Correct way to forward an email without become the target of spam?

I received this advice in an email and, hoping that it is not cleverly disguised spam, thought I would paste he here.

Curious to know if this is correct information...

SOME FOLKS ARE GOOD ABOUT THIS, OTHERS CAN LEARN FROM BELOW.
THANKS, IT WILL HELP REDUCE SPAM FOR ALL OF US.

HOW TO FORWARD E-MAIL APPROPRIATELY
A friend who is a computer expert received the following directly from a system administrator for a corporate system. It is an excellent message that ABSOLUTELY applies to ALL of us who send e-mails. Please read the short letter below, even if you're sure you already follow proper procedures..

Do you really know how to forward e-mails? 50% of us do; 50% DO NOT.

Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Do you hate it?

Every time you forward an e-mail there is information left over from the people who got the message before you, namely their e-mail addresses & names. As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses builds, and builds, and builds, and all it takes is for some poor sap to get a virus, and his or her computer can send that virus to every e-mail address that has come across his computer. Or, someone can take all of those addresses and sell them or send junk mail to them in the hopes that you will go to the site and he will make five cents for each hit. That's right, all of that inconvenience over a nickel!

How do you stop it? Well, there are several easy steps:

(1) When you forward an e-mail, DELETE all of the other addresses that appear in the body of the message (at the top). That's right, DELETE them. Highlight them and delete them, backspace them, cut them, whatever it is you know how to do. It only takes a second You MUST click the 'Forward' button first and then you will have full editing capabilitiesagainst the body and headers of the message. If you don't click on 'Forward' first, you won't be able to edit the message at all.

(2) Whenever you send an e-mail to more than one person, do NOT use the To: or Cc: fields for adding e-mail addresses. Always use the BCC: (blind carbon copy) field for listing the e-mail addresses.. This is the way the people you send to will only see their own e-mail address. If you don't see your BCC: option click on where it says To: and your address list will appear. Highlight th e address and choose BCC: and that's it, it's that easy. When you send to BCC: your message will automatically say 'Undisclosed Recipients' in the 'TO:' field of the people who receive it.

(3) Remove any 'FW :' in the subject line. You can re-name the subject if you wish or even fix spelling.

(4) ALWAYS hit your Forward button from the actual e-mail you are reading. Ever get those e-mails that you have to open 10 pages to read the one page with the information on it? By Forwarding from the actual page you wish someone to view, you stop them from having to open many e-mails just to see what you sent.

(5) Have you ever gotten an email that is a petition? It states a position and asks you to add your name and address and to forward it to 10 or 15 people or your entire address book.. The email can be forwarded on and on and can collect thousands of names and email addresses.. A FACT: The completed petition is actually worth a couple of bucks to a professional spammer because of the wealth of valid names and email addresses contained therein. If you want to support the petition, send it as your own personal letter to the intended recipient. Your position may carry more weight as a personal letter than a laundry list of names and email address on a petition. (Actually, if you think about it, who's supposed to send the petition in to whatever cause it supports? And don 't believe the ones that say that the email is being traced, it just aint so!)

(6) One of the main ones I hate is the ones that say that something like, 'Send this email to 10 people and you'll see something great run across your screen.' Or, sometimes they'll just tease you by saying something really cute will happen IT AINT GONNA HAPPEN!!!!! (Trust me, I'm still seeing some of the same ones that I waited on 10 years ago!) I don't let the bad luck ones scare me either, they get trashed. (Could be why I haven't won the lottery??)

(7) Before you forward an Amber Alert, or a Virus Alert, or some of the other ones floating around nowadays, check them out before you forward them. Most of them are junk mail that's been circling the net for YEARS! Just about everything you receive in an email that is in question can be checked out at Snopes. Just go to http://www.snopes.com/

Its really easy to find out if it's real or not. If it's not, please don't pass it on.

So please, in the future, let's stop the junk mail and the viruses.

Finally, here's an idea!!! Let's send this to everyone we know (but strip my address off first, please).& nbsp;This is something that SHOULD be forwarded

...... well, that's it. Any comments. Is this the right way to forward emails so as to minimise the possibility of getting spam.
 
The advice here is spot on. Spammers are only able to be spammers if they have a list of email addresses to send their SPAM to. It makes sense then to try to stop them getting YOUR email address. And it is as simple as the steps mentioned and being vigilant.

One point not mentioned is having a signature that asks people to deal with your email in a particular way. This is what my signature says on all my outgoing emails -

LET'S REDUCE SPAM AND MAINTAIN PRIVACY.
PLEASE don't forward on my emails unless you delete my email details first.
And PLEASE don't include me in emails to groups of people unless you put my email address in the BCC line.

I have still got some SPAM and can usually work out who is the culprit. When I talk to them about it it's usually because they don't know what BCC is or how to set it so I enlighten them :)

The other point I'd make regarding the advice in your post is how to find and set the BCC field to show everytime you create an email. The method mentioned may not work in all email programmes. What usually does work however is - open a new email, then click on View - Show All Headers.

Cheers
Olly
 
when you write an email address online, use this format >

mrhappy at bigpond dot com dot au

or

mrssad at yahoo dot com

that way those nigerian phishers and bots can't scoop your details just by scrolling.
 
Thanks Stella, Blue Card and Olly. I must admit I was a bit clueless until I read this, and just forwarded things on without knowing I should be deleting things.

I like Olly's idea of putting a standard paragraph on the bottom of my emails, and think I will try this.

I am interested in what Blue Card has advised. Are there programmes that would search forums like this and pick up email addresses from amongst typed things, or do they only search emails?

I don't know about anybody else, but for the past little while I have been getting as many as 33 spam emails picked up with Spamfighter. If only I needed some Viagra or Watches or a bigger "you know what" :eek:
 
I've been following these principles for years, and consequently get very little spam.

Another tip - if someone forwards something to you with all the previous email addresses listed and not deleted then NEVER forward anything to them - if they don't delete before they send to you then they won't delete your address before sending on.

And I only forward about 5% of ones forwarded to me, most are old hat, NOT funny or simply unbelieveable.

So far I've been lucky - my knickers have NOT finished up around my ankles after the elastic has snapped (as many emails threaten).
Marg
 
Thanks Stella, Blue Card and Olly. I must admit I was a bit clueless until I read this, and just forwarded things on without knowing I should be deleting things.

I look at it this way. Would you like people forwarding your home address all around the place? Strangers knocking on your day 10 times a day trying to flog something or other? Probably not. And while not as personal as a home address, an email address is still something you don't want compromised because once it is - it's impossible to uncompromise. I try to use my ISP email address for personal correspondance to family, friends & business and have web based email addresses for use in forums, sharing jokes etc. because you can ditch them and get another one if it becomes bloated with SPAM and hard to control.

Are there programmes that would search forums like this and pick up email addresses from amongst typed things, or do they only search emails?
There are bots that search EVERYTHING on the internet to gather email addresses - forums, newsgroups, websites, emails, EVERYTHING.

Cheers
Olly
 
How will I ever know how to marry the Russian Woman of my dreams, increase my manhood and virility (no good one without the other) and be lucky enough to help out some poor Nigerian, who needs a hand to get their rich relatives money out of the country- if I delete these emails?

I do most of the above but had a Doh moment when I read Marg's post as she's right

images
 
if someone forwards something to you with all the previous email addresses listed and not deleted then NEVER forward anything to them - if they don't delete before they send to you then they won't delete your address before sending on.
Unfortunately, a lot of professionals make this mistake- just because they don't know the proper email etiquette- or sometimes just because they click the wrong button.

If it is somebody I know, I send them a request asking them not to do it again- with the suggestion that if they do repeat, they are breaking privacy laws.
 
I'm usually a final stop for all such e-mails, unless it's some really really good joke. And even in that case i would forward it only to a handful of close friends.

Don't understand the obsession with forwarding every junk e-mail you get to everyone in your address book. You don't do that with the paper junk mail, why do that with e-mails?:confused:
 
You don't do that with the paper junk mail, why do that with e-mails?:confused:

That is such an awesome idea Strannik... next time I get some junk mail I'm going to run it through the photocopier 30 times and forward it to everyone I know.

As for the above, I would have hit delete straight after reading this line:

A friend who is a computer expert received the following directly from a system administrator for a corporate system

I agree the email turned out to be a pretty useful one, but that line just has dodgy written all over it. Are you sure it wasn't your friend's aunt's cousin's daughter's Romanian pen-pal's ex-wife's cat?

-Ian
 
As for the above, I would have hit delete straight after reading this line:

I agree the email turned out to be a pretty useful one, but that line just has dodgy written all over it. Are you sure it wasn't your friend's aunt's cousin's daughter's Romanian pen-pal's ex-wife's cat?-Ian

See :p. You would have been too hasty, wouldn't you, and missed some good advice.

And to answer your second question, it was the cat :p.
 
I confess I've been known to send people this excellent link, if they send me chain letters or hoax virus warnings:

http://ask-leo.com/why_shouldnt_i_forward_this_email_asking_me_to_forward_to_everyone_i_know.html

But at the same time, I must confess that I don't really understand the degree of passion that some people have about spam. There are so many excellent free spam filters nowadays, that you really don't have to see much/any spam these days, so it's not like it interferes with your ability to use your email address effectively, as it used to some years ago. I think every one of my email addresses has been compromised, and my filter tells me it removes thousands of spams per month, but it really doesn't impact on me so I don't really care.

Are those who are really passionate about spam finding that they don't have effective spam filtering?

Or are they frustrated with the waste of bandwidth? Fair call, it is a huge waste of resources, though the internet is still functioning. We're all here on Somersoft. ;)

I really think that there will come a time - in the next few years - when such a huge majority of internet users know appropriate netiquette, and never click on or buy things from spammers, that it just won't be worth spammers' while to try and spam.

But then again, I am the eternal optimist. :D
 
Ok, that sounds like good advice, but does anyone have the name of a good, free spam filter. I get a huge amount each day, not only at home, but at work too. This morning - at work - I logged on & there was over 100. Most of them looked like they were emails that I had sent, that had bounced back, but they weren't. I have also been getting - at home - ones that say they have come from me. Sooooo frustrating.
 
skater is this for a work email or a personal one? Who is providing the email address? Generally the free providers like Hotmail etc have spam fitering ability, and hosting providers (like my company) provide it as a free service to all our clients.

By filtering at the server level you save the hassle of downloading it. By filtering at the local level (on your pc) you aren't really saving yourself any bandwidth, as you still download it before your filter removes it.
 
We have layers of spam filtering, including two server-level filters, so maybe that's why we get such good results. Though I've noticed since joining gmail that their spam filtering seems to be excellent; I can't recall any spam getting through their spam filter.

The first step is to check if your ISP (Optus, Telstra, TPG, or whoever you use) has server-level spam filtering, and if so, whether it's turned on for your account. Most ISPs pay big bucks for these server-level filters and they're usually very effective, so the first step is to get this working for you. I don't think it's automatically applied to every account; it's usually a setting that you have to activate in your account. So this is your first point of call!

If you try that and still seem to be having trouble, I'd suggest you get a gmail address, because as I said, gmail seems to have excellent spam filtering. If you don't want to tell everybody a new email address, that's OK, you don't have to. Create the new gmail address, then set all your incoming mail (at Telstra or Optus or whatever ISP you use) to be automatically forwarded to the gmail address, before it even hits your Inbox, and then let the gmail spam filter go over all your incoming mail. Then hopefully only the non-spam gets through to your gmail account.

Then you can either:

1) Check your mail via the gmail website,

OR

2) If you'd prefer to continue using Outlook (or whatever mail program you use), you can set it up to retrieve email from your gmail account rather than from your ISP email address.

If you need further instructions on how to do any of these steps, I'm happy to help if you PM me.
 
skater is this for a work email or a personal one? Who is providing the email address? Generally the free providers like Hotmail etc have spam fitering ability, and hosting providers (like my company) provide it as a free service to all our clients.

By filtering at the server level you save the hassle of downloading it. By filtering at the local level (on your pc) you aren't really saving yourself any bandwidth, as you still download it before your filter removes it.

At home all our emails are optusnet.com.au, not sure with the one at work.
 
See :p. You would have been too hasty, wouldn't you, and missed some good advice.

Okay let me re-state that:

I agree the email turned out to be a pretty useful one for some people, myself not included, but that line just has dodgy written all over it.

:)
 
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