Email Advice

GENERAL ADVICE......

As you are all becoming aware, email can be a very non secure form of communication. Make sure you understand the following:

1) The FROM address can always be easily forged in current email clients. Only in the header can you see any "real" stuff and this can be very difficult to decipher.

2) You may be on a BCC list, which is why the TO address is not yours, but you still receive it. I would be suspicious of this.

3) Anything you say in an email is clear text and is liable for interception.

4) Only if you keep your Windows software up to date, the antivirus up to date, lock down IE and OE, be vigilant about spyware, and stay away from mal ware sites, are you capable of keeping ahead of the miscreants and terrorists in Internet space. The default manner in which Microsoft has bundled their email client has probably done more to encourage/allow hacking than anything else, except the actual vulnerabilities of Windows itself. Only with SP2 on XP have they actually defaulted the application to a safe install!

5) MACs and Linux are still less vulnerable than Windows, but there are ways to get to them too.

6) Older versions of Windows are especially vulnerable, doubly so if not kept up to date. You can still update Windows 98 and ME. Although Microsoft is maintaining the update capability for them, it is NOT backhauling the security precautions into them that it is putting into XP.

I am recommending the following to many people:

1) If you are using OE and IE, then you should lock them down, at least on your main PC where you have all your tax returns, investing stuff, any other private stuff. Steps for doing this are on my web site. This can be a pain. On my main PC, I punch a LOT of pop ups denying ActiveX and scripting. But I feel more secure!

2) I would consider switching from IE to Mozilla firefox. It is a terrific browser, very similar to IE and not yet susceptible to Windows vulnerabilities. www.mozilla.org When you install, it pulls all of your settings from IE. You can elect to NOT make it the default browser until you get used to it. However, it looks very similar. And you will like the tabbed browsing. And the popup blocking.

3) I would also consider switching from OE to Mozilla Thunderbird, see www.mozilla.org When you install, it pulls all of your settings from OE. You don't have to worry about setting it up. It blocks images/attachments by defaults, and has an easy override button if you know you want to do it anyway. This is a really nice email client... so far as I have looked at it.

4) Make sure you upgrade to XP SP2 if you have XP. Especially if you are NOT behind a router of any kind, or you are on dialup. [shame on you...]

5) I would spring for a new PC this Christmas if you are getting really tired of this stuff. It will usually have XP, and it will come with an OEM version of XP SP2, even better. I might even suggest a MAC, because it has evolved to UNIX underneath the hood now, and even has a command line. It is quite different from the Windows way of doing things, and will take some getting used to. But I wouldn't doubt that they still charge twice as much as Windows boxes.

6) If you are adventuresome, Fedora Linux is FREE and you can do everything and then some with it that you can do with Windows and MAC. It can be installed on any X86 Windows box, but not, in general on a MAC box.

I have been using Firefox and Thunderbird on several of my PCs, and I really like them. They are free of course. You can use them at the same time you use IE and OE. The down side to Firefox and Thunderbird are that you have to keep them up to date out of the Windows context. Firefox does have a built-in update notifier, and the update is quite easy. Good for them.

There is a secure way to do email, and it is already built into all the popular email clients. I have tried it and it is not too difficult. It involves buying a "digital certificate" from websites like Verisign which you attach to your email. Recipients can then verify the email is from you using a second key generated by Verisign. This "Public Key Infrastructure" is used in all kinds of ways, but just not in universal email. They are free ways of doing all this, but not quite as straightforward. I discuss this at http://www.pccitizen.com/securemal.htm Using this technique of using "certificates" you can insure the following:

1) You can verify that an email is FROM the person whom you think it is from.

2) You can also encrypt the body of the communications to make it readable only by the person to whom it is sent.

If you want to get adventuresome and try this, let me know. I would love to get involved.

Good luck...