Some companies and software products use your email to advertise their product. Free antivirus companies commonly do this, but Microsoft and Apple are also guilty of this. They insert a blurb into your email signature, so that everyone you contact will read a promotion text at the end of your message.
Other companies do not engage in this behavior, but if you are uncertain, send yourself an email to check. I’ve met many people that had no idea that their email signature had been repurposed as a billboard.
And if you find something unnecessary in your email signature, you do have the right to turn it off or delete it out of there!
Windows Mail
If you use the Mail app under Windows 10/11:
Open Mail
Click the cogwheel icon
Click Signature
Turn off “Use an email signature”
Click Save
Apple Mail
If you use the Mail app on any iPhone or iPad:
Tap on Settings
Tap on Mail
Tap on Signature
Backspace over the text until “Sent from my iPhone” is gone
Special note: ProtonMail has an additional ad at the bottom of their emails, called the Proton Mail footer. You’ll see it right below the Signature box. You cannot turn off this footer, unless you upgrade to a paid plan.
Avast Antivirus Free
Open Avast Antivirus
Click the Hamburger Menu
Click Settings
Click Protection
Click Core Shields
Scroll down to “Configure shield settings” and click Mail Shield
Uncheck the box for “Add a signature to the end of sent emails”
AVG Antivirus Free
Open AVG Antivirus
Click the Hamburger Menu
Click Settings
Click Basic Protection
Click Email Shield
Uncheck the box for “Add a signature to the end of sent emails”
Let me know if you notice this with any other big name software or email product, and I may be able to add the removal steps to this post, thanks!
This is just for the Outlook app. If you want Word, Excel or other Office apps, you’ll still have to pay up. Or use LibreOffice.
Outlook aims to be the swiss-army tool of mail clients, with calendaring, tasks and more. If you prefer something more simplistic, MacOS Mail isn’t going anywhere. And if you need something with lots of features but want to avoid Micro$oft, there’s always the free Thunderbird email client.
If you’re having trouble with Dish Network lately, you’re not alone. On 2/23/23, Dish was hit with a ransomware attack, and they’ve been struggling to recover from it for over a week now. You may notice troubles or outages pertaining to:
Dish TV channels
the Dish.com website
Sling TV
Dish Anywhere app
Boost Mobile cellular service
using your Dish login credentials/paying your bill
reaching Dish customer service
Ransomware attacks can take significant time and effort to bounce back from. Last year’s attack on Mail2World laid low their email services for a solid week, but recovery timeframes can vary widely. Dish is being tight-lipped, so far, about the gory details, so I couldn’t begin to predict when their service levels will return to normal.
For now, what I can recommend is keeping your eye on their website and the Dish statement for upcoming details. Also, it is possible that the attackers have stolen customer data, so you may want to proactively change passwords on Dish-related accounts and pay attention to financial accounts you’ve shared or linked to Dish.
Google has built in a very useful feature with their email service. In Gmail, you can configure something called “Check Mail from other Accounts”, and then Google will continually pull in the messages sent to another email address you control. You can do this with one or many other email addresses!
The Steps
Before you start, make sure you know your full email address and its login password.
Go to your Gmail at Gmail.com on a computer.
Click the cogwheel icon.
Click See All Settings.
Click Accounts and Import.
Scroll down to find the subsection labelled Check mail from other accounts.
Click Add an email account and fill in an email address. Click Next.
Choose Import mail from my other account (POP3) and click Next again.
Adjust the Username field to show the entire email address that you want Google to check.
Type in its password in the second field.
You may want to check the box next to Label incoming messages so that the incoming messages stand out from the ones sent directly to your Gmail.
Click Add Account to finish.
Disclaimers & Cautions
If that final setup screen did not fill in the POP server field automagically, you may have to figure out the correct server name to enter. You may also have to double-check the port number. That may mean calling your ISP or doing some research. Reach out to me if you need help with this!
This process can result in you importing a lot of email. If the other address has a lot of email in the inbox, you can expect a lot to arrive in your Gmail. But it shouldn’t hurt anything. At the worst, you’ll just have a lot of unneeded messages to delete.
This only brings messages. Contacts, Calendar entries or Notes are separate and would involve a different set of steps to bring over.
Google only checks the other email once an hour for new messages. That means that as people email your other address, they will arrive in your Gmail inbox, but there may be a time delay of up to one hour.
What Good Is All of This?
People most commonly use this feature when they are switching from an old email address to a new Gmail. It’s really helpful, because all of the old email dumps into the new Gmail inbox. Now you only have one inbox to check! And the label feature helps you determine who is still using the old address. You’ll know form that whom to contact, to let them know about your new address.
You might use this feature, even if you plan to keep the other email address, long-term. It may be too much work to abandon the other address, but it may still help to have everything arriving in one inbox.
Also, Gmail’s spam filter may be the best of its kind, at least amongst free offerings. Routing a spam-laden email address into your Gmail inbox can filter out a horde of nastiness.
Lastly, I often recommend this approach when mail forwarding is not working for someone. If you had set up mail forwarding in your other address and it wasn’t reliable, you can turn it off and try this method instead. Google will get the job done properly.
Can you believe it’s been a whole year since the worldwide Mail2World 2022 email outage? Also: Can you believe it’s only been a year and Mail2World has brought us another email outage?
OK, so far, it looks like it’s only affecting Shentel email. I am checking in with other Mail2World clients, and they report no issues at this time. But if you use Shentel email, you may not be able to access your messages, nor will you be able to send or receive anything.
This outage seems to extend to Shentel Webmail, mail clients, and the mobile app. Wherever you go, Shentel email is kicking up some scary security warnings:
If you’re suffering from these errors, there little that you or I can do. It’s on Mail2World to fix this. They may have forgotten to renew a security certificate on the server that makes your email work. For now, I see your options as:
Call Shentel at 1-800-SHENTEL and inquire politely for an ETR.
Sit tight and check your email occasionally.
I will update this page if I encounter new information!
UPDATE@9:30PM: Shentel Webmail is starting to open up again for people. M2W may have bought a quick 1-month security certificate to tide things over.
If you’re still getting errors from your email client (Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird), reboot your computer and see if things start working again!
UPDATE@7:30AM, 2/10/2023: Looks like everything is back to normal and functional again. But now we get to wait a month and see if this recurs on 3/13/2023. Mail2World, we’ll be watching you.
Hacking is nothing new. In the 1970’s, we had hackers that were experts at gaming and abusing our telephone systems. They were able to avoid long-distance charges when placing calls, and those free calls may had led to them being called freaks. But soon after, those phone freaks were simply termed phreaks.
In the 90’s, cybercrime developed and spread via email. We needed a new term for all those deceptive, fraudulent messages going around. Borrowing from the cool jargon 20 years prior, we turned fishing into phishingand used that to refer to those emails that tried to get their hooks into people for their passwords and account numbers.
To this day, phishing remains a major vector for fraud and e-trickery. And phishing continues to evolve and adapt to how we communicate. The Simple Message System (SMS) caught on in the 2000’s and its text messages are now used for so much of our daily activities. And as SMS messages proved to be a viable medium for phishing attempts, a new portmanteau was born: smishing.
Only One Real Defense Against Smishing
Today’s smishes generally try to trick you into one of two things: 1) click on a bogus URL, so that you visit a deceptive site, or 2) call a phone number to connect you with a scammer. Each scam is a little bit different from the next, but in general, once you go down one of those two roads, your computer, finances, passwords and sanity are all at risk.
Your cellular provider blocks a lot of smish attacks, but there’s bound to be something that get through. Smish happens. Your best defense is education. Look at some examples of smishing messages and get familiar with them. And later, when some smish shows up at your door, you’ll just roll your eyes and move on.
Examples
Some smishing wants convince you of a purchase that you didn’t authorize. It could be for a laptop, or some antivirus or a Peloton Bike. It doesn’t matter what it is, what’s important is: the message is 100% fiction. There is no charge. There is no high-dollar item. Notice that the text message doesn’t even say which card has been charged! The bogus phone number doesn’t go to a bank; it goes right to a scammer’s cubicle.
Fake Purchase Smish
Another smish to consider is the Delivery Smish. This one lies about an imaginary package that couldn’t make it to your door. If you click the link, it will lead to a phishing website, where you will be asked for credit card information to cover a postage fee to get your package. But again, there is no package, but they will quickly run some real charges on your bank card, if they get that number from you!
Delivery Smish
You are almost never going to win anything through a text message. But below, you’ll see a smishing message that wants you to believe. Please don’t.
Lottery Smish
Ever get this text about a pending criminal charge or tax return problem? The police or FBI is not coming to arrest you. Or rather, if they are, they certainly aren’t going to text you in advance.
Going to Jail Smish
There are so many more examples I can give, such as Password Reset Smishing and Message from your CEO smishing. A couple of months ago, I blogged about the EBT Scam. Next year, I’ll have to blog about a new smish. Feel free to Google for “smishing examples” if you need more food for thought.
Common Traits to Watch Out For
The phone numbers in these bogus texts often give it away. The smish may arrive from an area code you’ve never dealt with before. Or the stated number may have odd punctuation. Plus, if you want, you can copy down the number and Google it. A lot of these scammers’ numbers will turn up in a search, on scam-watch websites.
The details are usually vague. There’s a pending charge, but it doesn’t say with which bank. You’ve won a prize, but from which company? Your plane tickets were cancelled, but the airline name is not mentioned. A legitimate notification would be crystal clear about important details.
The URLs are questionable, but sometimes you have to look closely. It’s a pretty obvious trap if the weblink contains wording like “curesickness.com.” But other URLs are written to look similar to trusted domains. They may only be one letter off, but if they’re trying to get you to tap on “www.disneyy.com”, think twice and back away.
How To Respond
First of all, don’t ever respond to a phishing text. Communicating in any way with a scammer is bound to get you more spam, phishing, smishing and other annoyances coming your way.
If you have a severe problem with too much SMS spam, contact your cell provider. They may offer extra spam-blocking options to curb the junk.
And if you’re just not sure, if you got a text and you worry that it might be legitimate… Close the text message and seek verification elsewhere. Call your bank from the number on your statement. Go to the Amazon website and chat with their support. Find real help somewhere else and they will corroborate the facts or dispel the myth.
For anyone involved in SNAP or receiving EBT funds, please be aware of the following scam:
This is a text message that did NOT come from the government or any legitimate entity. It is the beginning of a scheme to steal your EBT funds.
If you receive this text, do NOT call the number. Do NOT respond to the text. Simply ignore, delete or block this message.
If someone calls the number in the text, a scammer will answer and pretend to be with the government. They will try to learn the caller’s EBT account info and PIN. Once they have those numbers, the crook will drain the funds from the person’s EBT account.
The legitimate people in charge of SNAP and EBT will never text you. If you need to contact them, find their official phone number on this list and call them. And if you have fallen victim to this scam, please call your state’s EBT Client ASAP to see if anything can be done.
Here are options for dealing with spam received via text message:
Forward the Message to SPAM
When you get a spam text, forward it to 7726 (SPAM). This helps your carrier know about what spam is spreading where, and they’ll study the trends to prevent more spam from reaching you.
To forward a message on Apple devices, consider the section at this page titled “Forward older text messages.”
For Android devices, try these steps to forward a message any spam text to 7726.
Block the Sender
Most phones allow you to block a specific number from sending you texts. So when that annoying spam message arrives, block the sender’s number.
Note: If a spammer is spoofing your number, so that the text looks like it is coming from you, don’t block it. Just forward it to SPAM as described above, and contact your provider if it keeps happening.
Contact Your Provider
Each cellular provider offers different free tools for blocking unwanted calls and texts. If you are receiving a high level of spam messages, reach out to them. Ask them to review your account and phone settings, to be sure that all possible features are enabled, to block the maximum amount.
Report Spam to the Government
You are welcome to report unwanted communication (calls OR texts) to the FCC and the FTC. The DoNotCall Registry also wants your reports of spam.
Caveats
When acting on a spam text (to block it), take care to not tap on any attached files or links.
Do not reply to any spam text with any complaints or commentary. Do not try to unsubscribe, as this may create more spam for you!
Tech jargon is confusing enough as it is. But then some geniuses had to go and name two completely different technologies the same thing. Not helpful….
I’m referring to the label “5G”, which can be used regarding your home Wi-Fi or with cellphones. I continue to find that people conflate the two technologies when they have absolutely nothing to do with each other! So I’m going to try and clear this up:
5G Stands for Fifth Generation
When talking about telecommunications, 5G refers to the latest technology that makes your cellphones work. Right now, the fifth generation (5G) of technology is being rolled out in our country. The fourth generation (4G) is the existing cellular communications technology used in much of the country, and 3G & 2G technology is on its way out. The old 3rd gen and 2nd gen antennae and other hardware is being decommissioned and dismantled to make way for the new hotness that is 5G.
5G Stands for 5 Gigahertz (GHz)
By now, most households have Wi-Fi to spread your internet connection around to laptops, tablets and smartphones. And many of you may notice that your Wi-Fi router offers two network names, one that may end in “-5G”. This is merely to distinguish the two bands of frequency emanating from your device. Those two bands are 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz, the latter can be referred to as the “5G band.” If you want to read more on Wi-Fi frequency bands, this site has you covered.
Speak to your computer and have it type what you’re saying! Windows and MacOS have voice-to-text typing tools built-in and you just have to launch them for your speech to flow into whatever document you’re creating.
Windows Users would press Win + H to open the dictation tool.
Once started, you can have this tool enter your spoken words anywhere you see the input cursor flashing. Feel free to dictate into a Word doc or email or status field on Facebook. After you’re done dictating, feel free to go back and edit for punctuation by hand.
And if you ever have any trouble with these built-in tools, there are websites that offer similar tools. This Voice Notepad website is handy, because you can switch between dictation and typing more gracefully. When you’re done, simply copy the text and paste it elsewhere.
