y, PayPal or Amazon.com that says "Dear Valued Customer…" rather than using the name you registered with them under, it's almost certainly a Phishing attack. Phishing is a technique where crackers send out thousands of carefully forged email addresses from domain names that are close to thSo, you're new to the internet, and you've heard countless breathless stories about the horrible things that can happen, or have heard of the risks, and are now afraid that your computer will magically transmit your credit card number to everyone in Nigeria or some such. Let's dispel some myths, and give you a solid basis in fact for how to work and use the internet to the greatest advantage.

First, make sure that you only pass your credit card to a secure connection; this is shown by having the letters "https" appear before the web site address, rather than just "http". The "s" stands for "secure". A secure connection will also show up as a "lock" or "key" icon somewhere on your browser.

Second, never click on a link that comes to you by email from someone you don't know and trust. Never open an attachment from someone you don't know and trust; in particular, look at the text of an email from someone who you may know and trust and ask yourself "Did they actually write this?" – a lot of virus and Trojan horse attacks try to scavenge an address book to send themselves out to a wide array of hosts.

If you get an email from eBay, PayPal or Amazon.com that says "Dear Valued Customer…" rather than using the name you registered with them under, it's almost certainly a Phishing attack. Phishing is a technique where crackers send out thousands of carefully forged email addresses from domain names that are close to the

myths, and give you a solid basis in fact for how to work and use the internet to the greatest advantage.

First, make sure that you only pass your credit card to a secure connection; this is shown by having the letters "https" appear before the web site address, rather than just "http". The "s" stands for "secure". A secure connection will also show up as a "lock" or "key" icon somewhere on your browser.

Second, never click on a link that comes to you by email from someone you don't know and trust. Never open an attachment from someone you don't know and trust; in particular, look at the text of an email from someone who you may know and trust and ask yourself "Did they actually write this?" – a lot of virus and Trojan horse attacks try to scavenge an address book to send themselves out to a wide array of hosts.

If you get an email from eBay, PayPal or Amazon.com that says "Dear Valued Customer…" rather than using the name you registered with them under, it's almost certainly a Phishing attack. Phishing is a technique where crackers send out thousands of carefully forged email addresses from domain names that are close to th

". The "s" stands for "secure". A secure connection will also show up as a "lock" or "key" icon somewhere on your browser.

Second, never click on a link that comes to you by email from someone you don't know and trust. Never open an attachment from someone you don't know and trust; in particular, look at the text of an email from someone who you may know and trust and ask yourself "Did they actually write this?" – a lot of virus and Trojan horse attacks try to scavenge an address book to send themselves out to a wide array of hosts.

If you get an email from eBay, PayPal or Amazon.com that says "Dear Valued Customer…" rather than using the name you registered with them under, it's almost certainly a Phishing attack. Phishing is a technique where crackers send out thousands of carefully forged email addresses from domain names that are close to th

in particular, look at the text of an email from someone who you may know and trust and ask yourself "Did they actually write this?" – a lot of virus and Trojan horse attacks try to scavenge an address book to send themselves out to a wide array of hosts.

If you get an email from eBay, PayPal or Amazon.com that says "Dear Valued Customer…" rather than using the name you registered with them under, it's almost certainly a Phishing attack. Phishing is a technique where crackers send out thousands of carefully forged email addresses from domain names that are close to th

y, PayPal or Amazon.com that says "Dear Valued Customer…" rather than using the name you registered with them under, it's almost certainly a Phishing attack. Phishing is a technique where crackers send out thousands of carefully forged email addresses from domain names that are close to the ones you'd use (like PayPa1.com, where the "l" is replaced with the number "1"), with convenient links for you to go in and "verify your account" or some such. These can often (but not always) be identified by bad writing, peculiar word choices, and things that make it clear that the author of the email isn't a native English speaker/writer. Likewise, if you hold your mouse over a link, and look at the browser window, you can see where the link goes to – there's a little space at the bottom left of the browser window in both FireFox and Internet Explorer that will show you the true URL that the link goes to – and it will almost always point to some place unexpected.

Similarly, avoid any email that purports to need some sort of assistance in moving funds from overseas and offering you a share. These are known as Nigerian scams, or 419 scams, after the section of the legal code of Nigeria they break. The money never gets delivered, to anyone, and in a lot of cases, they'll take your bank and routing number, having conned it out of you, and use it to run up huge charges on credit slips drawn up in your name, or clean out the account. In