Right. Altogether, there are over 150 different networks from these two lists alone. No doubt there are even more than just these two around, I know because I was just lazy and decided to just pull up whatever it is that Google was able to offer. I’m pretty sure I can get some help with this, especially since it’s such a pain that I’m the only bloody one assigned to this. I’ll probably be updating this post from time to time, depending on what I can dig up (or what else other people can actually provide).

Where to start, where to start…

Every time we forward an e-mail, there is information left over from the people who got the message before we did; namely their e-mail addresses & names.  As they 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 email 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. People would do anything for money these days, no?

Now, here are a few easy methods to stop all that crap from coming our way:

1. When forwarding an e-mail, delete all of the other addresses that appear in the body of the message (at the top). Remember to click on the ‘Forward’ button first and then you will have full editing capabilities against the body and headers of the message.
2. When sending an e-mail to more than one person, never 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 ‘BCC:’ option is unavailable, click on where it says To: and the address list will appear. Highlight the address and choose ‘BCC:’. When sending e-mails using ‘BCC:’, the message will automatically say ‘Undisclosed Recipients’ in ‘TO:’ field when the recipients read said e-mail.
3. Remove any ‘FW:’ in the subject line. It’s recommended to even re-name the subject at own discretion.
4. Always hit the ‘Forward’ button from the actual e-mail being read. By forwarding from the actual page that was meant to be viewed, it stops recipients from having to open many e-mails just to see what was sent. These are the ones that often end up having picked up a virus from someone else.
5. Forget forwarding e-mails that look like they’re petitions. The email can be forwarded on and on and can collect thousands of names and email addresses. The completed petition is actually worth a some money to some monkey spammer because of the wealth of valid names and email addresses contained therein.
6. Before forwarding an amber alert, or a virus alert, or some of the other ones floating around nowadays, check them out before forwarding them.  Most of them are junk mail that’s been circling the net for years on end. Just about everything you receive in an email that is in question can be checked out at Snopes or at Hoax Slayer.

Right, so it’s time to forward funny/naked pics to all my friends.