Lately I see more spam like this;
Hi!
I would like to invite you to visit my Refriendz page and see my latest photos.
In order to visit my space, you must go to:
http://www.refriendz.com/?do=Login.Invite&rid=someone&email=Group@yahoogroups.com (This line edited)
(If this link does not work, please copy and paste it into your browser or go to www.refriendz.com and enter ’someon.sm’ (edited)as Invitation ID to Login to the web site.)
P.S. Refriendz is Invitation-Only, so do not miss your chance to visit my page!
Why I would care about visiting a page for someone I don’t know is beyond me. I do know this is one way to gather more information about me to sell to spammers. It could be legit, although it is rather dubious.
Some times the invitation is to update some one’s ‘Birthday list. (My birthday has been the same all my life, don’t think anyone who has needs to ‘Update’) or it could be some other type of invite.
I guess this is a result of all those ’social’ websites that are poping up everywhere trying to cash in on the MySpace craze. I can’t imagine anyone with a lick of sense actually clicking those links. With all of the malware, phishing and other types of scummy stuff out there, it’s a far better thing to just delete this junk.
I suppose this type of stuff appeals to some folks, but no one I know would want it, at least I hope they wouldn’t. I hope you won’t click it!
Martha
Thieves are everywhere, including the Internet.
By now most of us know about identity theft and are aware of all the scams out there. But there is another form of thievery as well, stealing a website or website content.
Webmasters work hard to make their websites. The really good webmasters learn how to program with HTML and write Cascading Style Sheets, commonly know as CSS. They take pictures of the products they sell. They take care to see if the pictures don’t take too long to load so their pages will load quickly. They make sure the pages are viewed the same way in all browsers, not just Internet Explorer. This process doesn’t happen over night. It takes many days and sometimes nights. Content is king on the Internet and some of us have to really struggle to get that content written. Content needs to be original and not everyone really likes to write. Trial and error is the name of the game until one day they finally get it right. All the hard work pays off at last.
Then one day, someone steals their site. Literally. They steal it by using something called a ’scraper’. It seems there are some folks who decided it would be neat to write a program (which probably consists mainly of scripts) that could capture everything on a website and then post it to another site or blog. These folks offer their site stealing programs for sale and then the inevitable happens.
Someone decided to use a ’scrapper’ or something similar on a Yahoo computer help Group with a lot of members, so there is a lot of ‘posting’ going on. While trying to find a solution to stop this streaming of posts to a blog with the very horrible name of http://how-to-make-a-computer-virus.blogspot.com/ (named no doubt to catch evil surfers). That’s when I found out about scrappers or site stealers. Some time back someone on one of my Groups had their site stolen and the wonder was how they managed to do it so completely. Wondering no more, a scrapper was used!
When this article is posted to my blog I am hoping the blog with the scrapper is gone. Complaints have been filed with the bloggers host, BlogSpot, so we will see what happens. In the meantime, everyone of us that has a website/blog has to wonder, ‘Will a thief target my site?’
Martha
I moved a while back and before I moved, I had SBC DSL (Now AT&T). When I moved to my new location DSL was not available, so of course my email account became disabled.
When DSL became available at my new location, I signed up again.
Here was my problem. All of my Yahoo Groups were tied to the now dysfunctional original email address. I couldn’t remove that email address as it was the primary and there was no option to change it. (Yahoo should allow users to change the primary email address! I guess they have a reason for not being able to change it, but I couldn’t find out what the reason is.)
Yahoo said AT&T has to fix it, they couldn’t. (Why not? No one seems to know.) AT&T said Yahoo had to fix it. They couldn’t fix it. (I think someone could fix it if they just would!)
I could log in to the original email account. I couldn’t send or receive email from this account. (Every now and then spammers managed to send spam to it!) But I had to be signed in to this account to access my Groups.
Bummer!
So I finally took the challenge and setup another Yahoo ID and joined my Groups again. Some of them are still in a pending status and may or may not be activated. (Some owners/moderators don’t check their mail often.) That’s another gripe that could have been avoided if Yahoo would allow the primary email account to be changed.
I put this off for a long time, but it was time to do it. Sigh! I belong to too many Groups!
I finally got everything sqared away; Groups joined with new ID and unsubbed from the old ID. The moment of truth arrived and I deleted the old ID. That was a little scary, but the deed was done.
Joy! The old email address that was un-usable is gone! ‘I’ fixed it! Sorta fixed it, anyway it’s gone.
I never, ever want to do this again!
Martha
I like Vista. I didn’t like it at first, but once I managed to find stuff and where to make changes, Vista is OK. I have gotten used to the UAC (User Access Control) and it doesn’t seem so much in my face as it did at first. My Vista isn’t as slow as a lot of folks say Vista is for them, but I keep my Start-up lean and that does make a difference.
What I don’t like in Vista is the buggy replacement for Outlook Express known as Windows Mail. They removed the only redeeming feature that made it worth while for me to use OE, Identities. ( I have a number of email accounts and I like to keep them separated.)
The layout in Windows Mail is fairly similar except for the Address Book, now known as Contacts. After you use Windows Mail for awhile, you can’t empty the Deleted folder. Buggy! At least with Outlook Express if a folder started misbehaving you could delete it and Outlook Express created a new one the next time you opened it.
Microsoft knows Windows mail is buggy. They made a replacement and called it Windows Live Mail. Just what is it with Microsoft that they can’t come up with totally different names for stuff? First it’s Outlook and Outlook Express, then Windows Messenger and Windows Messenger Service. Now it’s Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail. There may be some other things with almost the same name, but off hand I don’t know for sure.
When I couldn’t empty the Deleted folder in Windows Mail, I downloaded and installed Windows Live Mail. I won’t use Windows Live Mail much. It’s buggy as well. When I tried to mark a spam as ‘Junk’, I got the same error message I got when I tried to empty the Deleted folder in Windows Mail! Buggy! Funny though, after I installed the new mail program, the Deleted folder in Windows Mail will now empty.
The layout for Windows Live Mail is very different and folks seem to have some problems finding what they need. One user reported her Inbox disappeared. I suspect it is still there but hiding for some reason. Buggy! This just shouldn’t happen.
I am recommending Eudora for folks who need help with Windows Mail or Windows Live Mail and need a free email program. Another really good option is Mozilla’s Thunderbird.
Another buggy program is Internet Explorer. A lot of folks keep getting the message that Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and has to close. I haven’t had that problem, but then I don’t use Internet Explorer very much. I know they made some security changes, but why did they have to move the familiar things around so you have to hunt for them? And what happened to the ability to use copy for a web address? Control + C works, but why is ‘copy’ greyed out when I want to copy a web address from the Address bar? I know Firefox has spoiled me, but sometimes I have to use IE and it just aggravates me!
Martha
I absolutely despise spam. I think I hate it more than most and I spend a lot of time trying to defeat the nasty email. Sometimes I think I’m winning, but the victory soon turns to the agony of defeat. I have created, abandoned and deleted so many email accounts I have lost track of the number.
I have used countless spam filters that only half did the job. The filters either were too aggressive or let too much through and they all slowed the flow of email due to the filtering. My ISP has spam filtering, but I don’t use it. I would rather read email that has been downloaded to my computer and the spam filters put too many legitimate emails in the Bulk folder. I have to log onto the account on the web and sort through the Bulk mail, find the legitimate mail and move it to the Inbox. The filters are supposed to ‘learn’, but they don’t ‘learn’ fast enough for me. Once the spam that gets by the filters have downloaded to my computer it is too late to ‘teach’ the spam filter.
I think I may have found a solution for keeping spam away from my Inbox. My ISP offers something called AddressGuard™. It’s really simple to use; I just create some ‘throw-a-way email addresses. I use these addresses for different things. One is just for registering to view content on websites. Once the spam shows up, (and it will, some of those sites lie like crazy when they say they will not share your email address) I just delete the account. I have another just for Yahoo Groups. Once an infected computer owned by a Yahoo Groups member starts sending me spam, I just will delete that account and create another.
If your ISP doesn’t offer this service and you would like to have it; there are a number of services that will provide it for a fee. Yahoo Mail Plus provides the same service for $19.99 a year. With Yahoo Mail Plus you can also download your mail to an email client on your computer.
Here’s hoping I have found the solution to no more spam for my Inbox! (At least for a while.)
However, if you want to try to prevent spam by using some other methods, you can look at Spam in Your Inbox and use these tips to avoid spam.
Martha
A while back I wrote about Bugs and Spiders that had reference to a humongous spiderweb. Now those spiders are at it again and are busy spinning a second spiderweb across the lake from the first web. It really makes me wonder what the heck is going on with those spiders? Scary to most people, including me, but fascinating to ’spider people’.
Another scary thing that’s going on is in the cyber-world, a ‘botnet’. This botnet is a web of computers that have been infected by a nasty piece of malware known as Storm. In February the estimate number of compromised computers was over a million. Since February there have been several onslaughts of phishing emails designed to entrap the un-educated into visiting websites that once visited; secretly installed the worm (or Trojan Horse) known as Storm. This storm worm then added more and more of these zombie computers to the botnet.
The problems with this botnet are many. First, no one knows who is behind it, so there is no way law enforcement can stop it. The infected computers can be used to send out spam emails and other nefarious stuff. They can be used to steal the identity of the computer users, who have no idea their computer is infected. You can read more about all of this on Storm: The Largest Botnet in the World? Keep in mind this article was written back in February. It’s a lot worse by now!
About two months ago most of us received a lot of messages telling us we had received an egreeting card from someone. The messages varied; the subject could say it was from a school-mate, family member, etc. It could have said it was a greeting card, an ecard, postcard, etc. but every one of the messages told you to go to a website to collect your greeting and if you did, guess what; you got worms! If you had updated anti-virus it may have protected you, but then again, maybe not!
Then came another little jewel in email that went something like this:
“Greetings, Here is your membership info for Cat Lovers.”
Then it went on to provide you with a login and password. This little missive was intended to catch more unsuspecting users and give them a little ’stormy’ present!
So as much as I fear spiders (and their webs), I am much more afraid of the enormous web known as a botnet! You should be afraid as well!
Martha
Sometimes I put minor computer problems off, waiting for the right time to fix.
Guess it was that time. Back in April I got the latest version of Corel’s Paint Shop Pro to use on Vista. I uninstalled the trial and then installed the full retail version.
Every time I started Paint Shop Pro, I got a splash screen telling me I had thirty days left on my trial.
Not funny!
Editing the Registry, deleting all the files for Corel I could find was to no avail, every time I used PSP that stupid splash screen came up and I had to click OK to get the program to load. Corel’s support just told me to do what I had told them I had already done. ‘Support’ means different things to different people, and that was not support.
I uninstalled PSP and again, deleted everything I could find with the name Corel on it. By this time I just decided to install it on another computer and forget about it. (Folks who know me will figure out this won’t be the end of this.) This was in April.
Fast forward to August. I still hadn’t installed PSP on my other computer; it already had an older version installed. By now I have found more of the little nooks and crannies where Vista hides things. So once more I do a hunt for all things Corel and sure enough; I found another Corel folder. It contained that screen that kept popping up telling me about the trial. I deleted it and reinstalled Paint Shop Pro. It installed nicely and now when I open it there is no aggravating trial notification.
Martha
I just hate it when someone starts bad-mouthing a program I use and like. I hate it even more when they start telling me how ‘bad’ my computer manufacturer is.
Recently I was involved in a rather ’spirited’ argument about PCs and Macs. This is an argument that no one is likely to win.
There are a lot of reasons why I don’t have an Apple computer, the first and main reason is price. In order to use a Mac, for what I do on a computer, I would have to pay a lot more money for the programs I use. I would also have to learn how to use the programs as the programs I use are not available for a Mac. Apple programs rend to be a lot pricier than programs for a PC.
The argument that an Apple computer is a lot safer than a PC is quite good, but I have never had a security breach, virus, worm or trojan on any of my computers since 1994. I did have one virus then, and learned my lesson about security on computers. I got the virus from a floppy disk, who knows how it got there. I guess if I was into going to questionable web sites, opened strange attachments, etc., I might have had more problems.
I like HP computers. The reason I like them is I have had four of them and none of them ever caused any problems. They are affordable and I can go to just about any place that sells computers and buy one. I can look at it, test the keyboard, view the display and decide on which model I want.
I hear people say they are ‘No good’, a piece of c**p, etc. Well, if they are that bad, how come they are the number one or two (depending on the current market) sellers of computers? If they were as bad as some folks say they would soon be out of business!
I have some friends that have Dell computers. They are good computers, perform well and I have only had to fix problems for them a few times. The problems were user related, not hardware related. But I don’t like the look and feel of the keyboards. This is a personal thing with me and the reason I won’t buy a Dell.
I have a new HP laptop ordered and it has a 17 inch screen. Dell also has a laptop with a 17 inch screen. But the keyboard on that laptop looks exactly the same as the keyboard on the 15 inch screen and does not have a keypad. Folks, I have to have my keypad! I could get a separate keypad, but with the HP laptop I won’t have to because it has one.
I ordered this laptop with Microsoft Vista Ultimate installed. I have also been in another rather spirited argument about how Vista is ‘bad’. The people arguing have been using beta versions of Vista and I guess they don’t like it, mostly because of what is known as DRM (Digital Rights Management). I have been using my new laptop with Vista Ultimate for about six months and so far I like it! It has a pretty ‘face’ and I do like my eye candy! However, that’s not the only reason I like it. The verdict is still out as to whether I will like it later.
I still like Windows XP and I will not upgrade to Vista on my computer with XP installed. It has always been my experience that upgrades are just not as good as clean installs and are prone to more problems.
Martha