -http://www.urbanlegends.com/
Symantec Security Response Hoax Page -http://www.sarc.com/avcenter/hoax.html
Urban Legends and Folklore -http://urbanlegends.about.com/
Urban Legends Reference Pages -http://www.snopes.com/
Vmyths.com Truth About Computer Security Hysteria -http://www.vmyths.com/