1. Please don't forward messages via e-mail unless you personally know it to be true. Stories about Microsoft and Disney teaming to give away free trips to Disney World and all the others all sound very convincing. These are called Urban Legends. Please check them out before forwarding them. Some times there are phone numbers given to call if you want proof yet they are disconnected or the party does not know what you are talking about. There are several good web sites where you can look up and see the internet hoaxes that are running around this week. Some of these you will find have been bouncing around the internet for years. Investigate these sites:
- http://urbanlegends.miningco.com/
- http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/
- http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html
- http://vil.mcafee.com/hoax.asp
- http://www.datafellows.fi/news/hoax.htm
2. Internet Petition.No reputable firm will ever send out a petition for you to sign 
and send to your friends via e-mail. Common sense will tell you that internet petitions could never work, nor are they given any attention by their recipients. We tend to think that the internet is free but in actuality it is a resource and like all resources needs to be used with conservation in mind.
3. Don't send SPAM. The definition of SPAM is sending something to someone who did not request it. Many well meaning people take your name from something they requested from you and start sending you their favorite jokes, virus warnings and inspirational messages. This starts out very innocent and most often with an intent to honestly spread the Light. Yet, the result is that it is not long before you are receiving e-mail from sex sites, people who want to refinance your home and professional spammers with all sorts of products including the e-mail list that your name is now on. These are people who have intercepted e-mail and grabbed your e-mail address from a mailing that may have started as a well meaning person sending you their favorite joke. Once they have a valid e-mail address they then sell the list to people who then send you their spam. (See BCC below to prevent this.) In the event that you do send out to any list please provide an e-mail address at the bottom where a person can write and asked to be removed fro your list. This is simple Netiquette yet most of you may not know it is also federal law in most countries.and send to your friends via e-mail. Common sense will tell you that internet petitions could never work, nor are they given any attention by their recipients. We tend to think that the internet is free but in actuality it is a resource and like all resources needs to be used with conservation in mind.4. Stay away from attachments! Even if you know the person who is sending it, and in most cases you will, do not open it unless you are confident of your virus software. The people who write these viruses are very tricky. The most recent one that was sent around was titled: "Vote on the war!" Attachments are not the only way to get a virus anymore. The Klez virus and several others now can infect your unprotected computer when you download your e-mail.
5. Use BCC. What follows is the easiest smartest thing you can do, yet you will find that very few people know how to use it. Blind Carbon Copy. BCC It is an easy matter to place the names of your recipients in the field labeled "BCC" (Blind Carbon Copy) instead of in the "To" field of your e-mail program. This protects all of the people on YOUR list from having their names added to spam lists. AOL is a little more difficult but by placing the names in the "CopyTo" field and also placing parenthesis around all of the names you can do the same thing. Example: for aol it would look like "Copy To: (Justme@Whoknows.com, anotherme@juskidding.net, lookagain@darkages.com)" This simple task keeps anyone from taking names from your list and sending to them.
See detailed instructions for using BCC on
6. Virus software. Invest in good virus software and update it every other day! I personally recommend Norton AntiVirus at: http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/. McAfee is also very good at: http://us.mcafee.com/default.asp. Make sure it is configured correctly and update it often. Both of these companies provide update service online. When you buy the software you can update it for a year free. After the year there is an additional charge. Be aware that new viruses are released everyday and if you do not keep your software updated it is useless. My advice: Pay the money. . . it's worth it. Even if you don't pay the money both of these companies offer advice on how to manually remove viruses from your computer as a free public service. On several occasions they have also given free software to eradicate especially damaging viruses. Two other good sources for information are:
http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/
UPDATE: June 2002 New viruses are becoming a real problem. Most of the new viruses can sneek past your virus software if you do not update your virus software at least once a week. Once a virus has gotten past even the best virus software (Norton) it can not detect it. For this you must run special virus removal software that must be run from either Safe Mode or from DOS. If you are unfamiliar with how to do this you can find detailed instructions in the links below. Otherwise PLEASE get professional help. If you suspect that you machnine has a virus PLEASE DISCONNECT FROM THE INTERNET until you find out more. The Klez is one of the worst that I have seen recently. Special instructions for removing it from your computer are available free here. KLEZ Virus removal.
Also find the latest internet threats and their fixes here.
7. Tell them they have a virus. When you receive an e-mail with a virus send the person back a response to tell them they have a virus on their computer. Otherwise they may not know until they have done a lot of damage. Our staff here at Lightworker automatically sends out a response to people who have sent us a virus. Here is ours, use it or modify it to suite yourself. A copy and paste approach here works well.
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8. Disconnect. If you find that at any time you have a virus on your machine unplug
your computer from the internet until you are positive that it has been fixed. Many cable and DSL lines are "on" all of the time. Even if you walk away from your computer, if it has a virus, it will send out e-mails and viruses to your friends without your knowledge.9. Report Spam. When you receive spam from professionals you will see a small note at the bottom where you can have your name removed from the list. This is required by law in most countries. Unfortunately most of these are not even valid e-mail addresses. Some of these will even place you on more lists. What I recommend is to submit your name to the removal sites. These are reputable sites that can get your e-mail name removed from some lists. If this does not work I go straight for SpamCop.
http://spamcop.net/ This site sends spam reports to the operators of the hosting service where the spam originated. They then investigate and shut off the offending e-mail addresses.
10. Educate, Educate, Educate. Here at Lightworker we get hundreds of unsolicited e-mail everyday. A lot of this is from people who are very much in the Light and have an honest desire to share it with others. They have no idea that in many cases they are actually part of the problem. We have e-mail text ready to cut and paste to help educate people and suggest that you do the same. Send a link to this article when you get an e-mail and ask them to read the article or remove your name from their list. In most cases you will be well received and they will thank you.
