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Protect
Your Privacy
The
importance of privacy varies from person to person. Personal privacy
is not a big issue for me or I wouldn't author websites. My E-mail
addresses are known to every spammer in the universe; I even get
begging E-mails from my wife!
Some
people change their Email address more often than they change
their socks in an attempt to beat the spammers but this is inconvenient
to them and their contacts and is unnecessary. I don't read junk
but delete it before it even reaches my computer. How? find
out here....
I
get a lot of junk snail-mail that's physically harder to deal
with, but I'm not going to move house to avoid it.
"Can
you safeguard your E-mail address"
When ordering something from the Internet, even a free newsletter,
it's necessary to give your E-mail address and there's always,
with reputable websites, a privacy statement promising not to
disclose your address to a third party. I am very conscious of
my responsibilities in this direction, both with respect to my
E-zine, Shed 18 News or for readers who are kind enough to write
to me.
There is a way to check on malpractice over the passing on of
E-mails. My E-mail address can be changed to include anything
before the @ symbol. Thus if I, for example, see a magazine called
"Wine Taster" I could use Wine@mysite.com
to subscribe. Then if I found this address being used elsewhere
I'd know there was a breach of my privacy. See whether your address
can be used in this way, but keep a note of your aliases. Too
much trouble? Probably, but I thought you'd be interested in this
dodge
If you contribute to newsgroups, it's best not to give your correct
E-mail address as spam robots tend to harvest addresses from these.
Most replies to a thread are addressed to the whole group, but
if you want to allow members to E-mail you direct, then add a
few letters to your address to make it invalid, but give the key
in the signature. For example, Joe@hotmail.com could change his
address to Joe@hathotmail.com with a note "Remove hat before replying".
However, in my opinion, trying to safeguard your Email address
is not worth the trouble. Treat it as suggested on my "Kill
Spam page.
Reserving an Email adress for the sole use of friends will work
for a while, but even so the spammers will find it after a time,
sometimes a short time. They use coding programs to spew out millions
of likely addresses and spam them all. It doesn't cost them anything.
"Pop-ups
and pop-unders"
Sometimes, when you're surfing, small windows (and some not so
small) appear on screen. Some are welcome, others are a nuisance.
They're called pop-ups. Others cannot be seen until you log off,
but lurk under your main window waiting to be seen. These are
pop-unders.
There are a lot of programs that counteract-popups
and these include various toolbars that can be downoaded for free
such as the Google toolbar.
As
you use your computer you leave a trail behind you by which other
people can find out what you've been doing. Maybe your colleagues,
maybe your partner, maybe your kids.
Panicware
sells a program to get over this and they also have a range of
other interesting programs. I've not used them myself but the
site's worth a look.
"Cookies"
Cookies
are tiny bits of text that are left on your machine when you visit
some commercial websites. They are harmless, reactive and are
helpful when you return to the site. It's like returning to a
shop and being remembered by the shop assistant.
Unfortunately
other, more sinister, text files are also deposited. These differ
from cookies in that they are pro-active; they actively pass out
information about your computer. Most are harmless but still a
nuisance. Carrying on the analogy about shopping, it's like going
into a strange shop wearing a notice "I'm a mug"
There are several programs which address this problem. The one
I use is Ad-Aware by Lavasoft. I use the free version Their website
is interesting and is worth a visit. Search for it in Google.
Programs
that I recommend are all those that I use and have found effective
and reasonable in price. Ad-Aware is a very powerful program and
must be treated with care. Like any other program of its kind
it can only employ a formula to determine which files are suspect.
It isn't intelligent, so may throw up files such as cookies that
are beneficial. It's up to you to make the judgement. Always be
wary of deleting cookies.
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