By
Actually, I wasn't attacked by the thing. When I saw 50 e-mails from 50 different people, all of whom were apparently in love with me, I knew immediately what was going on. I'm not about to fall for that old line! But I wonder... would I have caught on if I had happened to open my e-mail window just after the first one had hit? Cynical, old lady that I am, I probably would have deleted it anyway.
I also get mail telling me that I have received a "greeting card" either as a downloadable file or from some legitimate-sounding web portal like AOL or Yahoo! If you've ever sent me a greeting card and gotten no response, it's because I never accept them unless I recognize the sender. It's sad that we have to be so suspicious, but I guess "never download files from strangers" is going to be one of those things like taking candy and accepting rides. You just can't afford to risk it.
The greeting card scam is kind of interesting. What appears to be a legitimate website can be anything but. Here's a trick: Click here: http://www.irs.gov. Gotcha! What hypertext says and where the link goes are completely unrelated. Suppose you received an e-mail that invited you to a new investing site, or an adult photos site, or a site on fly fishing, http://www.flyfishing.com.
You innocently (well, not in every case, I suppose -- if you click on http://www.hotvixens.com you can hardly be deemed innocent) click on the site and find yourself somewhere else altogether. It may be an unrelated ad, a porno site that you thought was for quilting, or a site that steals your password and uses your account to send out more vicious e-mails.
It took me a while to figure this particular con out. I was feeling guilty for not responding to those nice greeting cards from http://greetings.yahoo.com/, but having been burned before, I was afraid to click "here" to see who had sent it. As it turns out, that fear was well founded. Even I, who routinely sets up hyperlinks many times every day, was almost taken in because it looked legitimate, even though my sixth sense was telling me those links were dead people.
Then I noticed the "hover box." On AOL, leaving the cursor over a hyperlink for a few seconds lets you see the real URL (universal resource locator). Surprise! http://www.aol.americangreetings.com/ actually went to some individual's home page. If you don't know how to see a URL with your browser, I would suggest finding out. Internet Explorer shows them at the bottom of the browser window. AOL puts them in a box next to your cursor.
So if you've ever sent me a greeting card. Thanks. I appreciate the thought, but don't bother to do it again.
And this is probably a good time to mention something that keeps me up some nights. I'm very conscientious about answering my e-mail. It's one of the more enjoyable things about this job, but there have been times when I have gotten way behind (usually after saying something like, "Hey, guys, write to me and let me know what you think!") and, as a result, some of it has gotten lost.
I've lost e-mail because it got left in my inbox for too long, because of a particularly nasty computer crash, once because AOL messed up, and occasionally I've deleted it by accident. Then last Christmas I left a few unanswered e-mails on a lap top I had borrowed. As it turns out the Fool has many laptops available for traveling staff. I'll never find it again.
So today I'm going to take the dangerous step of saying, if you ever wrote to me and didn't get an answer, please accept my apology and try again. There, I feel so much better. Of course, it's going to be a looooong night. Maybe you could kind of... space them out?
Much of my e-mail recently has been on the subject of the General Motors - GM Hughes swap and the AT&T - AT&T Wireless Group deal. I will try to deal with those questions in greater depth tomorrow, but I warn you, I'm a mechanical investor type, not a stock analyst type. For a more useful opinion, I would suggest the GM or AT&T discussion boards, or our news area -- where the smart guys write!
Fool on and prosper!