Let's look at another analogy. Suppose you bought a car. Now, as anyone who has owned a car for any length of time knows, you have to change oil occasionally. You can forget all other maintenance, but you had better change oil.

I knew someone who had bought his first car. He didn't change oil, even after several people (including myself) suggested that it would be a good idea. One day his car stopped working. He was very angry, claimed no one had told him anything, dealer was evil, he would never buy that brand of car again, and other nonsense.

What's point? Microsoft has indeed been lax in designing security into it's products. There is no question about that. However, fault is not totally with that company, and poorly designed security does not make Bill Gates or others in his company evil.

There are many other companies with horribly insecure products. Security is something that must be given a priority in product development or it is often simply overlooked and under-designed, and testing is generally not adequate. One simply fact: security is generally not a money maker for these kinds of products.

Actually, until September 11th stressed importance, it was very common for IT managers to completely skip security in their network and infrastructure planning. Even now security is not high on many agendas.

Oh yes, most of my colleagues do think about security and are trying to do something, but it's tough to get managers and others to actually put their money where their mouth is.

Okay, back to point - security is a shared responsibility. We all have to practice security. Users must install antivirus software and keep definitions up-to-date. Firewalls must be added and used properly. The operating systems must be updated occasionally, and security bulletins must be reviewed once in a while.

It's same as if you owned a car, you are expected to read owners manual and bring it to mechanic occasionally. If you've got a house, you had better be spending some time making some improvements. And if you've got a computer you should learn about it. Otherwise, it just might bite you back - just like a car, a house or anything else in your life.

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The nightmare didn't stop here. But I won't go into rest of details here. Let me say this, I have uncovered many bad things about SPAM BLOCKERS over last several months and found out things that will curl your hair even if you are bald. The result is that I will be writing a new E-Book exposing all garbage and damage these programs can do to your e-mail and E-Business. The E-Book will be out within 3 weeks, it will be $3.00 to cover additional costs we will have in production and bandwidth. It is a must read for anyone with a Puter. Yup I have about 30% of it done already so we can get it out.

You will want a copy and this is important enough that you should share it with everyone you know (unless you have someone you want to get even with. Then recommend an ANTI- SPAM program and screw them good). We are going to make it re-brandable so you can sponsor it and get it out to your visitors and customers. It is time to stop this Internet Dictatorship. With your help, we can get this out where folks can see what is happening to them.

Please do a couple of things for us.

1. Forward this Ezine to your friends, family and subscribers if you have an Ezine.

2. Give us your feedback at new Puter Tutor Message Board. http://pub57.ezboard.com/bputercentral

3. If you have a story that will fit this please send it to me so it can be considered for addition to E-Book. Don't procrastinate. We want this E-Book out ASAP (deadline 3 weeks) Include your signature for publication. mailto:e-books@makemoneyhowto.com 4. Don't install any ANTI-SPAM software on your Puter until you have read E-Book. Then you won't want to. If you have any, get rid of it. If you want to eliminate senders just use Block Sender in your e-mail program or use filters. We will show you how in E-Book.

Happy Putering, Mike and Gail