If you are a computer user in Mower County, chances are you have an e-mail account.

Monday, March 20, 2000

If you are a computer user in Mower County, chances are you have an e-mail account. And if you have an e-mail account, there’s a good chance you get a lot of unsolicited e-mail, much like junk mail clutters our mailboxes.

However, as more and more people get hooked up to the Internet, there are more and more people you receive e-mail from. This past week, the potential for harmful viruses and worms was seen on a local basis. And it proves that you never can be too careful. At the least, practice safe computing, a keyword that comes from having safe sex. If you don’t know where files are coming from, much like if you don’t know who a potential sexual partner has slept with, you don’t know what can happen to your computer, much like you don’t know what might happen to your health.

For starters, if you receive an attached file in your e-mail, don’t try to open it or execute it without knowing what the file is. Even if the file came from someone you know, it still could prove harmful. For instance, the PrettyPark.exe file that has been circulating around Austin can come from a friend or family member unknowingly. That’s because once the file is executed, it sends out e-mail with the same harmful file to everyone on your e-mail mailing list – without you ever knowing it! At the very least, it can prove embarrassing, especially if it sends the worm out to everyone on a listserv, or e-mail list. You can believe that you will catch a lot of flak once people start opening up that infected file on their computers.

Run virus checking programs regularly and know the files you open. If you do that, you’ll be practicing the minimum of safe computing.