Using the Internet Safely For Seniors

the target of a scam, and forwarding the messages to your friends puts

them at risk as well. By forwarding chain e-mail, you may help spam-

mers collect new e-mail addresses to target people and sell a variety of

products and services to them. If you do choose to forward an e-mail

to a group, do so responsibly.

1. Check a site like Snopes.com or TruthOrFiction.com to
   see if it is a known scam. If it is, delete it. If it isn’t a
   known scam you still have to be cautious. With the mes-
   sage open in your e-mail program, start by clicking and
   dragging your mouse over the message text to select it.

2.In your e-mail application, choose Edit➪Copy to copy the

content. (The keystroke shortcut for copying is to press

Ctrl+C.) (See Figure 3-1.)

3.Open a new e-mail, click in the message field,and choose

Edit➪Paste to paste the message contents into the form.

(Ctrl+V)

4.Place your e-mail address in the To:field and, if you are

sending to more than one person and the people do not

already know each other’s e-mail addresses, place recipi-

ents’ e-mail addresses in the Bcc:field.

Bccmeans blind carbon copy. The message is sent to any

e-mail addresses you put in that field, but none of the

e-mail’s recipients see each other’s e-mail addresses. Some

e-mail programs display the field on messages, in others

you have to click a button or link labeled something like

Show Cc and Bcc or Add Cc and Bcc.

5.Enter a subject and click Send.

To check out the latest scams, visit http://www.snopes.com

and click the Fraud and Scams link. You can use the

search feature on this site to look for scams using the

title of the e-mail or keywords found in it such as

bank accountor Nigeria.

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Part I: The Foundation of Using the Internet Safely