Sending and receiving e-mail
E
-mail
is short for electronic mail. People use e-mail to exchange messages
and send and receive attachments such as photos, music, or videos.
Unfortunately, e-mail's usefulness is undermined by spam (unsolicited
messages trying to sell you something and spam scams that try to
trick you out of your money (also known as phishing).
Ten safety tips for sending and
receiving e-mail
C
hoose
a safe e-mail address
that doesn't give away personal information.
Pick one that
doesn't help identify or locate you. For example,
SusieDoe_14_small_town@google.com.au reveals enough for someone to
find Susie-her name, age, and small town in Australia.
Avoid using
flirtatious names like "2sexy4U" which may cause unwanted
attention and expose you to greater risk.
Make sure your
full name is not exposed by your e-mail service by listing your full
name on e-mail messages you send. Your real name displays by
default on many of the major e-mail services, so whoever you e-mail
can see your full name as well as your e-mail address. Because a
last name and an online people directory may be all it takes to
locate your family, look up your phone number, and have a sense of
your income bracket based on the location of your home, you may want
to avoid having your last name display in your e-mails. Check your
e-mail help to find out how to do this.
Don't
share sensitive personal information
in
e-mail.
Never
share passwords, social security numbers, credit card information,
and the like.
Pay
attention if you use an automatic e-mail signature. This is a handy
feature because it typically provides your full name, address, and
phone numbers. But if it's inserted automatically in all your
e-mail responses, you might unwittingly reveal more information
than you intended to people you don't know, especially if your
e-mail is forwarded to others.
Consider
who you want to e-mail with. Remember: a friend of a friend is a
stranger. Just because someone
sends you an e-mail doesn't mean you need to read it or respond to
it. You may choose to block messages from specific senders, or
restrict your e-mail from anyone not specifically on your contact
list. Find the instructions for how to do this in your e-mail
service help. Think twice
before you open attachments or click links in e-mail-even if you
know the sender.
If
you don't know the sender, delete the message; if you do know the
sender, double-check that an attachment or link is safe to open. If
your friend doesn’t remember sending you the attachment,
delete the message.
If anyone sends you inappropriate
material, report
it to your ISP (Internet service provider) or the police, if
appropriate. Encourage your kids to tell you about anything they
receive that upsets them.
Don't be fooled by phishing.
Be very skeptical if you receive an e-mail that looks like it is
from your bank, broker, or other trusted company but asks you to
verify or re-enter sensitive personal or financial information
through e-mail, a Web site they direct you to, or a phone number
they provide. It is quite likely a scam. Type in your own link to
the bank or company or look up the phone number yourself.
Avoid typing sensitive information
into a public computer
such as those found at the library or
an Internet cafe.
Sensitive information includes your name and phone numbers, account
numbers and passwords, or home or e-mail addresses. An industrious
thief might install a kind of spyware
that records your every keystroke. Never select the feature that
automatically logs you on to e-mail when you start the computer, or
accept a "Remember My Password" option.
Be
cautious about meeting someone you know only through e-mail in
person. Everything someone
tells you about himself and his motivation for meeting you may be
completely true - or completely false. If you decide to meet
someone, never go alone, make sure others know where you're going,
meet in a very public place, and keep your cell phone handy.
Consider what
you're saying and sharing in e-mail and how you would feel if the
information was shared. Anything
you say in e-mail can be forwarded to others or monitored by
employers or other family members.
Report e-mail harassment or
bullying.
As in real life, this is
unacceptable behavior and in some cases, illegal. Report harassment
or abuse to your service provider. (Every service should have a
clearly visible Report Abuse function; if it doesn't, consider
switching providers.) If you feel at physically threatened, report
the abuse to your local law enforcement agency as well.
Help protect
children who
are using e-mail.
For
younger children, use a service that enables you to limit your
child's contacts to people you both know and allows you to monitor
who they're talking to.
Have
a discussion with teens about who they communicate with and what
they talk about. Set boundaries that match your family's values and
your child’s age, reassessing these boundaries periodically
as your child matures. Caution them not to list their e-mail
addresses publicly, or respond to e-mail from strangers.
Teach
them that entering sweepstakes or filling out quizzes that require
them to enter their e-mail address is one of the quickest ways to
have an e-mail alias sold to spammers. They should always guard
their e-mail account information.
Send e-mail to a group
safely
A
ny
time you send or forward e-mail to a group of people who don't know
each other, you can protect everybody’s identity by placing all
the e-mail addresses on the Bcc (or Blind Carbon Copy) line of the
message address feature. That way no recipient can see the other
recipients’ e-mail addresses and your friends' e-mail addresses
are protected from spammers.
E
very
e-mail program has a Bcc: option on its e-mail form (the place where
you address and enter the content of a message). Search in your
e-mail program's Help if you can’t find this feature readily.
Tip:
You may also want to include a message like this at the bottom of
your e-mail messages as a reminder:
Note:
To protect my privacy, please do not expose my e-mail address to
others. If you're sending e-mail to a group of people that includes
me, please put my e-mail address on the Bcc: line only.
Creating safe e-mail
aliases
The
more pieces of information you provide in your online identity, the
more clues you give predators of any kind – whether their
intent is to cause financial, emotional, or physical harm. Your
choice of an e-mail alias, such as JackS@Smith.com
is one way you can expose your identity. The
safest personal e-mail alias or nickname (versus your work e-mail
over which you have little control) for users of any age does not
provide identifiable information, such as:
Names
– first, middle, or last names
Age
– birth year, birth month, or day; or any astrological sign
that can help provide this information such as ‘Leo, born in
the year of the Monkey.’
Location
information –
city, town, country, or region such as Northwest. Don’t give
your school name or employer in your personal e-mail alias.
Sexual
or physical suggestion
– Certain words such as ‘hot’ or ‘sexy’
let others know how you want to be perceived, while words
like ‘snuggly’ or ‘lonely’ suggest an
interest in intimacy that predators can take advantage of.
Work
descriptor –
Teacher, engineer, dentist, or a description of your place of
employment.
Emotional
vulnerability
–
words such as sad, grieving, lost, suicide, and lonely place you at
risk; there is always a criminal waiting to be your ‘best
friend’.
Risk
behaviors –
names that speak of drug use (littletokr), criminal activity
(carjacker), or violence.
Ethnic
identifiers - may
increase the risk of hate crimes, or may help identify you
(Asiandoll, N8tive (native), and mxed, for example).
Hobbies
or sports – An
unusual sport such as polo or barrel riding, or sports that imply a
specific socio-economic bracket, or are only done in a few locations
(skeet shooting or bull fighting, for example) are more identifying
than baseball or soccer. Predators can use such interests to make a
personal connection with a victim.
NOTE:
Employers or schools may have defined domains (___@company.com)
and assigned protocols for your name – even using your full
name. It is important in these cases that you do not tie additional
pieces of personal information to that account.
Using multiple e-mail accounts
It
is a good idea to have additional e-mail accounts if you sign up for
newsletters,
sign up for services that require an e-mail account, or communicate
with groups where you may not know some of the members personally.
Using
different e-mail accounts helps you compartmentalize your privacy and
safety. If one account is breached, the others are still safe. On
some sites you can use the e-mail account provided by the site
(reputable services that involve communicating with other members,
such as dating sites, should provide this feature). Using a separate
account, if you connect with the wrong type of person, you can
abandon the account without having to change your main e-mail
account.
Managing
Spam
S
pam
is e-mail sent in bulk to recipients who have not requested it from
senders they usually do not know. Spam can be transmitted over any
Internet-connect device (such as a computer, cell phone, or PDA).
Spam is a cheap way to market products or services, but it is illegal
in many countries.
Nearly
70% of all e-mail traffic in the world is spam. In 2007 one study
showed that there were 90 billion spam messages sent a day. While
there are serious efforts by Internet service providers to block junk
e-mail, determined spammers are making equally serious efforts to
find ways to keep filling your inbox. They constantly evolve new
methods of fooling the anti-spam filters.
Understand
the anti-spamming capabilities of your e-mail provider and set up the
service to flag spam or put it in a separate ‘junk mail’
folder. Review this folder periodically to make sure legitimate
e-mail hasn’t been placed there, and then delete the spam
e-mails without opening them. Stay up to date on spam tactics and,
when in doubt about the origin or intent of an e-mail, delete it. If
you really want to eliminate all spam, consider using an e-mail
service that requires senders to authenticate themselves, something
automatically generated spam can’t handle. There are several
companies that offer this for a relatively low cost.
Always
have strong anti-spam, anti-virus and anti-phishing tools installed
and set to update automatically. Don’t open links or
attachments from someone you don’t know (or even from someone
you do know, if you weren’t expecting the attachment. Many
viruses take over users address books and spam all of their friends
with malicious attachments knowing you will be more likely to open an
attachment from a friend).
Forwarding chain e-mails
A
n
online chain letter may be amusing, or it may be dangerous. Many urge
you to take some action online that makes you the target of a scam
or forward the message to your friends. By forwarding a chain mail
you may be helping spammers collect new e-mail addresses to target
and sell to. Anyone whose e-mail address includes their full name or
other identifying information, or who uses an e-mail service such as
Hotmail or Yahoo! that expose full names as well as e-mail addresses,
may also be exposing themselves to other types of crime.
If
you choose to forward an e-mail to a group,
do so safely. It is better to copy the content and put it in a new
e-mail and delete the names of everyone previously on the chain.
Place
your e-mail address on the ‘To:’ line
and place everyone else’s e-mail on the Bcc: line.
