Abuse

Addictions

"THE DANGERS OF GREETING CARDS"

Good Morning...

     This is a quick note to let you know of a different type of danger on the Internet. It's not a virus.  It's not a worm.  It's a greeting card.

     Yes, that's right, I said, "A Greeting Card!"

     Before I start I want to say that most online greeting card companies are honest.  You go to their site, click a few buttons, a friend or family member gets a cute little electronic card with a message from you.  No problem.  It was free.  It didn't cause any problems.  You got a free card.  They got you and your friends to see the advertisements on their webpages.  It sounds like a fair trade to me.

     So what could be dangerous about a greeting card? Well, how about if the company that allowed you to use their free greeting cards accessed your computer and copied your entire address book and then sold the list to spammers?

     Sound like fiction?

      Friendly Greetings? You might be spreading unwanted email
     http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/articles/greetings.html

     According to the site above, and about a dozen others, a website was set up where you could send free greeting cards to your friends online.  However, during the process of sending the e-card you were asked to download a program onto your computer.  That program then gathered the email addresses of everyone in "your" address books and then sent them an email telling them they had a card waiting at FriendlyGreetings.com (or one of the other sites). When the people in your address book visited the site, the whole process started over and the website gathered all the email addresses on their computer.

     Not only were people all over the world getting greeting cards that no one had actually intended to send them, but the companies involved in these sites were reported by members of the media to have been using all the email addresses collected for spam.

     How did they do it? 

     When they placed the program to gather email addresses from your computer, they also added a disclaimer (small print) that said;      

    "By downloading this program ...... you authorize ...... to access your ..... list and to send a personalized email message to persons on your contact list"

     If you didn't read the fine print (see above), you were authorizing people you did not know to copy the email addresses of everyone in your computer and then to send them an email from FriendlyGreetings.com.  In other words, if you didn't read it and downloaded the program, you were actually helping them to spam everyone you know online.

"THE GOOD NEWS"

     FriendlyGreetings.com and all the other sites that I could find mentioned in these articles have shut down.

"THE BAD NEWS"

     The bad news is that this company, and others like it, could just have easily done this without asking your permission.  Instead of forwarding a greeting card that could have been traced back to you, they could have had you download a program, without mentioning what they were going to do, and then sell all the email addresses to other companies in the business of spam.  Since it is virtually impossible to find out how a spammer got your email address, it's entirely possible that this is happening on a regular basis and that we (the victims) are simply not aware of it.

     I believe that there are companies out there right now who have similar downloads on their websites. That these companies are asking you to download a program as part of the material on their site, then copying information from your address books onto their computers, and in turn selling your friends email addresses to spammers.

SIMILAR PROGRAMS

     There are other programs that some websites are now suggesting you download that can cause you a lot of problems.  One example is that some sites are offering you free software, but somewhere in the download information it also says that you are giving them permission to put advertising pop-ups on your computer.   In other words, they are PERMANENTLY installing advertisements on your computer that will pop up unexpectedly from time to time.  And what makes it worse is most people that download these advertising programs don't know how to remove them.  So they are stuck with these pop-up advertisements showing up on their computers for years.

WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT IT?

     First of all I recommend that you actually read the small print before downloading any program.  Second, I recommend never downloading software from companies you are not familiar with. Third, I suggest that you read the tutorials below so that you can protect your computer from spy-ware, or other spam creating devices, that may be installed on your computer.

SPYWARE AND COOKIES - How to detect and remove Trojans, back doors and other spyware programs from your computer

WORMS - The newest danger on the Internet

VIRUSES  - How to protect your computer

SPAM   - Tired of junk mail?

       I also recommend that you install a good firewall program to prevent unauthorized access to your computer (Firewall tutorial coming soon).

GOOD CARD SITES VERSUS BAD CARD SITES

    There is no definitive way to say which card sites are good and which card sites may be up to no good.  All I can offer is a few suggestions.  There is no logical reason (that I know of) for a greeting card site to ask the sender to download anything (So avoid any that do).  Some greeting card sites may sell your email address, and the email address of the person you are sending the greeting card to - to spammers or send you spam themselves (so avoid sites that are not clearly owned by reputatable companies.  I do however think that some greeting card sites provide a lot of fun and enjoyment to the user, so I am suggesting that you go with card sites owned and operated by well known (and well respected companies) that don't ask for personal information, be careful what you download and read the small print.  And remember to delete all cookies.

EDUCATION

   The single greatest tool that you have to fight back against scammers, spammers and other bad people is getting an education on what they are doing, and how they are doing it.  You can do that for free at www.baddteddy.com , and while you are there you can also find many things to help you change your life.

                                                             Great Bigg Teddy Bear Huggs... 
                                                             BaddTeddy    

This site was created by hundreds of good and caring people

Copyright 1994 - 2009 Steven W. Nunnally, BaddTeddy, 479 Pine Ave, Naples, FL 34108