Hi all: I have noticed a couple of posts recently about email being sent on the account of others, and some getting viruses, etc. Here are some helpful points. I hope others can add to this:
If an email is sent out in your name, it may not necessarily be some evil, mean JW person hacking you ... it is more likely any number of hackers who happened to land on your system. About 3 or 4 months ago I received an email from some ex-JW friends (or so I thought) and traced it back to a library where they did research ... as it turned out, the library was two states away from where they were at the time, because they were out traveling. The librarian did not send the email either, and it appears that someone hacked my friends system, sent an email that appeared to come from them, and sourced back to the library. Soooo ... I had my friends switch to my hotmail account to prevent future problems.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
Hotmail is a routing service and automatically screens for viruses: It cannot penetrate your system unless you download something sent to your Hotmail account. I recommend that your email account used for online chats and posting forums be a Hotmail account. When you suscribe to Hotmail, you can use fictitious information so that if a hacker breaks into Hotmail, they cannot learn who you are. While fictitious, you do need real information. For example: I use some name like Joe Smith in Florida, or Alaska, etc with a correct zip code for Florida, or Alaska or whatever State I use. If you attempt a false Zip code, Hotmail will reject the account.
Internet Security / Firewall / Antivirus: Norton, by Symantec is the best in my opinion, although there are other great systems that are very good. I STRONGLY recommend having BOTH the Firewall and Anti-Virus. The Firewall also stops Hackers dead in their tracks so that the odds of planting a Virus or Trojan into your system in the first place are greatly reduced. Norton Firewall also allows tracing of the hacker so you can report them to their employer and/or ISP. Anti-Virus alone is good, but can lag behind new viruses, and your system could get corrupted before Norton or whatever Anti-Virus program you have can fix it. On average there are 50 NEW Viruses developed each week by people with nothing better to do than mess with their fellow human.
Poison Pill: I do not know of any commercial grade software available that allows you to send a Poison Pill back to the hacker's system ... but I am working on my own version. Essentially, the type of Poison Pill I hope to have will secretly slip back to the Hacker, and totally destroy their entire PC system with no traces. I mean erase everything on their hard drive, and render it inoperable. If it works well, I might market it. Hackers will devise ways around such a thing ... but the presence of Poison Pills may reduce the level of Hacker Traffic on the Net, which is at an all time high right now.
Don't over-react: When I first saw the email from my friends, and my system screened out the virus, I called them to let them know they sent a virus ... fortunately we are on close terms and we all laughed about what happened ... but it could have been easy to assume they were screwing with me, and if I had over-reacted, I could have lost their friendship by shooting off my mouth. Don't assume that the Watchtower is out to get us ... there could be weird renegade JWs hacking us ... maybe even a weird Bethelite or two ... but I doubt that the GB is directing anything of the sort ... they are bad religious leaders, but I can't imagine them being that desperate so as to hunt down ex-JWs on the net and cause that much trouble. If I am proven wrong, I guess I will have to eat what I am saying ... but generally, Hackers could be anyone, and not necessarily some specific person from a specific group.
Sharing Information: Any additional comments will be greatly appreciated ... I think it is good that we discuss Internet issues at times, because this helps us share what we know and find ways to have a more secure experience. We have some really good experts on line, and I hope that they can give some additional insights and things we can do to protect our systems.
Edited by - Amazing on 20 June 2002 15:59:24