Ask Joanne's eNews

SPAM-ing and SPOOF-ing

Summary:
As much as I would like to remove attention from these unethical practices, they do exist. Following are some things to be aware of. Knowledge is power.

What is SPAM?: Unsolicited "junk" e-mail sent to large numbers of people to promote products or services. Sexually explicit unsolicited e-mail is called "porn spam." Also refers to inappropriate promotional or commercial postings to discussion groups or bulletin boards.

What is SPOOFING?:
Email spoofing may occur in different forms, but all have a similar result: a user receives email that appears to have originated from one source when it actually was sent from another source. Email spoofing is often an attempt to trick the user into making a damaging statement or releasing sensitive information (such as passwords).

PLEASE be aware that someone is spoofing my domain name www.joavatar.com and the Connecticut Holistic Health Domain www.cthha.org. Do NOT open any mail from joavatar.com or from a cthha.org address that you do not recognize (eg. annie@cthha.org.) They are likely to contain viruses.

How can we stop these unethical practices?
There are ways to report SPAM to the internet service provider of the spammer. It involves viewing, copying and researching the internet headers on the email and reporting the abuse. If you would like to learn more, please contact me. As a general rule - NEVER reply to or buy anything from a spammer, it only encourages the practice.

My current research indicates that at this point it is nearly impossible to stop SPOOFING. However, Amazon.com has also been a victim of this practice and has launched several lawsuits. This action may help the rest of us find ways to protect ourselves.

ADVICE: Install reliable virus-scanning software on your computer. Update it regularly. Do NOT open attachments from anyone unless you are expecting them and are sure that they were sent by someone you know.

I will keep you posted as I learn more.

Joanne