An Accessible On Ramp

1. An Accessible On Ramp To The Information Highway

2. Lesson 4C Email Safety

3. Email from Strangers • The video tells you to delete all email from addresses you don’t recognize. • For an adult, this may be “too safe” because you may get messages you want from people you don’t know, like people in a group you belong to. • Pay attention to the addresses of people who email you.

4. If You Don’t Know the Sender It is safe to read the email, BUT • Don’t click on any links in the email. • Don’t open any attachments • Don’t respond Unless you figure out who sent the email and are very sure it is safe. You might want to get advice from someone experienced with email.

5. Why Be So Careful? There are several reasons to be careful about email from strange addresses: • The email may contain a virus (in the link or attachment). • The sender may be trying to get information about you to use in a bad way. • The sender may be trying to find out if you open email from strangers. The sender might then sell your address to bad people.

6. Spoof Email Addresses • Sometimes the sender’s address belongs to someone you know, but the message doesn’t seem right. • This might be a spoof message. • If the message asks you to do something that doesn’t feel right, or just doesn’t sound like your friend, check with your friend before you do anything else. • If you email your friend, don’t use Reply. Start a new message and take the address from your own address lists, not from the email.

7. Common Spoofs • Most often, spoof emails pretend to come from your bank or a company you might buy things from. • If these emails ask you for any personal information (including bank and credit card information), they are spoofs. • The real companies will not ask you for this kind of information in an email. • They already have the information the spoof is asking for.

8. Phishing • Trying to get you to give personal information is called phishing. • Phishing is a joke way to spell fishing. • The senders of phishing emails are fishing for information about you. • Any time you don’t know what to do, get help!

9. Spam • All email from strangers that you do not want is called spam. • Some spam is phishing. • Some spam is just trying to sell you things or tell you things (that might not be true).

10. Handling Spam • Most people don’t like spam and don’t want it in their inboxes. • Gmail tries to catch spam before it gets into the inbox. • You can see the spam it caught if you open the spam folder.

11. Spam Mistakes • Sometimes someone tells you they sent you an email and you didn’t get it. • Sometimes you are waiting for an email and it doesn’t come. • Look in your Spam folder to make sure it didn’t get put in there by accident.

12. Fixing a Spam Mistake • If you see the email you are looking for in your Spam folder, open it by clicking on it. • At the bottom of the message you will see this: • Click on Not Spam and the message will move to your Inbox.

13. Another Way to Fix Spam Mistakes • When you see the message in your spam folder, click on the little box to the left of the sender’s name. • Then click on Not Spam or click on Move to.

14. Messages that Should Be Spam • Sometimes you get a message in your Inbox that is spam. • Tell Gmail it is spam so that it will block this kind of mail in the future. • You do this the same basic way as you handle messages that shouldn’t be spam.

15. Reporting Spam • Click on the little box to the left of the message that is really spam. • Then click on Report Spam. • This doesn’t happen often in Gmail, but it is important to report the spam, not just delete it.

16. Viruses • Viruses are little computer programs that can get put into your computer to cause trouble. • You should have antivirus software to help keep this from happening. • Even with the software, you still must be careful.

17. Getting a Virus from Email • You can cause your computer to get a virus by opening a bad attachment or by clicking a bad link. • That is why you should not open attachments or click links unless you are very sure they were sent by someone you can trust who is also careful about email from strangers.

18. Bad Things Viruses Do • Spoofyour email address. • Slow down your computer or make it stop working. • Cause your computer to make mistakes. • Cause your browser to get stuck on websites you don’t want. • Many other things.