I follow your column in the Herald Express and see you sometimes highlight [...]]]> This week I’m going to reply to an e-mail I received from a reader this week which touches on a subject I’ve have had a fair amount of first hand experience with just recently:

I follow your column in the Herald Express and see you sometimes highlight problems. I have followed your advice and some time ago installed the AVG Grisoft virus check, which I keep fully updated.

I am however being inundated with returned e-mails which did not originate from me but uses the latter part of my e-mail address. I note that they all have attachments which of course I have never opened. As virus checks do not reveal a problem on my computer, can you suggest a possible cure?

John Cadman, via e-mail

As mentioned at the beginning of this article I have encountered this exact problem myself just recently. Unfortunately a number of spammers have been trying to sell Viagra and shares in dodgy companies to unsuspecting users by using my own business e-mail address rather than their own.

There could be a number of reasons for them wishing to do this however I believe the most likely useful purpose would be to fool spam filters. Usually when a spammer starts a campaign of mailing random people their e-mail address is very quickly blocked by the spam filters to prevent the intended recipients from receiving unsolicited mail. If the spammer can send out messages from completely random and alternating addresses then it is very difficult for spam filters to function efficiently without banning millions of legitimate users e-mail addresses.

Of course this is quite frustrating for those that have had their e-mail address exploited because like John I am receiving a large number of ‘your e-mail cannot be delivered’ messages on a daily basis as the messages sent from the spoofer get bounced back to my legitimate e-mail address. Additionally I have had a few customer complaints about me supposedly trying to sell them treatment for impotency when the reality is that this particular business venture has nothing to do with me!

Unfortunately the problem stems from the fact that the SMTP mail protocol that is most commonly used to send e-mail on the Internet doesn’t require any authorisation and as such it is incredibly easy to send e-mails that appear as though they are from someone else entirely. I’m sure most of you have by now received a spoof e-mail which appears to have come from your bank asking for you to confirm your account details and this scam works on the same principle.

The short answer to your question is unfortunately there isn’t really anything that you can do to stop this from occurring although the good news is that the symptoms experienced are not a sign that your computer is infected with anything nasty. Businesses and individuals will continue to be vulnerable to these kinds of spoof e-mails until a more secure system of sending e-mails is implemented. To the best of my knowledge for the time being the best you can do is ignore the bounced e-mails and hope that the spammers soon find a new target.

When you are reading this it will be precisely one week until Christmas so it seems fairly apt that I spend this article talking about electronic Internet resources relating to the festive season, especially as Click won’t be published this time next week.

When you are reading this it will be precisely one week until Christmas so it seems fairly apt that I spend this article talking about electronic Internet resources relating to the festive season, especially as Click won’t be published this time next week.

First and foremost I would imagine that many of you have friends that you were supposed to have sent a Christmas card but they slipped your mind and you’re now panicking that there is not enough time to get one out. If you’re quick you should be able to get in before the last Royal Mail posting date however if you miss this then you should certainly consider sending an electronic Christmas card instead. The other practical use would be if you have friends online for whom you don’t have a physical home address to send a card to.

I personally don’t like e-cards and do understand that they are not anywhere near as personal as sending a physical card out but surely it must be better to show that you at least thought of them than to send nothing at all?

For this reason try a simple Google search for ‘free Christmas e-cards’ and pick a site that takes your fancy as there are many to choose from. Alternatively head to www.123christmascards.com as they have hundreds to choose from that are all free of charge; you simply customise it with names and greetings and then send to an e-mail address of your choice.

They will then receive an e-mail saying that they have a Christmas card to view along with a link to take them to the card that you personalised earlier. All of these Christmas cards are written in Flash so they are both animated and include sounds but this does mean that both yourself and the recipient will have to have this program installed – Whilst most computers include this by default those that don’t will have to download it free of charge.

There are also links to other non Christmas e-cards which can be used at other times through-out the year when sending a physical card is impossible or impractical.

I did have a trawl across the Internet to see if I could find any comprehensive sites with information relating to activities, recipes and events happening during the festive season although unfortunately the results were somewhat unimpressive. One site I did discover was www.christmas-celebrations.com which covers areas such as decorating, gift ideas, Christmas trivia and of course Christmas recipes which covers making the infamous eggnog. Almost all the sites including this one had their share of condescending articles such as ‘stress busting tips’ which highlights blatantly obvious points which I’d hope most people would be able to work out for themselves.

Somewhat unfortunately I found very few articles relating to the religious element of Christmas despite some fairly extensive searching. There were a number of sites regarding Christmas traditions such those behind Father Christmas at http://www.christmasarchives.com/england.html.

I started writing this article believing that I would be able to find hundreds of interesting and entertaining resources for you to view but I have been very unimpressed as most of the sites I found were simply trying to sell me something tacky; it has often been said that Christmas is too commercialised and this isn’t any more obvious than on the Internet!

Having said the above, I do love Christmas however and wouldn’t change the over commercialisation so I’ll just consider it a blessing that I’ve found an area where the Internet doesn’t excel in any way, shape or form.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank-you all for reading over the last year and I wish you and your family a happy Christmas.

My idea last week of starting a dating agency for virus programmers so that they have something better to do with their lives than annoying normal hardworking people had a very good response however I’m afraid that I’m going to have to put this on hold for the time due [...]]]>

My idea last week of starting a dating agency for virus programmers so that they have something better to do with their lives than annoying normal hardworking people had a very good response however I’m afraid that I’m going to have to put this on hold for the time due to time restraints. First, I’m sorry to bang on for yet another month about viruses; I do promise that this is the last time for a while but it still seems that many of you are becoming infected with viruses which is needless when you consider that protection is available free of charge.

At present I am receiving around 20 (twenty) viruses a day via e-mail and the reason for this is that many customers and readers are infected and as such the virus is picking my e-mail address off of their systems and e-mailing itself to me. Whilst I’m not too bothered as my virus checker picks up the suspect attachments and deletes them immediate it could soon get to the stage where essentially my customers will be e-mailing me every minute with a new virus; thanks a million!

It is for this reason that this week all people reading my article are obliged to take 5 minutes out of their Saturday afternoon to run a completely free, up to date virus check of their system online. If a virus is found then you will be able to thank me as I will have just sped up your computer, avoided you passing it along to others and removed the possibility of the virus causing data loss. If nothing is found then I do apologise for wasting 5 minutes of your time but at least you will know that you’re in the clear for now and that you are virus free. This virus checker involves no software being installed into your computer and as I said is completely free of charge; just head to http://housecall.trendmicro.com and then click on the text that reads ‘Scan Now. It’s Free!’

It could take a few minutes to download the checker and the latest virus definitions that the site has to teach it and then it will ask you which locations on your computer wish to scan. Simply select your ‘C’ drive as well as any other hard disks you have in your machine, click on ‘Auto Clean’ and then click on scan. Now might be a good idea to go off and make a cup of tea or go down the pub as it will take a little while when you consider that Trend Housecall searches every file for the presence of viruses and will clean any that it may find; the process is completely automated so you are not required to sit and watch it. Even if you do have an existing virus checker on your machine then I would still recommend doing this today as the online virus checker couldn’t be more up to date and it may well detect a virus that your current checker doesn’t know of.

Ultimately the checker is free of charge, very easy to use and will only take a few minutes of your time. There is really no reason that you shouldn’t now be turning on your machine and going to the website address I gave above. If we get everyone in Torbay to do it then whoever it is with the infected machine which is sending me the NetSky virus will then know about it, remove the virus and hopefully me in peace to run my business!

Once your system is clean it may be an idea to install a new virus checker if you don’t already have an up to date one on your system. AVG (www.grisoft.com) is one of the best free ones I’ve discovered although I have reviewed this system in the past so I won’t go into details again here.

The front page of the Herald Express on Tuesday caught my eye as it featured the story of a young lady who was conned out of several hundred pounds by disclosing her banking details after being advised by an e-mail to follow a link to the HSBC website and confirm [...]]]>

The front page of the Herald Express on Tuesday caught my eye as it featured the story of a young lady who was conned out of several hundred pounds by disclosing her banking details after being advised by an e-mail to follow a link to the HSBC website and confirm her security details so they could ensure that she was still using the same e-mail address. In reality, the site that she went to wasn’t in fact the HSBC site but just a page probably generated by a couple of spotty teenagers but as the difference was indistinguishable she proceeded to disclose all of her banking details to them.

I initially received this e-mail myself around 10 days ago from both Nationwide and Barclays; what is confusing me is that these are both banks that I deal with and so I’m wondering if the fraudsters actually know who I bank with or whether it’s just coincidence that they choose to e-mail me posing as being these banks. I’m assuming that it’s the latter as if they managed to locate a list of e-mail addresses of Barclays customers than that worries me more than the actual e-mail they sent. Anyway, I digress.

It’s basic human nature to believe that what we read represents reality; we tend to accept this viewpoint as when reading a newspaper or listening to the radio we assume that what we are being told must contain at least an element of truth otherwise we wouldn’t be hearing about it. There is a very important difference with the Internet though and that is that never before has there been a means so readily available to allow any person off the street to assume a different identity and send out e-mails to hundreds of thousands of people at virtually no cost to themselves. I could send an e-mail to a reader now from the address billgates@microsoft.com advising them to download what could be a virus to ‘fix’ their operating system and doing so would only take me 20 seconds to set up and would ultimately result in messing up their machine. I’m not into the habit of doing such things though; my job is to help people fix their machines, not destroy them but I’m just trying to prove a point.

The one thing that I did find remarkable about the case printed on Tuesday and indeed the other hundreds of people who have been taken for a ride by this scam is that members of the public are actually disclosing their details to these fraudsters. My attitude to the Internet is that if I wouldn’t do it offline in the real world then I certainly wouldn’t do it online; for example, if a someone were to phone me posing as Barclays telesales and asked me to confirm to them my bank account number, sort code and all my banking passwords for ‘market research’ then I’d quite simply tell them where to go. On the Internet, if someone sends an e-mail saying that they need these all of these highly confidential details so they can update their mailing list then people fall for it in their droves; no offence to those that have but that to me seems crazy.

Let’s just summarize here; the Internet is an extremely safe place to conduct secure transactions and if you are just slightly vigilant then these problems will not occur. There were paragraphs in Tuesday’s article implying that perhaps Internet banking is not very safe and that in some way it was the banks responsibility that these problems were occurring and so they should be refunding money immediately to those affected even before an investigation takes place. This again seems like a very bizarre and misinformed attitude to take; if a woman dressed in Barclays clothing walked up to me in the street and asked for my debit card and PIN number so she could check my bank details were all correct then I wouldn’t expect to be refunded by Barclays when suddenly a couple of grand disappears from my account. I’m not trying to be harsh but that is the real life equivalent of what the people who have been falling for this scam have been doing and if you’re going to be using the Internet then just a little bit of common sense needs to be engaged as you it would be in the real world.

Once again this week I will take the time to answer my readers computer related questions that I have recently received.

I received an e-mail from Mr. Ijeh Ben in Lagos, Nigeria; I expect you can guess the rest! There was a [...]]]>

Once again this week I will take the time to answer my readers computer related questions that I have recently received.

I received an e-mail from Mr. Ijeh Ben in Lagos, Nigeria; I expect you can guess the rest! There was a great complicated story about releasing funds and requesting my bank details and a number of times the confidentiality aspect was stressed. I am puzzled as to where this person found my e-mail address as I rarely give it to anyone and what I would be interested to know is if there is anyone I could report this to or just notify. Perhaps it’s just one of those things best left ignored as I have done a virus check which is okay.

Joyce Large, Paignton.

These e-mails never cease to amaze me – I receive on average one of these per day and for my readers benefit I will give summarise one that arrived this morning. It essentially said that the guy writing to me was the manager of a foreign bank although the straight giveaway is that it was being sent from one of the free e-mail services such as Hotmail – something I don’t think you’d see the manager of Barclays doing somehow. The guy continues to say that he recently discovered an abandoned sum of 8.5 million dollars which he was expecting to be claimed by a next of kin but they never showed up and so in order for the money to not be claimed it has to be transferred into a foreign bank account. Once there, he will take 75% back and I would get to keep 25% for my trouble which equates to approximately 2.2 million dollars, just for allowing him to use my bank account. It seems very convenient that I could make that much money from a days work and since I receive one of these a day that means that by working a five day week I could make 11 million dollars every single week.

The fact that people actually believe this takes my breath away – How could you possibly believe that a guy who doesn’t even know your name could be offering to transfer 8 and a half million dollars into your personal bank account? People do however which is why the fraudsters continue to do it.

Anyway, I digress as obviously you haven’t fallen for the scam but unfortunately there is very little you can do to report the e-mail address in order to stop them doing it again because as I said they use free e-mail accounts and so they’ll be sure to change their address every couple of weeks. Needless to say, I would strongly advise readers of Click never to give their bank account details out to anyone they do not know in any circumstances let alone to a stranger over the Internet.
As to how they got your address is purely speculation but it is quite possible that they were just randomly creating e-mail addresses and e-mailing them on the off chance that it would work. Installing a spam filter such as Mailwasher (www.mailwasher.net) to attempt to intercept any e-mail such as this before it reaches your inbox could prevent you receiving such messages in the future. The program has many unique features such as the ability to accept e-mails from recognised addresses only, it refuses e-mails from known ‘spammers’, it can read the e-mail and attempt to assess whether it is junk or not and you can also view and delete e-mails on the main server before you download them in order to save wasting time downloading junk. Any mail that is deemed to be junk mail can then be ‘bounced’ back to the sender to make it appear that your e-mail address was invalid which would hopefully mean they’d remove you from their lists.

Once again this week I will answer a selection of letters from my mailbag.

With reference to your column in the Herald Express regarding the AVG virus checker. I [...]]]>

Once again this week I will answer a selection of letters from my mailbag.

With reference to your column in the Herald Express regarding the AVG virus checker. I went to the site as suggested but to download the software entails giving out my name and address – How secure is this?

Keith Wheatley, via e-mail

Obviously in the days of mass spamming by many a company to try and persuade you to purchase a variety of products, it is often necessary to use vigilance whilst browsing the Internet to ensure that your contact details don’t fall into the wrong hands. I do however believe that there is a point on which you can verge on paranoia, and I believe you cross this when you start wondering whether to give a reputable company your e-mail address so that it can send you a personalized serial number in order that you can use its product; such is the case is here with the AVG virus checker.

You’ll find that the majority of large companies will offer you the option to opt out of any associated mailing lists they have and also to prevent them from sharing your details with other companies as they are obliged to under the data protection act – If you do find yourself on any mailing lists then it will always be possible to remove yourself at a later date.

The time that I agree that you should not hand out your e-mail address is when it is not necessary to do so or when you are looking at the site of a less reputable company or individual. It sounds like a sweeping generalization but you can usually tell by the design of the site as to how your information will be used. For example, I once had a pop up window appear on my screen saying that there may be ‘people looking for me on the Internet’ and that I should enter in my old e-mail address, my new e-mail address and the names and details of all my friends online so that it could check if anyone was still using my old e-mail address. In this instance, I hadn’t asked for the window to pop up in the first place and so it was already as such ‘spamming’ me and then it was asking me for dozens of different addresses – No prizes for those of you who guess what these addresses were going to be used for.

Just by using a fair amount of common sense can you avoid getting spammed and also continue to use the Internet for the things that it does best without fear of harassment or intrusion into your personal privacy.

Sometime ago I had a Freeserve account which I after a couple of years I cancelled because of connection difficulties and I now have another ISP but every time I go to my e-mail account, Outlook tries to connect to my Freeserve address even though I had removed all the Freeserve programs. I can’t understand why it keeps popping up – Is there anything I can do?

Dave Eldridge, via E-mail

This is caused by the fact that Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express can be set up to receive e-mails from a number of different accounts and unfortunately, the majority of uninstallers don’t seem to remove references to these e-mail accounts and so it often has to be done manually. Fortunately this is a fairly painless procedure which can be achieved as follows:

First of all, open Outlook or Outlook Express and go to ‘Tools’, then ‘Accounts’ and depending on your version of Outlook/Outlook Express, you will either have to then click on the ‘mail’ tab or click on ‘View or change existing e-mail accounts’. You should then see entries for all e-mail addresses set up on your computer so simply remove the references to your old account that you no longer use and hit on okay.

As well as simply removing references to accounts that have been disconnected, it may be an idea to look in this menu even if you are happy with your current e-mail setup to ensure that you don’t have any redundant accounts that although they still work are no longer in use. By removing all the accounts except the one that you actually use, you will decrease the chances of receiving junk e-mail and also the time it takes for your computer to check for new mail.

Once again I’ll take the take out this week to help out with any problems that my readers have been experiencing.

I’m using Windows 98 with Outlook Express 5 and from time to time I receive e-mails that include an invitation to reply to the sender to acknowledge that [...]]]>

Once again I’ll take the take out this week to help out with any problems that my readers have been experiencing.

I’m using Windows 98 with Outlook Express 5 and from time to time I receive e-mails that include an invitation to reply to the sender to acknowledge that I’ve received their e-mail. I usually select to send the reply and think no more about it. About 3 or 4 weeks ago this happened and found that the reply I didn’t even realise I’d opted to send couldn’t be delivered by my ISP (Freeserve). On the first day I received the following message 17 times at various times during the day – “A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error, the following address failed – webmaster@clubcamcam.com. This message failed because it has an apparently executable attachment “Readme MP3.scr”. This is a virus prevention measure, if you meant to send this file then please package it up as a zip file and resend it.”

As far as I’m aware, I was only replying to the e-mail address of a friend and no other address. Is this some sort of virus or a fault in my computer? I have no virus prevention measures installed and the same thing has now happened again with a different recipient and I’m not sure what to do, can you help please?

Eric (Surname supplied), Paignton.

This problem baffles me somewhat, so I’m going to make up a hypothetical situation that I believe may have occurred although if any readers have a better explanation then please let me know. I don’t believe that the e-mail you received is a result of you sending a delivery report to your friend although it could potentially be the work of a virus.

Many viruses now pick up addresses of individuals and companies from your computer and then attempt to e-mail themselves with the idea being that because the file is from a friendly source. I checked out the site you mentioned to see if there was any explanation as to why the virus would attempt to e-mail itself to that address and also the Internet to see if there was mentions of that particular address being used by a virus and could find nothing. I believe it is possible that even if you have no knowledge of this address even being on your computer that the virus just created it randomly. The servers of this site blocked the file not because it is a virus but rather the fact since it is executable, it COULD potentially be one.

I would suggest doing a complete virus check either by downloading the rather good and free AVG Anti-virus software from www.grisoft.com or by doing one online free of charge from http://housecall.trendmicro.com just to be on the safe side although it is possible that the above hypothesis I’ve made is incorrect so please let me know how you get along.

Dear Chris,

In Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002, I find that the scenery is not very distinct. In particular, concrete often gradually becomes grass when I taxi off the runway and yellow lines either disappear or are ‘Wavy’.  These symptoms are not present on the runway itself.  Altering Options/Display configurations or changing my Graphics card doesn’t seem to help. I am informed that my graphics card is an ‘On Board’ SIS 3D Savage Pro with 32 Mg RAM.

Seán Talbot

I’ve searched the Microsoft Knowledge Base for mentions of the problems you’re experiencing and there is nothing associated with your particular graphics card but this doesn’t mean that it’s not a fault that hasn’t been picked up by the graphics chip manufacturer. Since you’re using an onboard graphics chip I recommend that you obtain the latest video card drivers from your motherboard manufacturer and also ensure that you’re using the latest DirectX drivers by checking www.microsoft.com/directx and I’m confident this should resolve your problem.