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program in other circumstances.

It may also help to make you aware that there are some things going on

within your computer that you are glad to know about.

Anti-spyware Programs

Spyware is a term that covers a range of programs which may produce spam

or harvest your personal information including financial transactions,

passwords, sites that you visit and the type of files that you download or

view.

Anti-spyware programs seem to be almost as numerous as the malware they

try to protect us against. Some are free but most of the others are low-cost

for the important job they do for us.

These programs also need to be kept up to date.

Anti-malware Programs

Of course, the different types of programs that I’ve already mentioned are

anti-malware programs too. But, I’ve seen some new programs which are

called by this specific title.

The main difference that I’ve noticed is that they don’t find and remove any

sort of malware that is already on your computer when you install them.

They monitor all new programs and files coming from the Internet which try

to install themselves on your computer.

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There’s likely to be some cross-over in functions between some of these

programs and, say, anti-virus programs but they are worth checking out.

Anti-spam programs

I’ve been happy just using the spam-reducing features of my email program

but there are a number of programs that try to reduce it before it gets to

you.

1. Only messages from “friends” (whose addresses you have already

approved) get through with some programs. They block all messages

and tell the sender that the message will be submitted for approval to

you. The sender may be given an opportunity to send a brief message

that you see before you decide whether to open the email.

Some of these programs advertise the service they provide to each

sender when they offer them the opportunity to send that short message

to you and also when they notify the senders of messages that you

approve.

2. Other programs have on-line databases of user-notified spam

messages which they will remove from your incoming emails.

3. There are also programs which have definitions which they test your

incoming messages against.

More Ways to Reduce Spam.

o Use the spam-reducing features of your email program.

o Don’t sign up to an email newsletter unless you are sure that it will be

useful to you and the supplier will not share your information.

Carefully read the forms you subscribe through.

o Review all subscriptions at least every month and unsubscribe from

any you don’t need or read.

o One way to check whether your information is being passed around is

to use different variation on your name in the subscription form;

o

Mr J Williams

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o

J Williams

o

J (A to Z) Williams

o

John Williams

o

John WIlliams (yes, that upper-case “I” is deliberate)

If you start getting email from people or organizations that you never heard

of, to a particular version of your address, you can be fairly sure that the

person you gave that address either shared it with the spammers or that

their email account has been breached, possibly by a trojan or virus.

Your Email Program

Your email program is a vital part of your equipment but many people,

possibly because they get it for free, take it for granted unless there’s a

problem. And, they never try to use any protective or time-saving features

that the developers may have spent months building in to it.

Some email programs contain functions that feature in anti-spam programs

that you have to pay for but they’re often ignored by many users of the email

program.

One thing your email program cannot do is stop you from subscribing from

lots of email lists. You may need to check your inbox every so often and

unsubscribe from those newsletters which you don’t need or read any more.

If it’s no longer important for your personal or business interests, or you just

can’t spare the time to read it, save some bandwidth and disk space –

unsubscribe today.

The less clutter in your email account, the easier it is to spot and remove the

spam and possibly malicious emails.

Fortunately, you can see enough information in the header of the message to

be confident that you can delete it without opening it.

In fact, many email programs will let you examine the headline of each

message before you even download it from your email service provider. So,

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you can delete it right there and it never has a chance to clutter or infect

your computer!

That sort of feature is worth paying for.

If your anti-virus program is able to scan your emails, make sure that you

set up the link between the email program and anti-virus programs.

Email Programs

PocoMail

http://www.pocosystems.com/ A robust, self-contained, multi-featured email program.

Pegasus Mail

http://www.pmail.com/ One of the earliest email programs, regularly updated, with a huge, dedicated user base - and it’s completely free!

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Protecting the Family

The Internet is a boundless and ever-growing resource of information and

entertainment for people of all ages.

Most parents who have the financial resources, give their children a computer

of their own, to make use of that information for their school-work and also

to provide high quality entertainment.

But, they also know, from press reports and government warnings, that

there are potentially serious risks in doing that.

It is unrealistic to think that you can isolate your children from the Internet

unless your whole community has no access. They will get online through

their school or other government facility, or with the help of friends whose

parents have allowed them access.

How do you protect them from harm or bad influences?

The first requirement is to set an example that they can follow. Children will

copy your actions more than your words. If you tell them what they should

do but show that you don’t abide by those standards yourself, you can

expect disappointment or worse as they follow your example.

You should try to ensure that there is mutual trust and respect but you also

should maintain a watching brief on your children’s Net activities.

Put the computer in a fairly public part of your home, with enough screening

that it does not interfere with other family members’ activities nearby and

that they don’t reduce your children’s Net experience.

Don’t intrude or supervise but be alert for any negative signs that seem to

arise from their computer activities.

You might want to install software that restricts access to sites that might be

inappropriate for young children. I believe that most of those software

packages are a waste of money – many children can beat the restrictions in

just a few minutes and the presence of the censorious software may act as a

goad for your child to do just that.

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Discuss with your children media reports about the risks of Net surfing and

how you and they can protect yourselves from them as far as possible.

One rule is probably the only one that is absolutely essential – they should

never put any personal information on any website or in an email without

discussing that with you first.

Be ready to discuss any topic or incident that your child wants to talk about.

Just as you would if it had nothing to do with the Internet.

Protecting Your Original Work on the Internet

The best advice is, “Don’t put anything on the Internet that you can’t afford

to lose.”

Many people have a personal web site, and they may also have one which is

related to their business.

You should realize that anything you put on that web site may be mis-used,

often without your knowledge.

Some people will re-publish your words, pictures or even your whole web site

as their work.

Someone might publish some of your material in another country and not on

the Internet.

Your photos may be used for many purposes you never even thought of. If

you’re good-looking, someone may use your image as their own on social

web sites!

This is illegal but laws differ in various countries. It may not be possible to

get any action taken or penalties imposed. But, I’ve found that most hosting

providers, provided you approach them in a reasonable manner and supply

documentation, will act to have any suspect material removed. That could

take weeks, of course.

But, you may never even know the material has been mis-used.!

Even if you find out, getting the matter put right can cost money, time and

be very stressful.

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“Free” can be EXPENSIVE!

There are many great bargains that you can get from the Internet but there’s

usually some sort of cost.

It might be money, or that you have to subscribe to the supplier’s email

newsletter.

Sometimes, as happens with many software programs, there is no charge

but a request to donate some amount to help with further development of

the program if you can.

Many things are really a gift, just like the sign says.

But, there are also many offers which don’t have a price tag but will cost you

plenty.

An extreme example that was reported recently happened in the real world,

but demonstrated the perils of using equipment that you don’t know the

origin of.

Several employees of a large American corporation found small USB sticks, a

storage device which plugs into almost any computer and has enough Ram to

store, for example, hours of music.

Most of them did not report their lucky finds but rushed inside the building to

their desk where they plugged the devices into their work computers.

I don’t know what they found on their new storage devices but a hidden load

– a virus – was instantly injected directly into the highly protected corporate

computer system.

The company’s own employees had carried in the modern equivalent of

several Trojan horses and whoever planted the sticks in the area around the

building was probably downloading the confidential information he wanted

within an hour at a cost of a couple of hundred dollars for the almost

untraceable devices.

You may not have highly sensitive corporate information on your computer at

work or at home but please take this story with you and always check any

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new disk or device, whatever its source, with the best security software that

you can.

If you do use a corporate network, never put any program or other file on

the system without explicit approval from your system administrator.

The consequences for your employer and your future employment could be

serious.

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Seeking Just Friends and Fun

The current boom in online socializing sites, from chat rooms to the likes of

YouTube, MySpace and whatever new concept has burst on to the scene

since Saturday, is an extension of something that has been a very popular

part of the Internet from its first public incarnation.

People want to meet other people, many want to show off themselves, their

accomplishments or something outrageous that they do and many more

people enjoy watching them do that.

But, all these places harbor risks for the unwary or the over-excited.

When you first sign up and log in to the wildly popular site, you may be

flattered to get invitations from many other Members to join their lists of

“Friends”.

It’s not because they like” you, it’s to increase the number of people that link

to their information pages. Some, of course, could be very helpful and great

fun to interact with on the site. Some may have darker motives.

Chat rooms have been the beginning of a lot of relationships. Many of them

have been extended to off-line meetings with a wider range of results, good

and especially, bad.

One reason for that is that people can assume any persona and almost any

form on the Net. It’s naturally highly attractive to social misfits and those

who have little success, for various reasons, in establishing successful offline

relationships.

It’s common for people to use other people’s pictures and even false names

and other details when they meet new people on the social sites.

Some will even pretend to be younger, a different sex or whatever it takes to

attract the type of person that they desire.

This is one of the real dangers for young children venturing into the Net while

still forming their own values.

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Experienced predators know what to say and they can, if necessary, change

the voice they use to say it with freely available software.

But, these same techniques are successful with more experienced and older

people too. The enticements might change but the tested tactics still work.

And, if the intended victim realizes something is going badly and backs away,

the predator may try to reach them off-line and get some revenge for being

“let down”.

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“Save Money and Live Longer”

With the ever increasing costs of medicines, many people are tempted to try

the offers which flood into the e-mail box or can be found around the

Internet.

But there are many risks when you take this path just to try saving a few

dollars.

You may never receive any product. That can be better than some of the

rubbish which some people have received and even risked their lives by

taking.

Your use of the product will be entirely at your own risk. Do you know the

potential side effects?

Even if you're medicine is accompanied by some directions, the person that

wrote them has no idea at all of your physical state or medical history. Even

if the product supplied is legitimate, you may face significant risk of a

negative reaction between that product and whatever other medications that

you are taking.

Of course, there is no guarantee that the product you get will have the

correct strength of the active ingredients or, in fact, have any active or useful ingredients in it. That's another way that some producers increase their

profits at your expense.

The source of the product that you receive is not guaranteed. Some

producers have been discovered using sub-standard ingredients and very

unhygienic equipment to produce products that give them the highest

possible financial return.

If it's starting to sound like the cost of consulting your doctor is probably

good insurance, I'd have to agree.

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The Enemy – Software

Viruses

A computer virus is a program that arrives uninvited and unknown with

another file that you deliberately put on to your computer.

Some viruses are not destructive but there have been some which were only

intended to, for instance, put a message onto the screen, which were badly

written and caused damage as great as other intentionally damaging ones!

Computer viruses can destroy or damage files on your computer even ones

that are essential for your computer’s ability to operate.

They are called viruses because the reproduce themselves and spread to

other computers by attaching to files that you send from your computer;

emails, business documents and other files.

Worms

Worms can reproduce themselves and spread through a computer network

without piggy-backing onto other files. They may damage files like viruses or

just seriously reduce the efficiency of a network because the rapidly growing

number of copies absorbs most of the resources that are available to the

network.

Even very large networks can be brought down in a short time.

Spyware

These programs capture information that is on your computer and some may

record the actual keystrokes that you type, including passwords and other

sensitive information.

This is then sent through your Internet connection to the hacker that

released the malicious program. The effects, like theft from your bank

accounts, can be short-term or long term. Some operators will set up small,

regular withdrawals from your account, taking advantage of people who don’t

always check the details of their financial statements.

Other criminals will try to get everything that they can out of your account in

short order.

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Sometimes, spyware is used to gather data about the types of sites which

you visit so that you can be targeted with appropriate advertising.

Trojans

These programs come on to your computer when you get a file that has been

infected or produced with the trojan aboard.

They may do any of the things I listed for viruses and worms. Other trojans

are designed to:

× install or exploit access points on your computer

× send spam emails through your system for which you could be blamed

× make your computer act as a relay for a “denial of service attack”

where the hacker uses the resources of maybe thousands of infected

computers to flood a large network with the aim of making it crash

× gathering email addresses from your system for the hacker to send

infected emails to

…. The possibilities are endless and all bad!

Email Hazards

Attachments

Email attachments are a classic way of introducing viruses and other nasties

to your computer.

Always scan all emails that you get and be very careful with ALL attachments

even if they appear to come from people you know well and trust.

One possible problem is that your friend’s computer may have been infected

with a virus or trojan that is sending emails with infected attachments to

everyone in your friend’s email address book without them knowing anything

about it!

Links

Never click on any link in an email. Someone told me the other day that he’d

done that regularly for two years without any problems. I hope he never

does have a problem because I’ve heard from technicians about serious

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consequences they’ve been asked to try, often unsuccessfully, to repair after

just one bad link was clicked.

If you get an email that seems to be genuine and urgent, grab the phone

book and contact the company or person by phone or by opening a new

browser window and typing in their website address (no surprise to me if that

is just slightly different to the address in that unexpected email!)

Emails may be in plain text or HTML (web page) format. The text format is

less likely to hold any dangers.

But, sometimes you get an email where the whole email is actually a picture.

That’s a technique that spammers use to avoid their words being detected by

anti-spam filters that would then trash the email.

I am told that those pictures may also carry malicious code.

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Web Site Dangers

One of the security progra