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Spammers Caught!
First U.S. Felony
Conviction For Spam Law Violation
Last month's conviction
in Leesburg, Virginia, of a 30-year-old Raleigh, North Carolina, man
and his sister was the first ever felony conviction for violation of
anti-spam laws in the United States. The jury found Jeremy Jaynes
and his sister, Jessica DeGroot, guilty on three felony charges and
recommended a nine-year prison sentence for Jaynes.
The
recent nine-day trial shed light on the Jaynes' operation. Using
many aliases, including Jeremy James and Gaven Stubberfield, Jaynes
sent out at least ten million e-mail messages a day using sixteen
high speed Internet lines. Despite making money on only one in every
30,000 or so e-mail messages, the business raked in up to $750,000
per month. Although Jaynes constantly tweaked and rotated his bogus
product offerings, the trial centered around software, work-at-home,
and pornography scams. Prosecutors alleged that Jaynes amassed a
fortune of twenty-four million dollars through his scam/spam
operation.
So how do you keep from getting scammed by
spammers?
Here are two common sense tips that will protect you:
1. Don't Open E-mail Messages From People You Don't
Know
If you receive an e-mail from someone you don't know,
don't open the e-mail message. Simply delete it. Opening the message
may validate to the spammer that your e-mail account is "active"
which then only encourages the spammer to send you even more spam
e-mail messages.
2. Don't Buy Products From
Spammers
Spammers can't stay in business if nobody buys from
them. NEVER purchase a product from or give a credit card number to
a person/company that you first heard about through a spam e-mail
message. The chances are very high that the company operates a scam
operation.
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Computer Security
Choosing The Right
Tools
 Did you know that more
than 7,000 new e-mail viruses were identified in 2003, costing
businesses $13 billion? Is your computer vulnerable?
If you
are not using some sort of security protection for your computer,
don't wait any longer.
Computers that are connected to the
Internet, or to other computers, need to have three types of
protection: 1) a firewall, 2) an anti-virus program, and 3) an
e-mail filtering system.
1.
Firewalls come in two forms, hardware or software. We offer a
hardware solution that's included with our wireless
router/access point. The built-in firewall keeps out malicious
hackers. Call our office for details. (It makes a great holiday
gift!)
2. Anti-virus programs are available
for purchase from many sources. Some companies like Trend Micro
(http://housecall.antivirus.com)
even allow users to scan their computers online.
3.
An e-mail filtering system should be able to filter out junk
messages called "spam" and quarantine suspicious e-mails that may
contain electronic viruses.
For e-mail
filtering, we partner with Postini, a leader in
preemptive e-mail protection. With Postini protecting your
e-mail inbox, you don't need to worry about e-mail viruses infecting
your computer. Postini quarantines suspicious e-mails before they
reach your e-mail inbox.
Postini also filters out unwanted
junk e-mail messages that fill up your inbox and waste your
time.
Postini users can customize their e-mail filters online
at Postini's Message Center. Plus, there is no special software to
install on your computer.
Cannon Communications is now
offering Postini free with every 200 hour and above dial-up account
and every high-speed Internet access account! It's also available on
other dial-up accounts for just $2.00/month. Simply call our office
to activate it.
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Ask The Help Desk
Are There Any
Alternative Web Browsers To Microsoft's Internet Explorer?
Question: With all of the vulnerabilities,
spyware, pop-ups, and viruses that seem to plague Internet Explorer,
are there any other programs that I can use to browse the Internet?
Answer: Yes. There are good, free
alternatives to Internet Explorer. Netscape 7.2 and Opera 7.54 are good Mozilla-based options that don't suffer
from Internet Explorer's vulnerabilities. However, an alternative
that has many people talking right now is a Web browser called
FireFox 1.0. This is another browser based on Mozilla software. The
updated release was made available just last month. It's a free
download at http://www.getfirefox.com/.
Over eight million people already use FireFox. Plus, it works on
both PCs and Macs.
Some of the features within FireFox 1.0
include pop-up blocking, privacy tools to combat spyware, and "tab
browsing" which allows you to click on tabs instead of opening new
windows for each web page. FireFox is also purported to be
noticeably faster than Internet Explorer. For more information,
including downloading instructions, go to http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/.
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Great Sites To Check Out This
Month
Take A Virtual Tour Of America's Largest Home
http://www.biltmore.com/ - In
1895, George Vanderbilt completed the construction of and celebrated
Christmas with his family in his new home. He called his new
250-room chateau, which sat on 125,000 acres, the Biltmore Estate.
The home included 34 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, and 65 fireplaces. The
Biltmore is still America's largest home totaling 175,000 square
feet -- that's four acres of floor space. It took 484 employees to
run the estate in 1895. Today, more than 1,500 people work at the
Biltmore. Visit this Web site for information on tours, lodging at
the estate's inn, or ticket reservations to the Candlelight
Christmas Evenings taking place at the Biltmore during the holidays.
If you can't work the Biltmore into your busy holiday schedule, take
a virtual tour by typing "virtual tour" into the site's search tool.
The History Of Toys And Games
http://historychannel.com/exhibits/toys/
- Games and toys have been around since early civilization. The
Babylonians were playing a board game in 4000 B.C. that was probably
an ancestor of chess and checkers. Marbles were first used in Egypt
around 3000 B.C. Kites appeared in China in 1000 B.C. Playing cards
were first used in Asia in 969 and roller skates were invented in
1759. To learn more about games, toys, and their inventors, check
out this interesting site.
Answers To Your Turkey Cooking
Questions
http://butterball.com/en/index.jsp
- If you're looking for a new turkey recipe this holiday season or
cooking your first-ever bird this month, this site is for you.
Butterball, the number one selling brand of turkey in North America,
has what it calls its "Butterball Turkey Talk-Line." The Turkey
Talk-Line consists of more than 50 specialists including dieticians,
nutritionists, and home economists who give expert advice on
thawing, cooking, carving, and even making leftovers. You can speak
directly to a Turkey Talk-Line representative during business hours
or e-mail your question anytime and receive a personalized response
within 48 hours.
Cassini-Huygens Spacecraft Nears
Saturn's Largest Moon
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm
- The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft's plunge into Saturn's outer orbit
last summer resulted in brilliant photos of the planet's mysterious
rings. The images were at least five times better than those from
the 1980-81 Voyager missions that flew past Saturn. This month the
Cassini Orbiter detaches and sends the European Space Agency's
Huygens probe to Titan -- the largest of Saturn's 31 known moons.
(Titan is almost a planet in its own right at a size larger than
Mercury.) After a 22-day decent, the Huygens probe will parachute
into Titan's atmosphere. Check out this site for daily updates and
amazing photography.
Start Training For The 2005 Ironman
Triathlon World Championships
http://vnews.ironmanlive.com/
- It's only ten more months until the Ironman Triathlon World
Championships in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii (October 15, 2005). This site
provides a listing of qualifying races, lots of training tips, bios
on triathletes, and recent race results from across the globe.
Qualifying for this championship race gets more difficult every year
so the organizers also select an additional 200 race participants
via a lottery system. Applications are due February 28, 2005.
Remember, it's a 2.4-mile ocean swim, 112-mile bike race and a
26.2-mile run -- so get busy training today!
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Short TutorialReducing The File Size
Of Digital Photos Before E-mailing Them
Have you ever taken a
digital photo at high resolution for printing purposes only to find
out that the image was then too big to send by e-mail? That's
happened to most of us. During this holiday season, many people are
going to be sending photos as e-mail attachments. Many of them will
be too large and may jam the inboxes of intended e-mail recipients.
There are, however, some simple steps you can take to insure your
photos are easy to open by your intended recipients.
Since
most Windows-based programs include Microsoft Paint as a standard
program, many people use it to adjust the size of photos before
e-mailing the images. To find Microsoft Paint, click your cursor
arrow on the START menu at the lower left side of your screen and
click on "All Programs." Through subsequent menus and submenus,
locate "Accessories" and then "Paint." Click your cursor arrow on
"Paint" to open the program. Here's how to reduce the size of a
picture:
1. Open your specific picture in Microsoft
Paint by using the "File" menu and clicking on "Open." When the
"Open" dialog box appears, navigate to the picture you want to
modify and select it. Then click the "Open" button.
2. Check your file's size by going to the "Image"
menu and selecting"Attributes." You will see a line that says "Size
on Disk." It will show the size of your picture in bytes. Anything
over about 100,000 bytes (or 100K) will be slower to send --
especially if you are sending more than one photo as an attachment
to a single e-mail. (FYI - 1,000,000 bytes is one megabyte.) Close
the "Attributes" dialog box when you are done.
3. Go
to the "Image" menu again and select "Stretch/Skew" from the
drop-down menu. The "Stretch and Skew" dialog box will appear.
You'll see both a "Stretch" area and a "Skew" area. You'll work only
in the "Stretch" area for this exercise.
4. You will
want to reduce the stretch percentages of your photo by the same
amount both vertically and horizontally to keep the image from being
distorted. Start out with 50 percent both vertically and
horizontally. Click "OK." The photo will become visibly smaller.
5. To save your new photo while preserving your
original image, go to the "File" menu and drop down to "Save As."
When the "Save As" dialog box appears, give your reduced photo a
name in the "File name:" field and then click on the "Save" button.
6. Go to the "Image" menu once again and recheck the
"attributes" of your new smaller sized image. If you think you've
reduced the file size enough, you're finished. The new photo is now
ready to send to your friends and family. Otherwise, repeat the
process by making adjustments to the percentage of reductions. If
you aren't satisfied with a result, simply throw the smaller copy
away and start over with your original. Remember to always use "Save
As" to avoid losing your original image.
Additional
Notes
-
When adjusting the size
of a photo, many programs (i.e. PhotoShop or PhotoShop Elements)
will refer to this option as "Image Size" rather than
"Stretch/Skew." Follow the same basic steps when using one of
these programs.
-
If you are a Mac user,
iPhoto has a handy "Mail" button that allows for very simple
changes to photo resolution when e-mailing
pictures.
-
Most digital cameras
have options for taking low-resolution photos. This allows you to
avoid having to resize pictures after you've downloaded them onto
your computer if you're planning to send the images as e-mail
attachments.
-
Remember to send only
one photo or very few photos attached to a single e-mail to keep
the e-mail's file size relatively small. Large attachment files
may plug-up the e-mail inbox of your intended recipient.
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