These spammers work in many ways. For example, you may get an e-mail that is worded in such a way that you open it before you realize its junk. By opening the e-mail the spammer has the 10 seconds needed to plant what is known as a Trojan Horse onto your hard drive that activates later on. It's even worse if you open an attachment on an e-mail. I have a policy on all e-mails. If I have a small doubt about who is sending it to me, I delete the message and never open an attachment. If I think I know the person who is sending the message, I will call them before opening the attachment. Even then, they may be sending me an attachment that has a virus with it they don't know about. So, I always scan for viruses (see below on Norton program I use). Trojan horses can do many things. One thing it can do is simply gather information from your hard drive and in background, forward the information to the spammer, who then can use it for their purposes. Many such programs search for keywords on the drive, such as e-mail, passwords, bank, financial, etc. This can allow the spammer to hijack your on-line identity and even use your e-mail address to send out tons of e-mail you did not send. Ken talked to this fellow "Mike" who was truly bewildered at how this could happen. The solution for this Mike fellow is to close down his old e-mail address and get a new one. Trying to fix things are hopeless. This is why if you have anywhere on your computer a list of your passwords, label the file something like gobblemunchkin or something else silly and have the content of your document as hidden as possible. For example, in my passwords file on my computer I have letters and numbers twice removed, so they are not useable by anyone. For example, if my password today is 1267, I might add two to each number on my pasword list that reminds me should I forget. So, on my list the password looks like 3489 which will not work for anyone. I subtract two from each number -- voila. Obviously, this is not the system I use currently which is much more elaborate, but you get the idea. At least twice a year I change that to three removed plus or minus AND I change passwords on all my programs twice a year as well. I also use two programs to check for intruders. My personal favorite is Norton Anti-Virus, which automatically stops Trojan Horses and other such things as they are trying to be implanted. One day last week I was surfing for some technical equipment and clicked on a site address which turned out to be one of those bogus sites with a bunch of hyperlink listings and the site tried to implant a trojan horse -- Norton Anti Virus warned me and automatically rejected the attempt for me. Another great program which is free is AdAware, which I run once a week. When you click on sites, you agree to accept cookies which allow the web sites to track you later on. I run AdAware to wipe out cookies and other intrusive files. A basic operation on Windows Explorer is to click on Tools, then click on Internet options and clear the cookies and files that way as well. AdAware runs a search that finds hidden files, although the last few times I have run it I find the combo of my Norton program and the Tools on Explorer have made AdAware unnecessary. However, I diligently run it anyway. Another issue -- I ran my Norton last year and it told me there was an offending file but could not remove it -- because it had been installed in a key section of my computer. Norton gave me the location and I had to go into "My Computer" and click a dozen times to find the file and delete it manually. Oh -- one other tool I use -- I have automatic updates sent to me from Microsoft to fix patches found by these spammers. Still, about once a month I sign on to www.msn.com and download any updates on the site to keep my computer current. There is no charge for this update service with Microsoft. Bottom line, these evil spammers are always finding something new to exploit. You must assume at all times that several parties are monitoring you at all times on the Internet. And if you ever get rid of a computer, pull out the inners of your box, take out the hard drive and take a drill and drill dozens of holes into it. Even if you wipe out your hard drive, your information can be retrieved when you toss it. I know this makes it junk and you are not able to donate it to charity or sell it -- but forget that and just junk the thing. Other parts -- keyboard and monitor and mouse you can donate or sell --- and the parts other than the hard drive might be used by a local computer repair store (just offer to donate your old PC for its parts). Obviously, a board devoted to the discussion of the music we love should not have such a long posting on computer issues, but this is the world we live in. Norm, you may already know most of this, but for other posters and viewers of this board, I hope some of this advice helps you. Remember, you're not paranoid if they really are watching your every move...... Trust me, they are.
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