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Friday, September 14, 2007
How to stay safe on the Net
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Although I am practically an international sophisticate now, I grew up in a small Arkansas town where the only con men were the guys selling cattle at the weekly animal auction.
So when I first moved to the city, I thought the fellow in the alley was being helpful when he offered to sell me a nice watch for $10. My wrist turned green shortly before the watch stopped forever.
The con men have moved to the Internet these days. For those of you who haven’t lived and breathed the Net, it’s very much like moving to the big city from the farm. Today, we’ll talk some about the most popular scams on the Internet. Maybe I can save you both money and embarrassment.
Phishing for suckers
It’s been around for a while, but phishing (pronouncing fishing for obvious reasons) is still the way most home users lose money and privacy.
For those few who haven’t heard of phishing, it goes like this. You get an official looking e-mail from your bank, or a business like eBay or Amazon.com. The mail offers various reasons for you to go to the company’s Web page and fill out a form that usually includes your e-mail address, password and sometimes banking information.
To make things easy, you are provided with a link - just click on it and you’re taken to the Web site. When you get there everything looks right. If you’re foolish you provide the information. Depending on the scam, that could results in crooks cleaning out your bank account, or making charges to your credit cards, or stealing your identity and using it to get a loan.
Protecting yourself is easy. Never follow the directions on any e-mail like that. In 99.9 percent of the cases, the e-mail are fake. If you worry that it isn’t, look up the telephone number for the business and call and ask if the mail was real.
It’s free
You see a Web site offering a free item or software program. All you need to do is provide some personal information.
According to a recent story about this sort of offer, people who fell for it did get the free item. But the information they furnished provided a great list for spammers.
The frustration here is that everything was legal. The Web site said that it would use the e-mail addresses for marketing. What it didn’t mention was that the list of names, mailing and e-mail addresses, and other information was posted openly on the Web for anyone to see.
That was one expensive “free” gift. Please look all gift horses in the mouth. Then run, don’t walk, away from them.
Another free offer
Some of the most messed up computers I’ve seen are those where the owners have downloaded programs that claim to making searching the Web easier.
Google and Yahoo do great jobs and both their search engines and add-ons can be trusted. But when you go very far beyond that you’re taking a big risk with spyware and adware.
My opinion: Stop searching beyond the big two.
Ordering from questionable online stores
If you need Viagra or prescription pain killer, get them from the doctor. If you don’t, you are taking a chance with your wallet and your life.
Some of these online firms aren’t selling the real thing. Taking these drugs can kill you. For another thing, giving your credit card information to folks who are dealing on the edge - or beyond the edge - of what is legal just doesn’t make sense.
That’s it for today. Unless you have time to take a look at a great Rolex watch I have for sale at $25.
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