•Anti-scam rule 1: Never click on an attachment from a good friend unless you are positive friend sent it. It takes only a minute to click on “Reply” and ask friend, “Did you really send this?”

•Anti-scam rule 2: Never double-click on an e-mail attachment that contains an executable, such as an EXE, COM or VBS suffix. Once you click on it, an executable can do any sort of damage it wants. (Enough people now know this to make scammer say, “This attachment is virus-free.” If you believe that, I’ve got a nice bridge I’d like to sell you.)

•Anti-scam rule 3: Your computer CANNOT be infected by an e-mail attachment unless you click on attachment. If you simply delete suspicious message without clicking on a link or attachment, you’re okay.

REAL CHUTZPAH

It’s so awful it’s funny, but after scammers have used your stolen address to scam thousands, they have one more scam up their sleeves.This is message they sent me:

“Your e-mail account was used to send a huge amount of spam during this week. Obviously, your computer was compromised and now contains a trojan proxy server. Please follow instruction in attached text file in order to keep your computer safe.

Sincerely yours, The foodandfiction.com team.”

My first thought was, “How nice. These people are sympathetic to my problem and want to help me.” And then I thought, “Wait a minute! This message is supposedly from foodandfiction.com team. Food and Fiction, http://foodandfiction.com, is me, myself, and I, and I never sent that message.” Of course, if my e-mail address had been, say, AOL, message would have been signed, “the AOL.com team.” I might have thought dear folks at AOL were trying to help me, and I’d have clicked on that attachment. Which was of course from scammer, not AOL, and would have infected me.

•Anti-scam rule 4: Having your address stolen does NOT infect you with a virus or trojan horse. If you don’t open suspicious attachments, you are all right -- though you may want to warn your friends that they’ll be getting attachments pretending to be from you, which attachments will infect them if they open them.

Coming next: an article on hijackings and spyware.

Lately I’ve been getting official looking e-mails that appear to be from banks. They have beautiful logos and extremely official looking forms. One supposedly from Washington Mutual Security begins, “WAMU is committed to maintaining a safe environment for its community of buyers and sellers. To protect security of your account, WAMU employs some of most advanced security systems in world and our anti-fraud teams regularly screen WAMU system for unusual activity.”

Note emphasis on safety and security. They even have an anti-fraud team! In order to “secure my account” I’m supposed to click on a link and supply information -- information which will lead them from my pretend account with them to my real account, which they will then kindly clean out for me.

•Anti-scam rule 2: Your bank does not need you to “confirm” your account number, your credit card numbers, or your social security number. It already has all information it needs. As for some official sounding bank you’ve never heard of -- sheesh!

•Anti-scam rule 3: Give your credit information online only when you have gone to a legitimate website and are in process of purchasing something from it. People who buy things from my website, http://foodandfiction.com/Entrance.html, a very legitimate site, as part of purchasing process are taken to a safe place online, so they can give their credit card information directly to credit card company with whom I have a legal contract. As owner of site, I NEVER SEE THE CREDIT CARD NUMBERS! All credit card company gives me is name and address of person to whom I should mail merchandise, what they ordered, and how much they paid. And that is way all legitimate online merchants deal with your credit card information. We say your information is safe, and it is.

I’ll be back with more fascinating attempts to separate you and me from our money.

Find the best recipe, food gift, and healthy dieting sites in Janette Blackwell’s Delightful Food Directory, http://delightfulfood.com/main.html -- or enjoy her country cooking at Food and Fiction, http://foodandfiction.com/Entrance.html