The long and short of it is – not much. In this case, best offense is a strong defense. Download a strong firewall, along with effective ad ware and spy ware deterrents. Report all spam, and never ever respond to it. That only encourages spammers to send more. After all, if it wasn’t profitable, they wouldn’t send it.

Since I write a lot of articles, I’ve found that using a service to distribute them seems to protect against excessive e-mail abuse. While I do receive some spam, it isn’t much – perhaps eight or ten messages a day. Some writers I know receive thousands of unwanted messages daily.

I can’t say that being hijacked was a good experience, but it did teach me a valuable lesson about securing my computer. I’m now much more aware of what can and will happen if I don’t take appropriate steps to block it.

So for most part, my e-mail situation is under control. The major issue now is unscrupulous companies – and they know who they are – who plant their unwanted advertising and spyware on computers. To my mind, this is trespass. They are unwelcome intruders – are they so desperate, and is their product or service so poor, that they must advertise in such questionable ways? Breaking into someone’s computer doesn’t seem best way to gain trust.

Anyone who even takes time to read these offers is only contributing to problem. Perhaps if they find that no one is paying attention, and that this form of advertising is counter-productive, (which in my case it is), they will find another way to hawk their wares.

Those sending spam have been put on notice that this won’t be tolerated. Perhaps we should do same for those who want to gain control of our computers without our consent.