Alan wrote:
In message ,
lid wrote
It makes me laugh out load that Garden Banter shows your
uk.rec.gardening posts on its forums, that there's *nothing* at all
you can do about it and that you lot get *SO* wound up about it.
There is nothing wrong with garden banter as long as their users are
sure that their email address is not sold on to advertisers and they
are aware of the of the PC security issues associated with their
method of viewing uk.rec.gardening posts.
It will make no difference to email collectors for spamming purposes whether
of not the email address appears here or on garden banter. The basic rule
is to munge your email address if it's posted openly anywhere.
For anyone that has a hardware firewall in their router, a software
firewall on the PC and a virus checker that is updated on a weekly
basis then there will be no risks with using garden banter.
? What's the difference if you are connected to the internet via a
mailserver, newsserver, or via a browser? If you allow http of any sort to
get through, you are wide open to malicious scripts. The basic rule (apart
from not opening attached files unless you know what they are) is to read
and post in plain text only. Sure, using a router (and software firewall
for a belt and braces approach) is ok, but it is the antivirus checker which
is the important thing here. Once you have opened your PC ports to http you
have effectively turned off your firewalls.
--
Jeff