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bcc
BCC (blind carbon copy) is a very
useful part of almost every email program, but many people either
don't know how to use it or don't understand how important it is for
protecting our privacy! I receive emails every day that list all the
email addresses of all the people who received that email, including
mine. I often receive emails that have been forwarded so many times
they contain dozens and dozens of email addresses. If I forward that
email to lots of people without cleaning it up and using bcc, I add
my email address and yours to the list. If even one of the persons
whose email address is included on the email does not have
sufficient spam and virus protection, ALL the email addresses will
be added to virus and spammer databases! If that email contains
information about a baseball joke, for instance, you might find your
inbox flooded with spam about baseball, even if you hate baseball!
If you don't use bcc, then everyone you
send the email to has everyone else's email address. So, you are
only sending it to close family members, so that's not really an
issue. Or is it? What if your brother has a friend who has a brother
who has a friend who is a terrorist? And they all forward your email
until it reaches the terrorist without using bcc? The terrorist now
has an email in his inbox with your email address on it! And did you
know that every email you forward without using bcc contains not
only your public IP address, but also that of every person who
forwarded it before you did? Why does that matter? Just like a
reverse phone number lookup which will give you the physical address
of a phone number, you can use free software to obtain the physical
address of almost any public IP address! So now that terrorist might
even know where you live! And so does every other person who
received that email (if they choose to look it up)!! Believe it or
not, "there's an app for that"!! And its free!
If you have ever received an email from
me that was not a personal email, you will notice it was addressed
to you only. In reality, it was probably sent to as many as 1,000
other people! If I send you a personal email, it will contain your
name in the body of the email and its contents will be specific to
you only.
You only need to create a new person in
your contact list that is labeled something like "Recipients" and
enter your own email address for that contact. Then enter that email
address in the "To:" field, then enter everyone else in the bcc
field to make this work. That's all it takes to help protect the
privacy of all your family, friends and associates.....and they will
appreciate it without even knowing it!
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© 2010 K.I.T.
