Posted by David Sherman on Tuesday, January 17, 2006 at 1:10PM :
In Reply to: Re: paypal - ebay emails beware posted by David Sherman on Tuesday, January 17, 2006 at 11:42AM :
I just said that sometimes I do. Almost all the ad/spy-ware I see was because somebody actually ran a program that either was emailed to them or was some "free" thing they got off the web somewhere. Kazaa is bad for this, as are the add-on toolbars and the "gazillion free smilies" offers.
I know it's theoretically possible for someone to create malicious code that installs itself on your computer when you simply visit a website, but I haven't seen an example of it yet myself. Also, most of the criminals target Microsoft IE and Outlook, whereas I use Mozilla Firefox for web browsing and an ancient version of Netscape for email. What the ebay, paypal, and bank account "phishing" criminals want is you account numbers, especially your credit cards and bank accounts. If they have your bank account number they can clean it out, and if they have your credit card number they can buy stuff on-line with it. I constantly get spams from Nigerians wanting to buy stuff off of my web page using stolen American credit card numbers. There's a thriving black market in lists of such numbers.
I completely agree that the easiest and safest thing is to just delete the cr*p immediately. Sometimes they just piss me off too much and I want to do a little more to get back at them. Part of my problem is my email address is exposed on my web site so everybody can see it and spam me.
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