EMAIL SECURITY

Recently the Dialogue listserv had a discussion about tips to protect your email. Some of the discussion is added here.Feel free to enahnce or edit it.

From Steve Harrington:

About once a week I get a bogus email from someone on wedgeblade.net This morning I got a typical "send money quick" scam email. What causes this? Old and obsolete email programs "leftover from the 1990s" don't have modern security and spam protection. Spammers crack your account, take your email list and send out bogus emails.

Examples of obsolete programs: AoL Hotmail, IGC, "private label programs living on your private hard drive or your Internet Service Provider's "special deal account".

What to do? Old programs were designed for individual computers, slow connections, infrequent & mostly 1 way emails. Get some new programs that are designed for rapid effective online collaboration: -a new web browser like Chrome that has services like chat that help you collaborate real time -a new mail program like Gmail that has really good spam protection and are very hard to crack.

Help get spammers out of email - yours, mine, ours.

A typical send money quick scam:

I really hope you get this fast. I could not inform anyone about our trip, because it was impromptu. we had to be in Manila, Philippines for a programmed. The program was successful, but our journey has turned sour. we misplaced our wallet and cell phone on our way back to the hotel we lodge in after we went for sight seeing. The wallet contained all the valuables we had. Now, our passport is in custody of the hotel management pending when we make payment.

I am sorry if i am inconveniencing you, but i have only very few people to run to now. i will be indeed very grateful if i can get a loan of $2,250 from you. this will enable me sort our hotel bills and get my sorry self back home. I will really appreciate whatever you can afford in assisting me with. I promise to refund it in full as soon as I return. let me know if you can be of any assistance. Please, let me know soonest. Thanks so much..

-- TimWegner - 15 May 2013