Greetings from SurfSafely.com! If you enjoy reading this newsletter as much as I do writing it, pass it on to all your friends and family. As always, this newsletter is opt-in only. If you feel you've received it in error, reliable removal instructions are at the bottom. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In this issue: Opening comments 1. Product review: MailWasher. A poke in the eye to spammers. 2. Recent news of interest ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I can hardly believe it. My kids are already talking about the school year end and plans for summer vacation. Where does the time go? If I've done my job right, we'll all be spending more time outside and less time inside on the computer, myself included. Plans for the May 9 online safety workshop in Chappaqua are coming into focus. The Chappaqua PTA has a book fair running that entire week, May 6 through 10. Organizers have asked that I send them a few copies of my book in advance to sell on consignment which I have agreed to. Anyone purchasing a copy at the book fair may bring it with them to the workshop Thursday evening where I will be available for autographing afterward. I will also have added copies with me for anyone who missed out at the book fair. My part on this particular program has been reduced slightly to be more of an overview but there are already plans under way to conduct an expanded program in the Fall for parents interested in learning the finer points of computer security and online safety. I hope to wet the appetites of the May 9 attendees enough to get an even stronger turnout for the Fall event. I promise, you will leave from both events with information you can put to use in your households right away. Don't forget, archived copies of all past news letters can always be found at http://surfsafely.com/surfsafety/frameset_news.html and are fully searchable. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1. Product review: MailWasher. ============================== For as much as I hate spammers, one thing I rarely accuse them of is being dumb. It takes some very clever minds to figure out how to get junk email past the front end filters of many ISPs and into your emailboxes. It was an unsolicited piece of pornographic spam that wound up in my 13 year old's inbox that got me started on this crusade for online safety and it hasn't stopped since. Those first few months were such an eye opener for me I can't even begin to explain. I had no idea how even I, as a seasoned web developer, could have been so naive to the underhanded techniques employed by spammers. I learned far more about it than I ever really wanted to know. It was a very rude awakening. It's an awakening I hope to impart to you as well. There are two parts to the mechanism of spam. Email address harvesting and sending. Surprisingly, people don't understand how vulnerable they leave themselves to spam by simple mistakes they make online every day. There just isn't enough room to discuss all of them here (discussed in great detail in my book) but I'll give you one very good example. Do you have AOL? Have you ever entered into a chat room? Without a doubt, someone has harvested your email address. On AOL, all someone has to do to turn your screen name into a valid address is add @aol.com to the end of it. Believe it or not, there are email harvesting programs that run on a spammers computer that do nothing but monitor screen names entering chat rooms, add the @aol.com suffix and compile them into lists. They just turn it on and walk away. The program does all the work for them. AOL does not condone the practice but because it runs on a client's computers, they are powerless to prevent it. Once your address has been harvested, it is likely to be sold and resold hundreds of times over, maybe even thousands. Once on those lists, short of changing your address completely, it is virtually impossible to get off. At least, it HAS been virtually impossible to get off, until now. Remember what I said. Spammers are not dumb. They go to great expense to deliver all that useless and sometimes illegal junk to you. The last thing they want to do is waste time and money. What do they consider a waste of money? Consuming resources to send to undeliverable addresses. If you've already exposed an email address to spammers that you covet and don't want to lose, now there is an way to get it off their lists, for good! It's called MailWasher and here's how it works. In nutshell, MailWasher can make your email address(es) look to spammers as though they are no longer valid when, in reality, they still are. It does this by previewing messages on your email server and selectively "bouncing" them back to spammers while allowing legitimate email to pass. Bouncing is what an email server does when a message is sent to an invalid address. Spammers do not like bounced messages because it means they wasted time and resources trying to send it. Most use programs to send their spam that respond to bounced messages by clearing them from their lists. This too is automatic. By running MailWasher first and then collecting my email with my regular email program, after only one week I am already receiving only 20% of the volume of spam I once did. We're talking about a reduction from about 50 unsolicited email per day, per address, to less than 10 per day, per address. This program works! Initial setup can be somewhat daunting for the computer novice but it's WELL worth the effort. Once it's set up, just use it and forget it. If you must, have someone experienced set it up for you. It's wonderful! MailWasher determines what is spam and what is not in several ways. Users compile their own lists automatically as the program ages on the computer, they can import lists from other computers, and the program can look to outside sources for information. These sources are repositories of addresses and domains that have been reported by other users and verified by them to be actual known spammers. MailWasher does not default to using these outside sources when screening your email because their use is sometimes controversial. Depending on how you configure MailWasher, these outside sources can be allowed to delete and bounce email without you ever seeing it. But what happens if THEY make a mistake and a valid address or domain accidentally ends up on their blocked list? It means that person or persons at that domain can't send you legitimate email. That could be a problem. If you use MailWasher, (Correction: WHEN you use MailWasher) I recommend that you configure it one way or the other. Either delete automatically based solely on the bad list you've compiled yourself over time, or preview locally and allow the outside sources to give you their best guesses what is really spam and what is not. That way, you can glance over the list and determine for yourself if it made any mistakes or if there are any addresses you want to add to your "Friends" list that overrides a blocked domain. That said, I have yet to see the outside sources make a mistake. But the fact that it COULD happen leaves me to believe it's best to preview their choices first. When messages are previewed, users see the sender's address along with subject header, date and time, etc. It can be customized to include or exclude additional columns. I've added attachments and blacklist columns to my view because I like to see them right up front. Each message also has a couple of check boxes to the left which determine the action to be taken. If you Bounce a message, that address is automatically added to your blacklist and marked for deletion from the mail server. You can also delete without bouncing to get rid of legitimate email that you know is not what you want now but you may want in the future. As someone who must juggle several email accounts, another feature of MailWasher that I really like is it can check them all at once before I run my regular email program. I know immediately which accounts have messages waiting in them and which do not. I waste no time checking empty accounts. The only fault I find with the program is it does not yet support AOL or other web based email like Yahoo! but that is due out VERY shortly. For the rest of us using SurfSafely.net, MSN, Earthlink, Worldcom and the like, MailWasher is a dream come true. It's a client side solution to a server based problem. Programs are classified into three general categories. Freeware, shareware and commercial. MailWasher falls somewhere between freeware and shareware. I call it "Nagware". It's distributed as free and fully functional but the author would really like you to send him a few dollars for it. To remind you of this he puts a scrolling banner at the top that can only be removed if you pay to register the software. He'll send you a registration key and a document filled with tips on reducing spam for as little as $3.00, would appreciate $5.00 or $10.00, and offers gracious tech support if you pay the full $20.00. If you're really feeling generous, I'm sure he'll accept more than $20.00 if you send it and believe me, this program is worth it. Do me a personal favor and send him $5.00 or $10.00. It's more than worth it. We need more programs like MailWasher and this is how we make it so. Please do your part. Download the program. Send him a few dollars. Help us all be rid of spam. MailWasher receives my highest endorsement. Mailwasher is downloadable at http://www.mailwasher.net/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 2. Recent news ============== CIA: China planning cyber-attacks on U.S., Taiwan U.S. intelligence officials believe the Chinese military is working to launch wide-scale cyber-attacks on American and Taiwanese computer networks, including Internet-linked military systems considered vulnerable to sabotage, according to a classified CIA report. The full article will be available on the Web for a limited time: http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/3132466.htm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Next newsletter ================== I'm still working on a review of the new AOL 7.0 and it's parental controls. It will be in my next newsletter. If anyone has suggestions for other software you'd like to see reviewed, please send them along to me at news@surfsafely.com. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ That's news for now. Be informed, Be involved, Be well. Sincerely, Mark Brasche Founder and CEO, SurfSafely.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Come visit our growing family of web sites and services ======================================================= http://surfsafely.com/ Our web directory/portal http://surfsafely.net/ Our pre-filtered Internet service http://surfsafety.com/ Our community site http://surfsafely.kids/ Coming soon! Our kids only portal http://surfsafely.de/ Coming soon! Our portal in German http://osrb.org/ Coming soon! The Online Safety Review Board