Have a look at this email I received recently and tell me if you don’t start feeling special. Click on the image at right to make it larger for a moment.

Don’t worry none of the links go anywhere, they’re screen shots.

It’s tempting isn’t it? You’re itching to click on those links. Well here’s THE crucial bit of advice in this post.

Let the mouse hover over the link. DO NOT CLICK!

If you allow your pointer to simply hover for a few moments, over any link in an email, it will show you the URL or web address that it points to. If that address says something like – http://youidiot.come-on-you-fool/23/455.67.54/ – there is a pit trap just around the corner for you and your favorite browser. The second you click that link you have put yourself at risk for phishing, and spam and SpyWare and all that exciting stuff.

Here’s what the link in this email showed when my mouse hovered over it baring its teeth :

The Lesson : Sometimes spam screams at you as it arrives, and sometimes it poses as a long lost friend.

Here is another scam email that came in a while ago. It didn’t take me long to discover is true intentions, but I was so impressed at the quality and attention to detail that I kept it to show to you.

And again the hovering mouse told me what this email wanted.

You can go ahead and click on it to make it larger. Don’t be afraid.

Be skeptical especially if the email you are receiving it on is one that you never give out to anyone. Its called unsolicited email.

Heres a very important tip:

Use one email only for friends and family, and another for registering on weblogs, posting to forums and general web surfing. Then at least you only have to be cautious with one email address.

Until we chat again, stay warm and fuzzy inside and remember, out there somewhere is a Hallmark E-Card with your email address on it.

Safe Surfing!

UPDATE: I’ve been getting a lot of these ebay fraud emails and thought I would give you a look at what they look like. Again the same principle applies. Let your mouse hover over the links and if you see a string as shown in the screenshot, with no reference to ebay whatsoever then simply delete it!

Hide your PC or Mac from this parasitic spamming strategy and switch to Ninja mode.

On both Macs and PCs it is disabled by default. Here’s how you can turn this protection mechanism on:

Apple Mac OS X

On Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger:

1. Go to System Preferences > Sharing
2. Click the Firewall button
3. Click Advanced
4. Check Enable Stealth Mode

On Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard:

1. Go to System Preferences > Security
2. Click the Firewall button
3. Click Advanced
4. Check Enable Stealth Mode
5. For additional protection you can also turn on the firewall (I recommend the: Set access for specific services and applications option.)

Windows PCs

On Windows XP:

1. Go to Control Panel > Windows Firewall
2. Click the Advanced tab
3. Next to ICMP click Settings
4. Uncheck the first option “Allow incoming echo request”

On Windows Vista:

You must be logged on as an administrator to perform these steps.

To find ICMP and logging settings, open Windows Firewall with Advanced Security.

1. Click to open Administrative Tools.* If you are prompted for an
   administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide
   confirmation.
2. Double-click Windows Firewall with Advanced Security.

To change logging settings:

1. Under Public Profile, click Windows Firewall Properties.
2. Click the tab for the profile that you want to change.
3. Under Logging, click Customize.
4. In the dialog box that appears, change the settings you want to
   change, and then click OK.

You can specify ICMP settings by creating inbound or outbound rules using
the ICMPv4 or ICMPv6 protocol.

This will set both systems to drop any incoming ping request and effectively hide your computer from this type of spamming strategy.