The Chronicles
February 2008
Salutations dear readers and fellow Laurentian neighbors,
Happy New Year to you all dear readers ... yes, I know, it's already February so it seems a little overdue for 2008 wishes of health and happiness; however since I was on a "writing break" in January I hope you will forgive my tardiness. This said, we are already celebrating the month of LOVE. Since I know that many of you will be sending many e-mails filled with messages of love, kindness and peace to your fellow man, I thought I would treat the subject of forwarding e-mails ... safely!
When it comes to e-mailing, you may not realize how much personal information is shared between you and others. People you don't even know have access to your e-mail address and vice versa and this is how problems with e-mail spam can hit you in the blink of an eye.
How does this information get out to others? Think about it for a moment: when you forward an e-mail (received from someone else), their e-mail address remains contained within it. If you now send it to your contacts, your own e-mail address is automatically added. Again, your contacts send it out to "everyone they know" (as you are usually asked to do in these kinds of e-mails). You can start understanding how rapidly your e-mail is transferred to dozens, hundreds, even thousands of people in no time at all and each step along the way your e-mail address is at risk.
There are two ways to avoid this. The first is the surest: do NOT transfer e-mails of a "chain letter" style. As mentioned in previous articles these kinds of e-mails are designed to spread viruses amongst other computer "nasties". If, however, you REALLY want to share "just this one funny one" then take the time to clean up the e-mail before you send it off. Remove all the existing additional information (e-mail addresses and commentaries) from the message by selecting out this text in the body of the message and deleting it. You can then insert your own comments on the forwarded e-mail personalizing it for your contact(s).
Of course, tell all your contacts to do the same, thereby preventing the unnecessary distribution of e-mail addresses, helping to keep you and everybody else extra safe in the wide world of e-mailing.
Inspiration: http://www.worldstart.com/tips/index.php
Bye for now and look after yourselves!
questions.monamilordi@gmail.com
This article originally appeared in Main Street – The Laurentians' English Language Community Newspaper.
