Techreluctant.com

When this one came out, because I had both a small child and a pet, I got blasted with it. But I quickly checked it out and discovered that it wasn’t true (didn’t stop these emails coming to me, though).

Wet Jet and the danger they cause

Just in case you have pets or small children around.

This is scary…

I recently had a neighbor who had to have their 5-year old German Shepherd dog put down due to liver failure. The dog was completely healthy until a few weeks ago, so they had a necropsy done to see what the cause was. The liver levels were unbelievable, as if the dog had ingested poison of some kind. The dog is kept inside, and when he’s outside, someone’s with him, so the idea of him getting into something unknown was hard to believe.My neighbor started going through all the items in the house. When he got to the Swiffer Wetjet, he noticed, in very tiny print, a warning which stated may be harmful to small children and animals.” He called the company to ask what the contents of the cleaning agent are and was astounded to find out that antifreeze is one of the ingredients. ( Actually he was told it’s a compound which is one molecule away from antifreeze.) Therefore, just by the dog walking on the floor cleaned with the solution, then licking it’s own paws, it ingested enough of the solution to destroy its liver.

Soon after his dog’s death, his housekeepers’ two cats also died of liver failure. They both used the Swiffer Wetjet for quick cleanups on their floors. Necropsies weren’t done on the cats, so they couldn’t file a lawsuit, but he asked that we spread the word to as many others as possible so that they don t lose their animals. This is equally harmful to babies and small children that play on the floor a lot and put their fingers in their mouths a lot.

PLEASE, EVEN IF YOU DO NOT HAVE BABIES, SMALL CHILDREN OR OWN A PET PLEASE FORWARD THIS ON!

The truth is that, according to the ASPCA Poison Control Center, Swiffer WetJet is safe to use on your floors, even if you have a pet or small child (but keep the bottle of liquid away, you don’t want a small child getting hold of that). One of the ingredients of Swiffer WetJet (propylene glycol n-butyl/propyl ether) sounds something like ethylene glycol, the ingredient in antifreeze that has led to the deaths of so many pets. But it’s not the same thing. So, if you receive this email, please don’t pass it on.

Is any email ever private? Probably not. Anything out there in cyberspace sits on a server somewhere and can be accessed by someone else, whether it’s an administrator or a hacker. In most companies, email from the company account and on the company server is considered the property of the company. So that joke you sent out about Santa and the pretty blond could be considered to be the property of your office. Ouch. Or even worse, that email making fun of your boss’s ear hair could be used against you one day. Beware. If you’re sending private emails from work, especially if you wouldn’t want your boss to know about them, always use a web-based account like gmail or hotmail. But don’t think they’re 100% safe either. Anything can be hacked. The rule to remember is don’t  send anything in an email you wouldn’t want the world to see. Scared? Me too. I’m guilty of emails I’d cringe about if they became public but we should all be a bit more careful.

In part 1, we talked about your POP server settings. Now, it’s onto SMTP which is another setting you’ll have to add when configuring your email software. SMTP is another protocol or set of rules and this one is for sending your email. SMTP, or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, is the set of rules your mail software (like Outlook Express or Windows Live, for instance) uses to send your mail from your computer to the mail server where POP will take over and get it to the correct recipient(s). Very simply, your email software uses SMTP to first connect to the SMTP server you’ve set up the email software to contact (most likely, the one that your Internet Service Provider has given you), then to tell the server “hey, I’ve got some mail here for someone”. It then sends the mail to the server and finishes its job with the Quit command. Your email has now left your computer and gone out in the world. Hope you didn’t just send it to the wrong person by mistake. Send carefully!

I know I was going to continue with mail account settings this week but I’ve been hearing so much about a scam to get information from you that I wanted to bring it to your attention. There’s a phishing scam where you get an email alleging to be from the CRA (Canada Revenue Service) saying that you will receive a refund but that all your information wasn’t received so in order to get the refund (I’ve heard a variety of amounts you are promised) you need to provide information including your Social Insurance Number and date of birth or, in some cases, your credit card information. Don’t fall for it. On CBC Radio’s Radio Noon today a rep from the CRA said that they never send email. You’ll receive snail mail, not email from them (even then you have to be oh so careful). So if you get such an email, ignore it.

If you’ve ever set up email software to retrieve your email, you’ll know that there are some weird sounding settings you have to give the software. For most you have to give the POP and SMTP settings while for some others you need to know your IMAP server settings. Maybe knowing what these acronyms stand for will make the whole email setup thing a little less overwhelming. We’ll start this week with POP.

POP stands for Post Office Protocol. When someone sends you a postcard in the mail, it doesn’t leave the mailbox and go straight to your door. It goes to a post office and someone sorts it and sends it onto your address, possibly even in a timely manner. Very simply put, this is what your Post Office Protocol server does. In tech-world, a protocol is a set of rules for communicating. A POP server uses Post Office Protocol like the person at your post office who gives you the package that was sent to you, but only after he makes sure you are who you are. It’s the rules for how your ISP’s (Internet Service Provider) mail server communicates with your email software.

First, your email program goes to the POP server, makes a connection, then provides the username and password you’ve typed in. If the username and password are correct, your software ask “any mail for someone@somewhere.com”? And the server uses POP to first let your email client know there is email, then how many email there are, and what size they are. It then retrieves your emails so you can read them and, depending on the settings you’ve given it, deletes them from the server or keeps them on the server.

So, the POP server setting your email software asks for when you first set it up, is just the address your email software can use to start these communications. It’s, again very simply put, the address of the post office where you’ll pick up your mail. Your Internet Service Provider (the people you pay every month for your Internet) should provide you with the email address, password, and POP settings you need but if you’ve lost the POP settings and need them, you can usually Google your ISP’s name and POP settings to find what you need to know.

Any time you sign up for something on the Internet, be it a coupon, a software download, or an account to read a newspaper online, you are asked for your email address. And every time you type that address increases your chances for spam. So create a free email account to use for new sign ups. There are lots of free email account providers out there. My favourite is Gmail but there’s Hotmail and Yahoo mail to name just two more. If you use Gmail you can also set up that account to be accessed by your email software (such as Outlook Express or Windows Mail). Note that many things you sign up for will send extra information to the email address you provide in order to confirm your new account so you should be able to access that email account somehow. By doing this simple thing you can reduce spam and keep your main email account for the things you want to use it for.

Hoax emails can be dangerous to people, to bank accounts, to organizations, and to companies. Here’s one I got that, since it was forwarded onto me (more than once), people obviously believe. It read, in part,

** TIM HORTON’S SHOCKER **

A man from Arkansas came up to Canada for a visit only to find himself in the hospital after a couple of days. Doctor’s told him that he had suffered of cardiac arrest. He was allergic to Nicotine. The man did not understand why that would of happened as he does not smoke knowing full well he was allergic to Nicotine. He told the doctor that he had not done anything different while he was on vacation other than having Tim Horton’s coffee.

The man then went back to Tim Horton’s and asked what was in their coffee.

Tim Horton’s refuses to divulge that information. After threatening legal action, Tim Horton’s finally admitted…..

*** THERE IS NICOTINE IN TIM HORTON’S COFFEE

Wow, I’ve heard this rumour for years. And I’m so addicted to the stuff, it is not hard to believe it. But it’s not true and to pass on such information is wrong. Tim Hortons has refuted this and the CBC has also checked this out on the show Disclosure. Tim Hortons coffee was analyzed and shown to have absolutely no nicotine. (The other rumour I’ve often heard, that Tim Hortons puts extra caffeine in its coffee was also debunked. In fact, Disclosure’s analysis showed that of coffee analyzed from Tim Hortons, Starbucks, and the Second Cup, Tim Hortons coffee was, on average, the lowest in caffeine.)

So, if you get this email, stop it in its tracks by not forwarding it.

Ever sent a link to someone and the link was longer than the text you wrote in the email? A link made up of two lines of weird letters and numbers and all you said was “thought you’d like this”.  Or ever sent a really long link in an email and then got an email back that said the link didn’t work (because an email program inserted a break in it somewhere)? It doesn’t have to be that way. With TinyURL you can make any long, unwieldy web address into a short link or, aptly enough, a Tiny URL.

Want to waste some time? Feel free to try something called TinyURL-whacking. It’s when you use the basic link for TinyURL (http://tinyurl.com/) and add random letters or numbers after it to go to some random link that someone created a tiny url for. TinyURL is up to six letters or numbers after the slash now (soon not going to be so tiny) so any combination of up to six letters or numbers could work. A variation on this, for the truly bored, is Vanity TinyURL where you put your (six letter or less) name after the tinyurl.com/. Mine is reaaallllly boring. http://tinyurl.com/tina. Stock charts. But the actual address it goes to (http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?c=$hui,uu[e,a]dbcayyay[db][pb50!b200!d20,2!f][vc60][iub14!lo14!la12,26,9!le12,26,9!li14,3!lk14!lm12!lh14,3!lp14,3,3!lf!lya7,14,28][j9343036,y]&listNum=1) is a perfect example of why we need TinyURL.

Phishing is when someone tries to get your information by pretending to be someone they are not. It is called phishing because they’re trying to hook you, or, more specifically, hook information from you such as your banking information, credit card numbers, social security/social insurance number or usernames and passwords for your Internet or email account. Once a person gets these they can take your money, steal your identity, and/or use your email account to spam, or for who knows what kind of illegal activity. So it pays to be careful whenever you receive an email asking for such information.

Phishers are good. I know all about them but they almost fooled me once. I mean they almost had me hooked, I had my mouth open ready to bite but I knew to be careful and was one of the lucky ones that got away. It was a very official looking email from my email provider, or at least I thought it was. It said there were problems with my account and to log in using the link provided. The warning about my account was scary and my first instinct was to address it right away. But then I thought to be cautious and I hovered my mouse over the link in the email (using my mouse, I put my cursor over the link in the email but I didn’t click).  Doing that, I saw the actual address the link would send me to and it was not the address of my email service provider. This is one way to avoid phishing scams. But again, be careful because they might use a simple misspelling to trick you. Instead of “yahoo.com”, the link might send you to “yahooo.com” and by just glancing at the real URL (web address), you might miss that extra “o” and get into a heap of trouble. You could get to the site they linked you to and it would look exactly like the website of your bank or that auction site you always use, but looking up at the address in the top of your browser, you’ll see it is not that site.

Besides ensuring that a link is for real, there are some very simple things to remember in order to avoid phishing scams. Banks, Internet Service Providers, online auction sites like eBay, or payment sites like PayPal, will not email you in order to ask for your account information or your credit card information. If in doubt, call the company or contact the company on their website by typing their website address into your browser. If an email includes a form for you to fill out, asking for any personal information, usernames, or passwords, don’t do it. And beware of sensational subject lines meant to make you scared enough to forget common sense security, such as “urgent - your account details may have been stolen” or “Online Banking Alert”.

Here is a link to some more tips about phishing from the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG). My last piece of advice about how to avoid being caught in a phishing scam is to doubt all emails from organizations. You can’t be too careful and no respectful bank, credit card company, or any other organization that deals with your private information, would ask for that information over an email anyway. Again, if in doubt, contact the organization (but not through the email they allegedly sent you). And when the bad guys go phishing, make sure they end up empty-handed.

If you’ve sent or received many emails, you probably already know about Cc when sending a message. It’s the place you put the email addresses of people you want to send copies of your email to. Cc stands for carbon copy. But do you know about Bcc? Bcc is short for “blind carbon copy”. A weird thing to do with an email maybe, but not really. It just means that the email addresses you put in the Bcc section of your message will not be seen by the recipients of the email. Sounds like a big deceptive device to secretly send copies of emails to friends but it really serves a legitimate purpose and one you should try to use if sending an email to a bunch of people.

When you forward that funny email you received that you just know everyone will love (but will they really?) to everyone in your address book, every person who receives that message now has the email address of every other person you sent it to. Then if one of the recipients of your email finds that funny and decides to forward it, they also get the addresses that you sent it to as they are usually included in the forward. And so on and so on until someone finds the email address of her ex-husband’s new girlfriend in an email and things get ugly. Or maybe one of the recipients of your email has a virus that sends out email on his computer . Now, that virus has all the addresses of your contacts and can use their addresses for its evil purposes. There are many reasons not to show the addresses of multiple recipients of emails, but mostly it’s just good netiquette. Adding the names to Bcc is as simple as adding them to the Cc section but the problem is, some email software doesn’t show you the Bcc section and you have to do a bit of work to see it. Read the rest of this entry »