Posted by GoatWorld on November 13, 2002 at 17:08:15:
In Reply to: virus warning posted by Cindy on November 12, 2002 at 22:09:57:
Hello Cindy and everyone,
Thank you for letting us know. Unfortunately with viruses, they keep becoming more and more sneaky in how they accomplish their dirty deeds. Luckily I have been virus free but I know that even my system is not 100% safe.
One problem I have is the amount of junk email I receive with pop-ups in them. Let's say I get 100 emails - you can bet that nearly 98 of them are junk emails. But one thing I am encountering is that these email address harvesters will get ahold of email addresses that they know are truly legitimate and then somehow code their own junk mail to appear as if it is coming from someone else; example, gary@goatworld.com - I have never sent out junk email.
What I will be doing very soon is placing an autoresponder on my email address so that anyone who writes to me knows that they will receive an instant response. So a junk emailer is going to get an instant response as well - if the auto response receives an error on my end, I will simply place that address in my "ban" list and will never be able to receive an email from them again.
Another way to combat email viruses and such is to frequently change your email address. Then, only let those who you know have your address. Not 100% foolproof but somewhat effective.
In retrospect, this was another reason why a "closed" message board is more secure than allowing open access. I encourage every member to NOT enter their email address when writing a message - this is just double protection from the email harvesters. When I archive the messages, they do go into an "open" mode atmosphere and my anti-harvesting software used on GoatWorld is not always 100% effective.
Best regards,
Gary