Thursday, January 13, 2011

NOTICE: TO MY FRIENDS AND BLOGGING BUDDIES! YOUR FUTURE E-MAILS TO ME WILL BE SUMMARILY SHOT UNLESS . . .

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Twice now in the last four months or so, I have received E-mails supposedly from friends of mine who are in possession of my E-mail address, but these E-mails have contained computer viruses.

Fortunately, both times, my computer's virus security detection system has caught the intruder and disposed of it safely and effectively. These E-mails had the return address names of real friends of mine and appeared to be legitimate.

The one peculiarity, however, was that in both instances, there was nothing typed into the "subject" space. The subject area was blank.

Be it known that from now on, I will immediately delete without a second's hesitation any E-mail sent to me that does not include MY name in the subject space. Dogged if I'm gonna get "bugged" by some liberal flea who has managed to gain access to names in my computer's address book.

Sending me an E-mail? Include my name in the subject space or be assured that I won't even open what you've sent, but will send it to hell faster'n Doc Holliday dispatched Johnny Ringo to that uncomfortably warm location!

~ Stephen T. "Quick Draw" McCarthy

YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: All comments, pro and con, are welcome. However, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement.
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8 comments:

  1. Great idea for keeping your computer safe and I liked your comedic spin on it. :)

    A friend of mine sent an email to his entire address book telling them he was out of the country, was in trouble and to send him money quick, please. Only of course it wasn't him. The worst part is that his address book included all of his business contacts. :/ He felt awful of course and looked even worse. LOL

    Thanks for the comment you left recently regarding the theft of my bike. It made me feel a little better about it.

    Have a blessed day and weekend, friend.

    Lisa

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  2. Bummer, McDogg!

    On my Yahoo e-mail address, I sometimes get hundreds of "undeliverable replies daily. I use that one for subscribing to mailing lists, for blog updates from this site, etc.

    It keeps the other e-mail address (that friends such as that McCarthy feller) somewhat clean.

    That may be a strategy you want to consider.

    I've also abandoned my blog on My Space because I am convinced the problem I had a couple weeks ago came from there. It was either there or the photo link you'd sent me-those were the last two things I did before the "infection."

    Mr. Censor

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  3. LISA ~
    Thanks!

    Yeah, I've heard of that "Out of the country; need money!" scam before. No one has tried it on me though. Of course, no real friend of mine would ask me to send them money because any real friend of mine already knows I have none to send.
    ;o)

    I ain't fallin' for no banana in the tail pipe!


    DISCDUDE ~
    Well, you know me, man - my computer knowledge is nearly as weak as my math knowledge! But "coincidence" that in both of these cases there was nothing entered into the subject space? I don't think so!

    My guess is that someone is able to access the names in my computer's address book but may not even know MY name. I think it may be just a "Let's see if I can screw with this unknown person" attack.

    The other thing that both situations had in common was that the Emails didn't have any written text but included just a URL. I figured it was a friend of mine who wanted me to put the URL into my browser and check out something on a website they had found.

    It wasn't until I entered the URL and clicked "Go" that a warning pop-up appeared saying the site was virus-infected. And the second occurrence of this happened a sufficiently long enough time after the first (and it was a different friend's name being used this time) that I "re-fell" for it.

    Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times... well, there will be no THIRD time!

    As far as MySpace goes, yeah, I really distrust all of those social networking sites and see no reason to play with fire. I deleted my short-lived MySpace account a day after receiving the information I had originally set it up for. And I have no intention of EVER creating a FaceBook or Twitter account. This blog is enough for me. In fact, it's MORE than enough for me.

    Yak Later, Bro...

    ~ D-FensDogg
    'Loyal American Underground'

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  4. Dear Mr. McCarthy,

    I wanted to drop you a quick note to say thanks for your comments on my blog!! Much appreciated. Unfortunately I'm a bit of a moron and haven't figured out how to respond...Still haven't...hence this comment. Is your email address posted somewhere here on your blog? I haven't been able to find it. Anyhow, thanks again, mate!

    ReplyDelete
  5. BARQUEDUST ~
    Hey, no problem. You post some funny "stuffs" and often a comment response comes very naturally to me.

    As for my E-mail address... if you have read much of my writings on my other blog, "FERRET-FACED FASCIST FRIENDS", then I'm sure you can easily imagine that I have plenty of political enemies (on BOTH sides of the aisle, in fact), and some of them no doubt would like nothing better than to crash my computer. For that reason, I have never made my E-mail address publicly known.

    I have had so many run-ins with radical liberals over the last decade and experience has shown me that most of them are very nasty people at heart (even nastier than they are stupid, if you can believe that) who wouldn't hesitate to infect my computer with a deadly virus if they had the opportunity. Better to play it safe than be sorry, ya know?

    ~ D-FensDogg
    'Loyal American Underground'

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  6. Righto. I guess commenting in the "comments" area is the solution...Imagine that! It's a section that is practically taylor made for comments. Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I can understand your taking steps to protect yourself, but I cannot help but feel I've being punished with the rest of the class because some moron threw a spitwad.

    I use a Mac, and hence I HAVE NO viruses. I can't pass them along to you... that is, unless I forward you some joke that some PC swine has sent me. Since I do that once in a Purple Moon...

    I'll try to remember to put your name ("Your Name") in the subject line, but if I don't get a quick reply (which I have not to my last email, BTW), I will guess that you tossed me out with the actual offenders.

    ReplyDelete
  8. BARQUEDUST ~
    >>.....I guess commenting in the "comments" area is the solution...Imagine that! It's a section that is practically taylor made for comments.

    Ha! Well, yeah, with a little "Yankee ingenuity" it can be made to work.


    SHEBOYGANBOY SIX ~
    I think perhaps you haven't grasped what I'm saying here. Some clown is able to send me an E-mail that APPEARS to be coming from YOU (i.e., using YOUR E-mail address, so I have no way of knowing it's not REALLY you!), and if I open it up, I might contract a computer virus.

    So far, it seems as if this person does not really know who I am, therefore they have not typed anything into the Subject Space. So, if I find my name in that area, at this point, I can still feel reasonably sure that the supposed sender is indeed the REAL sender.

    However, although "UHP! I'M AN IDIOT!", I'm still smart enough to realize that a TOPIC typed into the Subject Space that I am familiar with (i.e., a topic related to a previous and ongoing E-mail discussion with a friend of mine) is as good as "my name" being typed in there.

    That's my way of saying that I DID receive your recent E-mails, and I expect to respond later today (prior to the Seattle Seahawks NFL Playoff game) just to let you know why you are full of it and why, if there's a God in Heaven, da Bears will demolish the 'Hawks (never mind the fact that I actually hope the 'Hawks demolish da Bears!)
    :o)

    Yak Soon, McBoygan...

    ~ D-FensDogg
    'Loyal American Underground'

    ReplyDelete

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