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[quote user="Jane and Danny"]

-----Well he was either a naturist who lived in sunny climes or a non white person..........did you really need me to say it was BLACK!-----

-----Opas,

    thanks for the warning. I think there is an attempt to draw you into a race argument here, I've a good idea that we all understand what you meant.

best regards------

Dago

There is no attempt at anything - race argument or otherwise. It is only a discussion on a forum. If someone says something I would like to respond to, it is simply a response. It takes more than one to have any sort of discussion and what I asked was, I thought, a reasonable question. And I got an answer. Maybe you have a good idea what was meant by "ethnic" in the post but to me it was very strange.

Opas,

I found your post very strange. I realise you were trying to be helpful with your warning but your choice of words was bizarre. Maybe you didn't mean to be but I did find what you said (or didn't say) very racist and that was why i asked for clarification. Let me explain:

You wrote "2 young girls at each side of an ethnic mans erect willy!" As I said, I don't think you had any intention of being offensive but you attributed the man in the sentence as being ethnic . This really doesn't mean anything except that he has an ethnicity, like everyone else including you and I.  But, you omitted to give the girls the attribute of ethnic. Together, this suggests that the man is somehow "different" in a very negative way. i.e. he has different ethnic origins to "us" and "we" don't have ethnic origins (or ethnicity). What you really meant - from your reply above - was that the man was black and (by omission), the girls were white. I don't really understand why this was relevant to your email warning. If so why did you not mention how ethnic the girls were. If it was relevant, what was the problem with saying black or white.

I would be offended to be referred to as the ethnic person whatever my ethnic origins are as I am sure you would be.

I hope you don't feel offended by what I have said. It is written with good intentions

regards

Danny

[/quote]

I must have missed something because I can't find the the line quoted by Danny, "Well he was either a naturist who lived in sunny climes or a non white

person..........did you really need me to say it was BLACK!"
by what you have written you had a very good idea of what was meant by 'ethnic' so why ask the question if it was not to provoke a an argument?

maybe you could point me in the right direction to read it...anyone?

best regards

[IMG]http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g130/dago49/Dago3.jpg[/IMG]

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I am now at a complete loss.........where/why/how was it necessary to remind anyone of the code of conduct in relation to anything said in this thread? I have been "accused" by others, on other forums, of being "PC" due to my abhorrence of racism and racist remarks, and I deplore racism in all its forms, but I am really, really struggling to understand how anything said by the OP could be construed as racist. If it's really come to this, heaven help us all.
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Well that's just great because it makes any discussion pointless! my apologies to Danny because I had not read the original post before it was edited.

best regards

[IMG]http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g130/dago49/Dago3.jpg[/IMG]

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In my experience, some of the advice on spam has problems.  I have

a "good" anti-spam software.  For example, it catches and labels

as spam any message with a particular word in it.  Sadly some "real

people" sometimes use "the word" in one of their email

titles.  If I didn't look at each message, I would never get theirs. 

It also classes as spam some messages which are the first one I have received

from a new address, even though it is from a friend.  It also regularly

classes as spam a message from one list I am on, which for a reason unknown to

me, cannot be put on my "white list".  That is, I have tried and

failed.  No matter how many addresses or names I put in the blacklist, the

spammers just change names and addresses.  I have noticed some quite

surrealistic message titles lately .  I myself am classified as a spammer

on some of the automatic search devices the subcontracting spam catchers

use.  The reason is that for two particular reasons, I send messages to

loads of people in one go, now and again.  That is, I

"spam".  Getting myself off spammer lists, subcontracted by some

large institutions, is practically impossible.  They make you pay a

ransom.  Frankly, in my experience, and that of numerous people I have

asked, there is no possible alternative to looking at each message title and

sender and making a personal decision.  No software can be trusted to not

eliminate friends and messages you want.  So I say you have to look at

each one, and then delete it.  Of the thousands of spam I have looked at,

I admit to having opened at least one every fortnight that I should have

deleted.  But....it was just close enough to a good message title and a

good sender that I had to take a chance. 

In my view, spam catchers are just another type of search for perfect security

and safety. This has led to many very sad developments in our contemporary

society.  Airports, surveillance, all kinds of paranoia.  Anti-spam

software is just another version of forbidding hair shampoos on airline

flights.  The other solution is that if you ever meet anyone who makes

this stuff, then say something to them.  I actually was going to say

something stronger.  I still remember the first controversy over the

lawyers in Arizona who sent out the first advert or spam on the internet. 

Sad gits.  But normal for capitalism.
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Quite agree.  I use wonderful Mailwasher, which shows sender's address and message title, but you still have to skim down the list in case an authentic message has been marked as spam. At one point, I seem to have blacklisted Hotmail addresses for example, so I have to watch out for friends using that!  Also, like 13V, I get perfectly innocent messages from first-time contacts who come via my website, so have to watch for that sort of stuff.   (You can double-click on a message title to read the beginning of the message, if in doubt about whether it is a goody or not, but AFAIK this is still being done out in space, and not on my PC.) 

I tried using the spam filter offered by my ISP, but it was hopeless. Basically, it marked almost everything as spam!  (Anything to multiple addressees; anything with a title starting "Re: ..." ; anything with an attachment;  anything from Hotmail or Yahoo addresses).

I have got Mailwasher quite well disciplined now, to mark as Blacklist, messages with certain words, or emanating from certain countries.   It's amazing what a difference just that makes.  I also get stuff bounced back that has been rejected by addressees to whom I have never written, obviously using my domain-name address, with pzvspj or something before the @.   Fortunately, I don't use the domain name as an email address on the whole, so I have blacklisted anything coming to that - which for most people wouldn't be an option.   But I still always do a visual check of the list before deleting everything.

Mailwasher must be pretty good at virus-scanning too.  Sometimes it has marked stuff as such, so obviously I delete it without looking at it.  I have up-to-date Norton AntiVirus on my PC, and it has never marked any incoming mail as suspect, so I guess Mailwasher has managed to catch them all (either that, or my NAV isn't working!).

Angela

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That's another black mark against Norton AV then.  If, as you say Angela, you have kept the definitions up to date then you really should be able to trust it to find incoming messages containing viruses before you open them. 

Yesterday I used Outlook to check messages in one of my mail accounts that I don't use often.  My AV, Avast, detected no less than 7 incoming viruses (Win32:TIBS-A**) as the mail was being loaded from the server, and these were deleted before I even saw the messages containing them..

Utilities like Mailwasher are great for identifying spam, but if anti virus applications don't identify a virus until after it has been activated then they end up making more work for the user.  Especially if a copy of the virus is stored in Windows system restore.

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Well, Cathy, in my un-techie way, I assumed that Mailwasher was being so good at recognising virus-infected mails (labelling them as such, and quarantining them, and thus allowing me to delete them "in cyberspace" without opening and before downloading them), that perhaps the NAV wasn't having any work left to do... 

I carry out regular updates of NAV but, as my creaky PC is running W98, these seem to be limited in scope, so I was glad to think there was a second line of defence in action.

But do you think, then, that when I look at the list on MW, those emails have somehow already hit my PC?  Unless I take steps to download them, I don't think they do (or I wouldn't know where to find them if they did!).  Anything I don't delete, but don't download onto the PC, seems to hang around in space, so if I subsequently connect to MW with my laptop, for example, I can download them onto that instead.  [8-)]

Angela

EDIT:  Just checked the site for an explanation (my XXXs):

"Here’s how the server-side solution works: All emails reside on an email server, located at either a user’s ISP if it’s a personal email account, or within a company’s network, if it’s a work email account. When the user launches their email program, it is at that point the emails are downloaded from the email server to the individual’s computer and email program. Anti-spam solutions that integrate into an email program automatically pose a risk for the user, because any potential worms or viruses attached to an email have already entered the user’s computer. With the XXX interface, a user can view all email at the server, before ever downloading the emails into their email program. All filtering and deleting happens at the server level and users only receive wanted and safe emails. This way their computers are never compromised."

 

I shall go on with the belt-and-braces approach of using NAV as well, but clearly none of this morning's 46 unwanted emails ever touched my PC.

 

 

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I am a little confused here..........have I been told off for not saying:

............I have just opened a very innocent looking email and ended up looking at a picture of an erect penis with a couple of young girls with pink lipstick eagerly looking on..........or does the pink lipstick imply something I have missed!

Forget it, some folks just love to nitpick.

 

 

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Just picked up on the thread. Another useful programme to delete/ intercept rogue emails is 'Mailwasher'. It sits betweeen your server and your computer so you can sort out all your emails before they arrive in your inbox. It's a free programme with the option to upgrade to the PRO version. Google Mailwasher to try. I've been  using it for some months now and I haven't yet succumbed to the need for Viagra or the girls on the Rusian dating site. It runs quite safely with IE6/ 7 and doesn't cause any conflicts.

Aitch

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I have been having problems with the site all day, so it wouldn't load pages 2 and 3 on this thread, hence I wasn't aware that Mailwasher had been mentioned. Still having problems as I have had to log out and  back in to respond with this message. Seems to be a lot of problems with server being unavailable/ not being found, but i don't know if anyone else is having the same dificulties.

aitch

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[quote user="Aitch"]

I have been having problems with the site all day, so it wouldn't load pages 2 and 3 on this thread, hence I wasn't aware that Mailwasher had been mentioned. Still having problems as I have had to log out and  back in to respond with this message. Seems to be a lot of problems with server being unavailable/ not being found, but i don't know if anyone else is having the same dificulties.

aitch

[/quote]

Aitch, I also had the same problem earlier and couldn't get into the site.

Even though Mailwasher was mentioned by Will earlier, I still found your post informative and helpful, thank you. With those recommendations made by you and Will, I am definitely downloading Mailwasher. [:)]

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[quote user="opas"]

I am a little confused here..........have I been told off for not saying:

............I have just opened a very innocent looking email and ended up looking at a picture of an erect penis with a couple of young girls with pink lipstick eagerly looking on..........or does the pink lipstick imply something I have missed!

Forget it, some folks just love to nitpick.

 [/quote]

If you had mentioned the pink lipstick, instead of ethnic, in the first place. We could  have all  had a good laugh [:D] [;-)] [8-)]

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The other day while searching for a website with some emoticons on it to add to my hotmail, I found what looked like what I was looking for.  Opened the site and since then  have been getting pop-up ads telling me I have tracks of "rude" (not exactly the word they used) pictures from websites I had visited and to use this free programme to scan your computer.  I clicked the X to close it, and the damn thing downloaded.  It took me a couple of days to find the offending files and even plucked up courage to delete the files in the registry.  However, now I keep getting pop-ups for different things, depending on what I am looking at.

Eg. investigating Mailwasher on the web just now two WinAntiVirusPro_2007.  It tells me that my PC is sending private files and gives information that I am in France and my ISP is (and gives the name) in Poitier but it tells me I am using Mozilla as my browser.  Not true.  I also get ads for DriveCleaner.free.  If you get these irritating pop-ups do not open them.

I guess, that despite my phishing filter being on, someone has phished me.  How do I get rid of all this rubbish.

I also, like Opas and millions of others, get Spam

I started to block them but the blocked senders list got so long it took ages to delete them all.  Latest ones show a persons name and  title and my preview pane has no text in it, but a paperclip in the right hand corner which doesn't appear in the list.  Someone, will one day be sorely tempted to click the paperclip and end up with all sorts of problems.

I thought as my PC is fairly new (August last year), I would do a quick and easy system restore back to the date before the problems started, but on doing it, it won't complete.  So now I am trying to pluck up courage to do complete system recovery which is a real pain as it means I've got to re-load all my programs.

So despite AVG with Firewall, Windows Defender, Pop Up Blocker On, Phishing Filter On, the b's still get through somehow. 

 

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sun in France,
thats a particularly nasty trick  - when you try to close the window, it loads something on your computer. Usually referred to as spyware or malware ( not phishing - this is a fake bank email trying to get your personal details). It can be very irritating. There is help on the web for example this page especially the advice about bit defender and the ad-aware and spybot links are useful too.
If you ever get dodgy pop up windows asking you to click JUST DON'T. It is much safer to press ctrl-alt-delete and the task manager will come up. Then under the applications tab, there is a list of programs which are running. highlight the offending window and choose 'end task'. This avoids clicking on it as the whole window is basically a link to something else.

I know it can be a real pain. if you do end up reinstalling windows make sure you back up important data, documents, mail settings etc first before you try to reinstall. That is even more frustrating if you forget something.

Danny

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Unfortunately there is no way that we can ever be completely free of spam or viruses - apart from hardly ever using your e-mail address so it never gets picked up by third parties through being stored in somebody else's address book for example. The b***ers are always a step or two ahead of the anti-spam and anti-virus software writers.

It's OK if you have a set few people whose messages you trust and can ignore the others, but it gets very difficult when you want to avoid deleting, or delaying, legitimate mail from previously unknown sources, particularly when they may have been sent out in batches, as with things like press releases.

That is where Mailwasher comes into its own. In the Pro version (and I think the free one too) you can view the message - either the first 20 lines or the entire message - on your mail provider's server, before downloading it to your computer, so you have a very good chance indeed of avoiding problems. I would stress though that although Mailwasher is good at flagging possible virus e-mails, it is not an anti-virus or anti-spyware programme, for that you need something different.

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Download Spybot search and destroy   http://www.spybot.info/en/index.html   it's been really useful to me in detecting nasties before they make registry changes.  Each time anything attempts to add or change a registry setting Spybot will ask you if you want to allow the change or not, and also asks if you want to "remember" the change to allow you to back it out later if necessary.

The scan facility will help you to get rid of any nasties that have already found their way onto your computer.

It spots things that a virus checker won't, and if the definitions are kept up to date it'll help to keep your computer just that little bit safer.

 

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PC has only been on for 15 mins and I've had three - two managed a Ctrl+Alt+Del -fine.  Third was a sneaky little "b" that floated in from the side.  It had two X one under the other.  The bottom one opened the programme and in very small letters above it the other X said Close.

Anyway - I tried to download MailWasher yesterday and my firewall actually sent me a warning telling me it was preventing the site from downloading it for security reasons.  It gave me a choice and at that point, I am so nervous about downloading stuff now, I chose not to open it.  I accessed it through Snapfiles - webattack.com.  Is there an official site for this programme.  Also, adware, is there an offical site for that one too?

Jan

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Suninfrance, it sounds as if you need an anti spyware program like the one Cat suggested.

On normal settings, Windows will block you from downloading almost anything directly from a web site. That's  not necessarily a bad thing - you need to confirm that you want to download the program, usually by clicking on the message below the IE menu bars. Mailwasher is perfectly safe to download, though not infallible - it did receommend a spam reporting program a while ago that turned out to have problems of its own, and (probably thanks to twisted geek humour) Mailwasher itself comes up as being spam blacklisted, so it may be forced to block its own messages, if you follow what I mean.

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I've just received a good (not) phishing attempt - based on the Nationwide. I quote part of it:

It has come to our attention that your nationwide account information needs to be

updated as part of our continuing commitment to protect your account in this year 2006 and to

reduce the instance of fraud on our website

Well it's nice of them to try to reduce fraud (har har) but haven't they noticed what year it is?

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Getting there - thanks Cat - I just downloaded Spybot and run the check - it found 12 red items but no green.  Of the 12 red items 2 were for the WinAntiVirusPro and 2 for another antivirus program.  All were cookies which I have now "fixed" and immunized.

Now - I'm going to try and download Mailwasher again

 

Jan

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So - MailWasher sorted.  Does this now mean that I have to open my e-mails through mailwasher or can I still use Outlook Express and MailWasher steps in - sorry if that's a dumb question?

BTW - While I was downloading, got a full page advert for Jardin et Maison - does this mean that Spybot doesn't deal with that kind of thing and I've go to load Ad-aware too?  My goodness life is complicated!!  [8-)]

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[quote user="Suninfrance"]So - MailWasher sorted.  Does this now mean that I have to open my e-mails through mailwasher or can I still use Outlook Express and MailWasher steps in - sorry if that's a dumb question?[/quote]

You need to configure Mailwasher to tell it your email address (one only unless you have the pro version, which handles many addresses):

go to tools/accounts and enter your pop server (usually 'pop.ispname'=pop.tiscali.fr for example)

When this is done, Mailwasher will look into the inbox at the ISP address and download a list of emails waiting to be downloaded.

You can then press the spacebar to see what they are and remove them by marking them as 'delete' or 'blacklist', or keep them by marking them as 'friend'.

Then click process mail and Mailwasher will delete the ones you marked as delete or blackist and you can safely use Outlook Express to download the remaining ones, unmarked or marked friend.

You have to keep marking them for Mailwasher to gradually learn which are from friends or blacklists.

As for popups, you should be able to avoid them by using the tools in your browser and I don't know which one you're using...[:)]

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