subject: Suzy Stun Gun's Email Safety Tips [print this page] In this day and age, we do a great deal of communicating through email. It's convenient, fast and incredibly efficient. I email my friends, family and co-workers. Even my grandmother has caught up with the times and has her own email address! It's so important that we ladies are super careful about whom we email with. It's not as though you're having a face-to-face conversation with someone and it's so easy to get a hold of just about anyone through email. The girls and I put our heads together and came up with some great tips on how to stay safe while we email.
Never, ever reply to emails from people or organizations that you don't recognize! Even if you click "unsubscribe", it will actually let the sender know that you use that email address and viewed the email. Just mark it as SPAM and trash it.
You can create filters that automatically trash email addresses that SPAM you frequently with inappropriate stuff. For example, create a filter that SPAMs any emails that contain "XXX" in the subject line.
Talk to your internet service provider and find out if your ISP already has a SPAM blocking service. If not, there are companies that block SPAM such as Brightmail. Just make sure whichever company you choose is legitimate and trustworthy!
You can take things a step further and contact directory service sites such as Bigfoot, Infospace, Yahoo People Search and Switchboard and tell them you wish to be unlisted. You certainly don't want to be easily searchable online!
One friend of mine suggested that I encrypt and digitally sign any sensitive emails I send. I found that my email addy didn't do robust encryption so I downloaded PGP Freeware encryption software and used that.
When I send important (and especially work-related) emails I tend to zip the files and protect the attachment with a password. WinZip is one of the best programs for compressing files. It's super easy to use.
One thing you may not realize is that cookies may be being sent through your email. To prevent this I found some software that allows you to shut off the auto Web Browser rendering engineEudora Pro. Do some research and see if it's something you could benefit from!
Something that every girl should practice is NEVER reading emails on a computer that doesn't belong to you or that doesn't belong to someone you trust completely! If you have to use a computer that doesn't belong to you, make sure you clear the browser's history before walking away. If you don't, it's possible that anyone using the computer after you can get into your email inbox
It's probably a good idea to never send personal emails from your work computer. Most companies monitor email and IM activity, so keep your private emails on your private computer!
10. Make sure that you always keep your antivirus software updated and on. I periodically run basic scans on my computer in addition to the routine in-depth ones just to make sure everything is in top shape and no one has snuck onto my hard drive.
11. Never tell someone through email that you'll be alone or out. You don't want someone paying you or your house an unexpected visit. And if you ever find yourself in that situation, make sure you have your stun gun handy!
