By Trekkie

Re: E-Mail Security
09 May 2008 16:46

I'm fortunate enough that I often receive e-mails from a lot of people with jokes, things to make you laugh, interesting quotes etc. When I forward them myself to people I think might be interested, I invariably have to cut huge reams of e-mail addresses out of them of the people that they have already been sent to.
I'm usually careful who I give out my e-mail address to, and actually have 3 of them for different uses, but I'm a bit concerned that whoever gets the e-mail next will not do the same. At the very least, this list could end up being used by spammers, and at the worst, criminal elements could use it for fraud, industrial espionage, and worse.
They usually include business e-mail addresses, and, as my husband works in security, he has told me that if he came across this when doing an audit, he'd have the person responsible fired, it's that serious a breach of security.
If you are going to send to a long list of people, don't send using just the 'to:' or 'CC:' fields, but instead use the 'BCC:' field. This sends the e-mail to all your desired recipients, but each only sees their own e-mail address and no data relating to the other recipients is stored either in the e-mail header or text.

Replies

By gerry

Re: E-Mail Security
09 May 2008 16:56

Too right, Trekkie. I can't count the number of times I've told friends this.

By gerry

Re: E-Mail Security
09 May 2008 16:59

Link might help.
http://infoweb.ntnu.no/email/general/bcc.html

By Sheelagh, Rossett nr Chester

Re: E-Mail Security
09 May 2008 17:34

Trekkie
Thanks for that - I always chop off all the long list of rubbish when forwarding e-mails, but had never thought of using the bcc box before - so thanks for that - it's a really good idea.

By *Crumbs

Re: E-Mail Security
09 May 2008 17:43

Couldn`t agree more Trekkie. When I received the recent email about the supposed dog tied up for art`s sake, there must have been 500 names and email addresses attached to it. DQ showed me how to delete the rubbish, so I have been doing that since.

I only have half a dozen pals who send me stuff like this, and I`ve asked them all to do the same.

Better safe than sorry. Thanks, crumbs :-)

By Heather

Re: E-Mail Security
09 May 2008 18:11

Thanks for that info Trekkie. I'm afraid it is something I have never thought about before. Would it explain why I'm now receiving loads of junk mail (which fortunately does get filtered into my junk mail box)? Recently I seem to be getting loads every day.
Heather x

By Biggles

Re: E-Mail Security
09 May 2008 18:13

Thanks for the info Trekkie. I'm afraid I seem unable to delete previous addresses on the 2 systems I have available to me. The french system goes all wobbly when I try and delete and Yahoo throws a bit of a fit as well !!
I have started to cut and paste 'funnies' into a seperate mail where I can. When I had my lovely 'old fashioned' system it was so easy to delete previous addresses. Have a great weekend everyone. Biggs

By jeni_hope

Re: E-Mail Security
09 May 2008 18:53

Thanks Trekkie, I'd not known that. Very useful info.

By Merrie

Re: E-Mail Security
09 May 2008 19:25

Thanks Trekkie, useful to know. i do delete the previous people but never thought of mine.
M xxx

By Flower

Re: E-Mail Security
09 May 2008 20:01

Thanks for that info Trekkie. I'm learning more and more on this site.

By Dottie May

Re: E-Mail Security
10 May 2008 08:05

I'm with AOL Trekkie and I don't have a bcc on my emails? If I'm sending anything on to anyone I copy the relevant bit(s) and use forward - does that mean I'm also forwarding the email addresses - as they don't appear on my copy? Dottie Mayx

By Dottie May

Re: E-Mail Security
10 May 2008 19:12

Many thanks Bramble for the web site on AOL for using Blind Carbon Copy. Dottie Mayx