Joe Robson has released “The Newbie Club Insider” July 10, issue 284. Read Joe Robson’s latest article titled “How To Protect Yourself From Hoax Virus Alerts”


Joe Robson has released “The Newbie Club Insider” July 3, issue 283.

Article

Joe Robson’s latest article is reprinted here.

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How To Protect Yourself From Hoax Virus Alerts

Once you suspect a hoax, do a web search on the subject line. Quote the whole line in the search box; if it’s a known hoax you will get plenty of hits. Your search engine will point you to several “hoax-busting” websites that offer information about email hoaxes using those exact words.

If your search engine comes up empty then try again, using some of the key words instead.

You can also search directly at any or, even better, all of these sites:

http://www.scambusters.org/ http://www.snopes.com/ http://hoaxbusters.org/

With very little practice you will be able to judge the internal evidence almost at a glance and go straight to searching for external evidence for positive proof.

Now you know how to spot fake warnings. But how do you actually keep email hoaxes out of your Inbox? Just send them right back, with a twist. Wait and see, it works!

Copy every single scrap of information on this hoax from a hoax- busting site, preferably several sites if you have the time. Overwhelm the culprit with proof that he acted rashly.

Do that by pasting all the evidence you’ve gathered to the original hoax email, using the “Reply” function.

IMPORTANT: you are obligated to credit the source for each quote. Besides, a quote without attribution could make you appear untrustworthy, yourself.

Refrain from commenting; simply return his email with the addition of your thorough rebuttal from several verified sources. After a comeuppance or two, they will stop forwarding unfounded messages, at least to you.

This works because nobody likes to look foolish, especially when leaving such a public paper trail. Keep in mind that your friend is merely a victim of the hoax. So here you have a chance to rid your friend of his bad habit while achieving your goal: to keep email hoaxes out of your Inbox. All this, without a single reproving word.

Be especially alert for virus hoaxes, urgent virus warning emails. You know them: predictions of impending electronic doom due to some evil sounding virus lurking inside your very own computer. Many of these warnings will seem authentic.

Note, though, that you are always urged to take some drastic action, usually to delete this “virus”, which usually turns out to be a necessary file with an unfortunate name.

Now you know better!

Stay calm, act cool, and start by looking up the “virus” here: http://us.mcafee.com/virusInfo/default.asp?id+hoaxes

Now you know how to save yourself a lot of grief from hoax virus alerts. And stop them!

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Joe Robson owns The Newbie Club and is the author of the Best Selling course “The PC and Internet Security Kit” at http://newbieclub.com/security

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Contents

The contents of the Newsletter are:

1. Joe’s Ramblings

2. Tutorial Pt.1 … “How To Protect Yourself From Hoax Virus Alerts”

3. Tutorial Pt.2 … “How To Protect Yourself From Hoax Virus Alerts”

4. Tutorial …………”How To Get Rid Of That Frog”

5. Tutorial ……….. “How To Set Up Outlook Express Filters”

6. Joe’s Pause For Thought

7. Time For A Laff

8. Complimentary Newbie Club Courses and eBooks.

9. Your Subscription Details.

Link

Go to The Newbie Club to subscribe to the newsletter.

*IMNewswatch would like to thank Joe Robson for granting exclusive permission to reprint this latest article.

 

 

 

 

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