Librarian's
note: Clearly this was written by someone
very passionate about the subject. The intonations and
inflections that come out in the words are his.
Do you really know how to forward emails? 50% of us do; 50%
DO NOT.
Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Do you hate
it? Every time you forward an email there is information
left over from the people who got the message before you,
namely their email addresses and names. As the messages get
forwarded along, the list of addresses builds, and builds,
and builds, and all it takes is for some poor sap to get a
virus, and his or her computer can send that virus to every
email address that has come across his computer. Or, someone
can take all of those addresses and sell them or send junk
mail to them in the hopes that you will go to the site and
he will make five cents for each hit. That's right, all of
that inconvenience over a nickel! How do you stop it? Well,
there are several easy steps.
Try the following if you haven't done it before:
(1) When you forward an email, DELETE all of the other
addresses that appear in the body of the message (at the
top). That's right, DELETE them. Highlight them and delete
them, backspace them, cut them, whatever it is you know how
to do. It only takes a second. You MUST click the "Forward"
button first and then you will have full editing
capabilities against the body and headers of the message. If
you don't click on "Forward" first, you won't be able to
edit the message at all.
(2) Whenever you send an email to more than one person, do
NOT use the To: or Cc: fields for adding email addresses.
Always use the BCC: (blind carbon
copy) field for listing the email addresses. This is the way
the people you send to will only see their own email
address. If you don't see your BCC: option click on where it
says To: and your address list will appear. Highlight the
address and choose BCC: and that's it, it's that easy. When
you send to BCC: your message will automatically say
"Undisclosed Recipients in the "TO:" field of the people who
receive it.
(3) Remove any "FW :" in the subject line. You can re-name
the subject if you wish or even fix spelling.
(4) ALWAYS hit your Forward button from the actual email you
are reading. Ever get those emails that you have to open 10
pages to read the one page with the information on it? By
Forwarding from the actual page you wish someone to view,
you stop them from having to open many emails just to see
what you sent.
(5) Have you ever gotten an email that is a petition? It
states a position and asks you to add your name and address
and to forward it to 10 or 15 people or your entire address
book. The email can be forwarded on and on and can collect
thousands of names and email addresses. A FACT: The
completed petition is actually worth a couple of bucks to a
professional spammer because of the wealth of valid names
and email addresses contained therein. DO NOT put your email
address on any petition. If you want to support the
petition, send it as your own personal letter to the
intended recipient. Your position may carry more weight as a
personal letter than a laundry list of names and email
addresses on a petition. (And don't believe the ones that
say that the email is being traced; it just ain't so!)
Some of the other emails to delete and not forward are:
a. The one that says something like, "Send this email to 10
people and you'll see something great run across your
screen." Or sometimes they'll just tease you by saying
'something really cute will happen; IT AIN'T GONNA
HAPPEN!!!!! (We are still seeing some of the same emails
that we waited on 10 years ago!)
b. I don't let the bad luck ones scare me either, they get
trashed.
c. Before you forward an 'Amber Alert' , or a 'Virus Alert'
, or some of the other emails floating around nowadays,
check them out before you forward them. Most of them are
junk mail that's been circling the net for YEARS! Just about
everything you receive in an email that is in question can
be checked out at Snopes. Just go to
www.snopes.com
. It's really easy to find out if it's real or
not. If it's not, please don't pass it on.
So please, in the future, let's stop the junk mail and the
viruses.
Librarian's
Note: Regarding "c" above: Just go to the
Google search engine, type in the title or subject of the
alert and add "+ hoax" and you will get all kinds of
information if it is, in fact, a scam or hoax. You may
also just contact the Web Site Office as we check these out
as a public service. |