How The New Computer User Can Reduce Spam
Every computer user gets spam in their email almost daily. There is just no way to avoid junk email unless you want to delete it without reading it. Yes, you can compare it to those telemarketers who call you at dinnertime (or any other time). There is no way to avoid having an email address on the computer because if you have an account, you must have an email address to do business on the Internet. Someone will find a way to contact you either by phone, snail mail or email to try to “sell” you an idea, plan, or a product. There is just no escaping junk email if you have an account on the Internet, and this unwanted email can become annoying at times. Spam filters are used by most of the Internet Service Providers such as American Online. The computer user fills out a list of overused spam words in the email settings filter and saves it. After the settings go into effect, any any future email containing the spam word that you inserted into the filter will not make it into your email account. You may get spam in your spam folder, but some of it may be email you may want to read. If you want the email in your regular email , you can whitelist the email address in your address book so that the email is sent directly to your email account. Be cautious in revealing your personal email address, for privacy or for safety reasons as well as avoiding spam. Do not let fear of spammers limit your time on the Internet forums or groups, as you can use a free email address or a disposable email account such as those on Hotmail, Mail.com, and Yahoo. Addresses from these accounts are often used by people to guard their privacy on forums and groups on the Web. When you feel that you know someone trustworthy, you can give them your personal email address. But have at least one or two different free disposable email addresses to cut the spamming in the personal email account. Avoid responding to unsolicited spam as it will confirm your address to the spammer which could, in turn, send you even more spam than you will ever want to see. Also if you answer or complain about the offensive emails it may only come back to your email address as undeliverable or may be sent to some other annoyed computer user’s address. You can call or email your Internet Service Provider and ask what their procedure is in blocking spam. Several years ago, I remember sending manually a few hundred junk emails back to the Report Abuse team at my free email account. This worked very well as it has not happened again. Find out from your Internet Service Provider how they can help you end the onslaught of spam. Usually the spammer’s account will be terminated or shut down if there are enough complaints from consumers. Check with Spam Cop and Network Abuse Clearninghouse’s resources and information for people who receive spam. These informative resources can contact the Internet Service Providers so that the spammer is made aware of complaints, although at times they may not always be accurate. Remember that the spam will continue if people remain complacent or just too lazy to report it. Reducing the level of spam in your mailbox may take a little time and effort on your part. What you can also do is start blocking certain email addresses that come from repeated spammers. The junk emails are then blocked before they even reach your mailbox address. Again, set up the spam filter to block emails containing certain spam words so that you will not receive them. These two techniques alone will reduce the onslaught of unwanted junk emails in your personal email account. The computer user must be careful of not clicking on email attachments from unknown senders as they can contain various types of viruses and infectious worms that can harm your computer or files. If you did not request a email to be sent to you, do not open an attachment as it could be a worm. You do not want to pay for expensive computer repairs. These problems, in turn, can be avoided if you have a strong firewall and good antivirus software in place on your computer. Do not be indifferent and believe that it will not happen to you. Be cautious, and try to research on protecting your computer. your online and offline privacy, and your Internet account. John Chan is a writer and researcher who has a an interest in the Internet. His website is <a href="http://www.theantispamguide.com" title="http://www.theantispamguide.com" target="_blank">http://www.theantispamguide.com</a> and <a href="http://www.ezantispam.com" title="http://www.ezantispam.com" target="_blank">http://www.ezantispam.com</a>
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How Fixing Broken Windows Can Decrease Click Fraud
There is a theory in law enforcement that goes something like this: If someone breaks a window in a building, and it isn’t fixed quickly, others will soon be broken. As the evidence of neglect builds, vandals will be more emboldened to break into the building and commit more vandalism and eventually destroy it completely. If, on the other hand, that window is promptly fixed, it discourages further crime because it is clear that someone is watching the store. Further, if instead of just fixing the window, you find the vandal and hold them accountable for it, a message goes out loud and clear: we’re watching and you will get caught. The problem with the broken windows theory is that it requires more than police action to put into practice. If the community isn’t involved in the cleanup effort, the initiative fails. When the community is drawn in to help police the problems, to report them and to ‘mind the store’, so to speak, crime rates drop. This theory can be extended to police nearly any venue where there is unacceptable behavior - including the problem of click fraud in the venue of PPC advertising. At the moment, the PPC industry is like a vacant building with nobody watching the store. It’s easy to enter fraudulent clicks. It’s even easier to get away with it. At the moment, a large percentage of advertisers leave the detection of fraudulent clicks up to the PPC provider - and the policy of most PPC providers is that they will provide refunds for proven click fraud upon request from the advertiser. What happens when: - The PPC provider’s software detection methods don’t catch the click fraud? - The advertiser doesn’t use fraud detection software? - The advertiser can’t back up the claim of click fraud? - The major players in the industry refer to the problem as ‘negligible’? Simply put - the click fraudster gets away with it. The rewards are enormous - estimates put the amount of money lost to click fraud in the range of billions of dollars annually. But the loss to any individual advertiser is usually negligible, and even Google sees refunding money to advertisers as no more than the cost of doing business. If we’re ever going to put a dent in click fraud, three things have to happen. 1. Advertisers have to take responsibility for monitoring their own campaigns. If you don’t know it’s happening, you can’t take steps to stop it. 2. Advertisers need to use the information they generate through their analytics to demand refunds from the PPC companies on a consistent basis. As long as the losses are minor compared to the profits for the PPC companies, their incentive for responding is limited. 3. Click fraud perpetrators have to be identified, actively pursued and penalized. Currently, modern techniques that use proxies and ‘zombie networks’ can make it almost impossible to identify and punish offenders. Those are the three elements of the Broken Window theory that make it work - community action, official backing and action and penalizing perpetrators. The first element in combating click fraud as a community is in getting click fraud prevention and tracking software into the hands of all advertisers. The difficulty of sifting through hundreds of pages of data to make comparisons and weed out patterns that signal click fraud is a daunting one for most companies. Click fraud detection software makes it almost painless - but can be expensive. Other parts of the internet market have benefited from open sourcing of software to manage content, manipulate graphics, and create communities and process payments. An open offering of free click fraud prevention software will encourage advertisers to start monitoring their own logs and records and identify potential fraudulent clicks. In addition, an open offering encourages others to modify and extend the software and make those extensions available to the community at large. With those monitors in place, the second part of the equation becomes more possible. When it’s easy for advertisers to identify and document fraudulent clicks on their campaigns, it becomes that much easier for them to demand refunds for those clicks. The third part is an outgrowth of creating a community that actively works to eliminate click fraud. For the time being, click fraudsters are loose in a neighborhood of broken windows. With the right tools, we can begin to repair the windows and create a community that makes it nearly impossible to get away with their tactics. Jay Stockwell has been fighting click fraud since 1999. In 2004 he developed the first version of Click Sentinel which was released 6 months later to critical acclaim. His release of <a href="http://www.clicksentinel.com">Click Sentinel</a> (Version 2) redefines how click fraud should be addressed.
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How To Prevent Thieves From Stealing Your PDF Ebooks!
There are 2 main options for protecting your PDF file: OPTION 1: Use Adobe Acrobat’s basic protection. Adobe Acrobat allows you to set basic protection for your PDF document. This includes: * allow/disable the ability to copy text of document * allow/disable printing of file * allow/disable changing document * require password to open document (Yes their password protection was broken a few years back, but it’s still adequate protection and will keep out most people.) Ideally, to use this option you should use Adobe Acrobat, however the high cost may put that out of reach of many. Fortunately, there are MANY, MANY inexpensive PDF creators that will allow you to also set some of these permissions. Such as: http://www.pdf995.com http://www.pdffactory.com http://www.deskpdf.com There are also some standalone applications like: http://www.verypdf.com/encryptpdf/index.htm Overall, option 1 is what I call “static protection”. Meaning, once you choose the security and then distribute the file, you cannot change the security for those files that are already distributed. For example, you distribute a file to Client A in December. In January, your relations with the client become strained and you no longer want them to have access to your file. Unfortunately, with static protection, you cannot change their access permissions. It is already “set”. Though this option may allow you to prevent copying text within the file, it does NOT prevent a user from copying the entire file and redistributing it to others. Though it may allow you to require a password to access the file, the password can be easily passed around so anyone can have access. So it’s not entirely secure and easily circumvented. If protection of your document is critical, you should boost protection using additional mechanisms. OPTION 2: Use a third party protection system. This option includes systems that offer “real time” control over your document. “Real time” means that you have the ability to change or alter the document security after it has been delivered to the end user. This is what I choose to focus on as it provides the greatest amount of security and post-distribution control. Some just offer basic lock and unlock ability, while others go into more extensive PDF settings that can be altered at any point. Here are some things you should be looking for when evaluating a PDF protection system. 1. Does the system offer complete protection? This the first thing you should look at because if the protection is not up to par, move on! You will never even get to the other points. When evaluating protection features, make sure you check each feature out for yourself and don’t always take the company’s word about protection. Many times I have seen companies advertising certain protection features on their website, but in testing, the product doesn’t seem to do what is claimed. So, always check first. For PDF files, there are some basic areas that any adequate system must protect against. In order to be totally protected, the PDF security system you use MUST: * Prevent saving a copy of file. * Prevent emailing of file and exporting or extracting pages from file * Prevent copying of file from the TEMP folder * Prevent copying file and text to the clipboard * Prevent redistilling of the file * Prevent unlimited, uncontrolled printing of file * Prevent access to file without permission * Watermark all printed pages If any system that you look into does not cover these, I recommend that you move on to something that does. 2. Can you afford it? If the system passes the security test, the next thing you should look at is the cost of the system. Is it within your budget? Can you justify the price of this type of service? Do you buy the entire system and run it on your server, or is it a hosted service that charges you a monthly fee. There are pros and cons of both. If you run the system on your server then you will avoid monthly fees, but these types of systems usually require extensive programming and integration work which can increase your overall costs and take weeks to months before you get up and running. If you choose a third party system that is hosted by another company, you avoid the integration issue as most of these services can get you up and running in minutes to hours. 3. Does the system offer auto-distribution? Does it automatically deliver your document to your customers and clients hands-free? If so, does it integrate with your payment system and/or shopping cart? 4. Is the system flexible? The next thing you should look at is the flexibility. Does it allow you to tweak and modify the security options to fit your unique requirements? The ability to customize things such as program icons, customer download emails, thank you pages, etc. makes a big difference. 5. Is there any customer support? What kind of support and help will you receive when you purchase the product or service? Is their any documentation of all features and uses? What good is having the best system if you don’t know how to use it? 6. Is the Company reliable? Does it protect my data? Is this company reliable? Do you feel that the the company will shut down, thus leaving your documents inaccessible and/or unprotected? Ask them what measures do they provide to ensure that your information remains protected in this event? Do they back up your data? If so, how often? 7. Can you demo the system? Most companies offer a trial or demo period for free or a small fee. You should always try the system out to see it “in action”. Set it up to do exactly what you are looking for and see if it works the way you need. Never sign up or purchase something that you have not yet tested. 8. Other questions? Those are the major criteria, of course there are other things that you may want to consider such as: * What is their cancellation/refund policy? Do they require a contract or can you sign up for a month to month service? * Does their system use Acrobat Reader or another PDF viewer? If they use Acrobat Reader, do they have an Adobe DRM license which is required for all Acrobat reader security systems? * Does it allow you to contact your database of users/clients * Can you export your user database There is a lot to consider when deciding on a PDF protection system. My advice is Do NOT rush into it. Because once you choose a system and start distributing files using that system, you are stuck with it. File Secure Pro is a document protection and delivery system that allows users to securely distribute, monitor and control usage of their intellectual property. learn more at <a href="http://www.protectyourfile.com/" title="http://www.protectyourfile.com/" target="_blank">http://www.protectyourfile.com/</a> If you distribute important information online, File Secure allows you to start protecting your information within minutes.
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