Important Guide to Safe Emailing
 

I created this page out of desperation because of the endless times my computers (my livelihood) have been damaged by virus attacks passed on in forward round robin emails, and my email accounts have become infested with offensive spam. I am sure, like myself, you must also resent spending endless hours and money fixing the damage and being forced to change your email address. It is especially frustrating when we take all the necessary precautions to avoid such damage, i.e. using a reputable anti-virus, never opening unexpected attachments and never posting our email address on non-secure websites.

If you are this vigilant but continue to be infested with spam and virus attacks,  the most likely cause is due to your email address being circulated to every Tom, Dick and Harry in round robin emails. The infuriating thing is that friends often do this without our consent, and in my case certainly against my wishes, i.e. they broadcast our PRIVATE email addresses in the 'To' or 'Cc' PUBLIC address fields for all other recipients to see!  

Unless we understand  the risks of emailing and how to avoid them, we are putting our recipients' computers, their privacy and personal safety at risk!  Please read on to understand how to avoid such dangers.   

FORWARD EMAILS

Every time you forward a "Forward" email there is information left over from the previous recipient/s who sent it to you, namely their names and email addresses. As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses builds and builds. If one individual forwards a round robin to everyone in his/her address book, and each of those recipients continue to forward it on, in less than a week your PRIVATE email address will have been forwarded to thousands of perfect strangers around the world.

Imagine the outrage if we did the same with each other's private postal addresses when sending mass greeting cards! 

All it takes is for one individual to get a virus, and his/her computer can send that virus to every email address that has come across their computer. Or, someone can take all of those addresses and send junk mail to them, or sell them to spammers in the hope that you will go to the site where they will make  a few pence for each hit that they sell. 

Quite apart from the dangers such email abuse cause is the fact that the rate at which they multiply and occupy precious bandwidth is unacceptable as it also leads to latency on the entire network. 

All this damage because someone thoughtlessly broadcast your private email address to the world and his wife for the sake of forwarding a silly round robin!   
  

WHAT TO DO

1. When sending an email to more than one person, NEVER  use the To: or  Cc: fields (see above email graphic) otherwise all recipients will receive each other's PRIVATE email address. Circulating email addresses like this not merely places us at greater risk of virus attacks and spammers,  but is also a wonderful source for stalkers! 

To protect the privacy of your recipients’ email addresses ALWAYS list them in the Bcc: (Blind Carbon Copy) field. This works just like the Cc: (Carbon Copy) field except that the people you send to only see their own email address and no one else's.

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.

When you send using Bcc: your message will automatically say "undisclosed recipients" in the To: field of the people who receive it, providing security and privacy to all the people in your address book.

 See also  Instructions for using Bcc for Outlook Express, AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail etc.

2. If you really must forward an important email, first delete all of the addresses that appear in the body of the message. It only takes a second. You must click the "Forward" button first though to enable you to have full editing capabilities for the body and headers of the message. If you don't  click "Forward" first, you won't be able to edit the message at  all.
  
3. Remove any "FW:" in the subject line and re-name the subject if you wish.
  

EMAIL PETITIONS – a simple rule - avoid them like the plague! They state a position, ask you to add your name and address and forward it to a number of people or to your entire address book. The email can be forwarded on and on and can collect thousands of names and email addresses ... and  of course cause mass spamming and potential virus attacks!
  
FACT -  The completed petition is worth money to  professional spammers because of the wealth of valid names and email addresses contained therein!
 

The above has highlighted the damage to our computers and email accounts by failing to use Bcc when sending/forwarding round robins. 

I hope the following story will scare you enough to appreciate what could also happen to our safety when friends broadcast our PRIVATE email address to every Tom, Dick and possible Pervert Harry in round robin emails. In this particular case the writer was stalked by someone who received her e-mail address from a forwarded round robin.   
 

Late one evening, while online, I received an IM (Instant Message) from a gentleman who said he knew me through mutual pals online. We chatted for an hour or so before deciding to keep in touch, as we had so many things in common.

After a week or so of knowing him, I trusted him with my name (first name) and phone number; after all, he knew my friends and I felt he must have been OK if they all liked and knew him. He knew a lot about them, he knew a lot about me and he knew a lot about a lot! He seemed like such a nice person, a pleasant person, and someone whom I felt very comfortable sharing my time online (and on the phone) with.

Most of the friends I had made on AOL knew me and I knew them, so I felt quite safe with anyone whom they associated with. We all talked on a regular basis, though we seldom went into chat rooms. One night, a friend from our group of friends invited me to a chat room where several of the friends had gathered and were chatting (it was an open chat in the members category, romance) and we were all chatting when this gentleman popped into the chat room. He popped in and then left quickly. He then blocked his buddy list and sent me an IM. I instantly became curious as to why he was acting so suspicious.

Then, for the first time since I met and started chatting with him, I mentioned him to one of the friends who were in the chat room. One whom this gentleman claimed association with was in total awe, she did not know who he was! However, she had experienced the same thing as I had. Only difference was, the guy who sent her an IM claimed to have known her from a former friend online. Things were beginning to look really suspicious. The more she and I chatted, the more suspicious it became.

It also became apparent that this guy knew none of us. Suddenly, he disappeared off-line for a few days ... then one day he pops back in and sends me an IM saying that we need to talk. He called me at my home and I was very upset, so I asked him how he really found me and why he had felt the need to lie in the first place. This is where you all need to pay attention: He told me that he spotted my screen name on a forward that one of my friends sent to someone else. My screen name is what attracted him. He then used the screen name of others on the list of forwards to acquaint himself with me and various others from our clique of friends. He also used the member directory to look up info about others on the list of forwards, so not to look suspicious. He said he felt it was the only way he would have the chance to get to know me, and the main attraction to me was "My Screen name" because he thought it was "sexy!"

I was upset, needless to say, as I had trusted this man with my personal info ... such as phone number and name. He also knew where I lived (thanks to the phone bill) and I was now his prey! A few days after having last talked to this person and thinking that was the last of him, I received a phone call at 4:00 am, it was this man telling me he was in town to see a friend who lived 20 minutes from my house, and wanted to know if I would like to meet him for coffee or breakfast. When I told him, it was not such a good idea, he became irate and hung up on me. I immediately called him back (caller ID) and explained to him that my husband was back home (trying to scare him)and to please not be so mad (in fear of him and what he might do). His whole demeanor changed and a different person was on the other end of that phone; not the man whom I had talked to online so many times (and seemed so sweet and caring).

He was very uneasy and angry towards me. Telling him that my husband had returned and we were reconciling was a lie, and I told him this to make him think I was not alone! Imagine the feeling I felt in the pit of my stomach when he came back with the following response: "You're a lying b—, your husband is not there with you...you are alone!" I hung up on him and immediately called the Broward County Sheriffs office and told them what had happened. They sent an officer over to take a report and said that was really all they could do for me at that time. So, I packed a few belongings into my car, while the deputies waited and drove to my sister's home for the night. I was in shock! Fifteen or twenty minutes after I arrived at her home, I received a phone call from this man again! He knew I called the Sheriff and reported him; he knew where I was and he knew my sister and her husband's names!

People, let me tell you something, this man had been stalking me for weeks and I had no idea!! I walked, ate, slept and breathed in constant fear until he was finally arrested for stalking! Not for stalking me! Nope! For stalking another lady who lived in Kendall, FL. This is what I was informed of when I was contacted by Kendall Florida detectives (who was contacted by Broward County) when it was discovered he was facing other various charges. Meanwhile, I went on and filed charges against him in Broward County. I wanted to share this with you all. And yes, it is all true.

Friends, when you forward things and you leave your friends names out in plain view like that, you are putting THEM and YOURSELF in what could be grave danger. I hope I have gotten this message across; as I have not even begun to mention his assault (rape, using deadly force) charges the detectives from Broward County and Kendall, FL uncovered on him while investigating his prior history! Yes, he had been charged with raping a Tifton, GA lady whom he had met online also. He used the same technique he used on my friend, and me; he stalked her for weeks before finally getting up the nerve to break in to her home (as she slept) and rape and beat her! He was out on bond and his trial was pending all the while when he was online and still trying to do the same thing to more women! People, please! Be safe, be careful and Bcc! This is for real.

Use Bcc - Blind Carbon Copy, OR COPY, PASTE to a new email form. Make the "To" to yourself, then list the people you want to email it to in the Bcc line (NOT the CC line). No matter how many people are listed under the Bcc, each one will only see their name. Then send.

(BLIND CARBON COPY In Outlook Express, version 5)

1. highlight and copy the part of the message you want to send.

2. Click on the new message icon

3. Right click in the Main window and paste the message there.

4. Click on the grey "To" button.

5. Highlight the name you want to send the message to

6. Click on the Bcc button and not the To button.

( In case you are in AOL and don't know how to Bcc, when you put your "send to" names in the top of your email, put a set of parenthesis around the names. This will send your email to your friends, but when they get them, only their own name is on the email. All your other friends' names will not be on it, no matter how many people you sent the mail to.

Example: (Suzy Q, Tom Jones, Harry James, Peter Piper) When Suzy Q gets her copy her name is the only name on it with Bcc before her name. The others are the same way. Pass this on, but copy the body of the email into another email, so my screen name does not appear on it, and then Bcc to your friends.) Protect your screen name, and that of your friends.

 

Origins:   Is the overwrought opening section of this warning true? We don't know, but unfortunately the scenario described is not implausible, even if some of its details are overblown and simplified. Plenty of disturbed individuals engage in stalking behavior, and they use a wide variety of methods to acquire information about their targets. In the Internet age, unearthing personal information about others is easier than ever. However, although the warning above includes some sound information about addressing this problem, it is perhaps misleading in that it deals only with a very small portion of a much larger  issue.

The same common sense rules that apply in real life generally apply to the Internet. When you send out Christmas cards, even if you send the same card to every single person on your list, you probably don't include the names and addresses of every other recipient in each card. Why not? Because there's no reason for these people to know about each other. You're sending a one-to-one communication; the other recipients don't necessarily have any business knowing who else might have received a similar message. Why should that change just because the greeting is sent via email rather than via the postal service?


Source  http://www.snopes.com/horrors/mayhem/bcc.asp

So, PLEASE, let's work together in respecting each other's privacy and safety by following the Bcc: (Blind Carbon Copy) rule and never disclose each other's PRIVATE email addresses in round robin emails.