Safe Surfing

There are many sources of good and sometimes conflicting information, about junk e-mail (spam), internet safety, privacy, scams and hoaxes.  Below are links to a few sites that keep reasonably up to date, and some information on these topics.

The information presented here includes opinions from many sources.  To add yours, question the information  or to make comments, click the spider web.

Child Safety

The internet is a valuable educational tool for children and their parents.  A wealth of information is only a few clicks away. As more individuals, schools and businesses become present on the web, the internet doubles in size nearly every three months.

The internet continues to expand because it is the largest forum for public discussion and information. There are many useful sites and helpful people throughout the world, but we need to apply basic rules when visiting sites or communicating with people on the internet:

Information on nearly every subject is online. Your parents and teachers can help you make the most of this experience.

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Consumer Resources

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If you are concerned about internet privacy or scams, visit the following sites.

Cookies

Cookies are small text files that some web sites use to identify your preferences. This can make your web use more efficient by remembering some things you would have to type in each time you visited a site.

For example, my bank has branches nationwide.  When I go to the bank site I am asked to select the state my bank is in from a drop-down list.  Then I am asked a few more questions about the account type and what I want to do.  All of this information is stored in a "cookie" on my computer.  Unless I delete this cookie, the next time I bank on line none of this information will be asked and I will go directly to a logon screen.  This cookie does not contain account number or password information.

The only site that can read a cookie is the one that sent it; however, some sites sell their cookies to others.

You can set your browser to warn you before you accept cookies or not accept them at all. Some people do this for privacy concerns because some (aggregate, not personal) information can be collected with them. However, keep in mind that some secure sites won't work if you don't accept their cookies.

Cookies are easy to manage using one of the free programs available online.  Karen's Cookie Viewer is effective.

If you know all the places to look, you can manage cookies manually.

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Spam is a common term for unsolicited e-mail, often referred to as "UBE"  (Unsolicited Bulk E-Mail), "UCE" (Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail) as well. Spam is e-mail unsolicited by the recipient(s) sent for the purpose of selling goods or services. Often, spam is used to advertise dubious or outright illegal multi-level marketing (MLM) schemes, make-money-fast schemes (MMF) and pornography as well as other products.

Outlook Express, Eudora and other e-mail software can be configured to perform limited filtering on incoming e-mail or there are many standalone filters available for this purpose. Either way, you will still have to retrieve your e- mail from your server, even if you filter it straight to your recycle bin. Doing so still requires your time, and for some people, money, downloading unwanted e-mail. In some areas, internet access is not cheap, requires a toll call, or may even be charged on a per-minute basis.

If you decide to filter spam be careful not to filter e-mail you do want. It's a good idea to browse your deleted items folder before emptying it, just in case.

Frequently, spammers change the titles of their e-mail to make it appear legitimate in order to get past mail filters. You can filter e-mail by the sender's address, but don't filter out all e-mail from that domain or you may find that desired e-mail is being heaved into the deleted items folder.

Most return addresses, including presumed removal addresses, are fake and a response or request for removal can only confirm to the spammer that your address is a good one for future mailings. This may not only result in more e-mail from that spammer, but thousands of others once the spammer has sold your e-mail address to others.

Don't respond to removal instructions in spam. That only confirms your e-mail address as active and results in more spam.

They get your address in two ways, a spider to comb the web much like a search engine spiders your web site, only the spammers spider collects e-mail addresses; or they buy a list from someone. If you put your e-mail address on your web site, a spider will get it sooner or later.

The spider looks for the @ sign in your source code, then it grabs the non-breaking text before and after the sign, and that usually gives it a valid address. If you code your e-mail address using the ansi character equivalent of the @ sign, it won't find the @ sign.

<a href="mailto:webboss@peaceb2you.org">E-mail</a> 

becomes... 

<a href="mailto:webboss&#064;peaceb2you.org">E-mail</a > 

No @ sign, no address collected. When  &#064; is used for the @ sign the mail link will still work in most browsers.

The paranoid can replace the whole address with ansi characters.

<a href="mailto:webboss@peaceb2you.org">E-mail</a> 

becomes... 

<a href="&#109;&#97;&#105;&#108;&#116;&#111;&#58;
&#119;&#101;&#98;&#98;&#111;&#115;&#115;&#64;&#112;
&#101;&#97;&#99;&#101;&#98;&#50;&#121;&#111;&#117;
&#46;&#111;&#114;&#103;">&#69;&#45;&#109;&#97;&#105;
&#108;</a>

When we order services, merchandise and subscriptions online we are asked for a valid e-mail address.  Often the company promises complete privacy.   To find out what companies sell your address, change the address you submit to the company from "yourname@yourdomain.com" to "yourname+companyname@yourdomain.com"

You will still get your mail but any directed to modified addresses will reveal the source.

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Get a good anti-virus program. The best ones update daily, and allow their users to download updates. As new viruses are developed and discovered, new protections have to be designed. Unless you update, you won't have full protection.  With the recent onslaught of new viruses it is prudent to check for updates daily.

Even if you never use the internet your computer still needs an anti-virus program.  Viruses can be transmitted through infected floppy disks.  Boot-sector viruses can infect your computer when you turn it on with a floppy left in the drive.  For information about a free Windows 95/98/2000/XP program that checks your drive for a floppy on shutdown e-mail webboss@peaceb2you.org.

Practice safe computing. Never use a disk that belongs to someone else without checking it for viruses, and making sure the program you're using to check it is reliable and updated. Don't let your kids share disks with their friends either. Make sure that anything you download from the Internet is virus checked first, and don't download anything from a site you don't trust.

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Unfortunately, there are those who for whatever reason, attempt to break in to computers for which they have no authorization.  If you have an "always on" internet connection you need to protect it with a firewall.  These are available in router hardware for a price, and well worth it, and software from many sources.  The hardware router lets you share your internet connection with more than one computer in your home.

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