2001
| October 10, 2001 I have a bunch of S.O.B.s who send me files that are UNCLEAN. Class schedules. Class assignments. Manifests. All kinds of junk. They do not run virus protection on their systems. They are trying to infect other people. They are many - because I filter everyone that gets in - dragging the attachment to trash while it is still downloading (and they take a bit of time to download because they are big). I build filters - server option - delete. I hate them. And last night, I went to bed early and left the family room to the boys who were sleeping off pizza, chips and dip and Halloween candy (yep, they found it). I was adjusting to the flu shot my doctor snuck up and gave me. I as adjusting to the reduced Thyroid level. So I did not check email at midnight. They got me. These PIF-ers. I forget how many - but there were so many that my eMail quota was exceeded. I didn't even know I had an email quota. I do. 10MB. And, if you are over that, you cannot POP your email. Well, raise the quota! No can do - because I have email still at BEST.COM which was bought by VERIO and when my disk requirements hit 100MB for the websites, I moved to VERIO and then to iSERVERPROS - part of VERIO with a server-guy attached. Because I hate UNIX and don't want to baby-sit my server space. So-- that means I have to change my email (which I obviously do not want to do) and put it over on the iSERVERPROS account because then they COULD raise the quota. Whatever that means. Hmmmmm. They cannot delete messages either. I need to use Telnet and go in to UNIX mail and kill stuff. Except, as a dyslexic, I can never remember my password. So I cannot access Telnet. Hmmmmm. I sent email (I could do that) and said - I can't read email - CALL ME. So they sent email - to the account that I couldn't read. Hmmmmm. So I called them. From work (800 number). Make a note. Get a speaker phone for the house. So nice to do other things while waiting around for them to answer a tech support call. That's when I got all that information on quota and telnet and limited space. Add a POP account? More space. Another 10MB. Aha. But they cannot share disk space. And then I have to check TWO accounts. No----Not ready for that. While I was there - I said - "Change the passwords." Time for new ones anyway. (Do you know that it is a good idea to change your email and dial-up passwords on occasion?) OK. I have a new eMail password - use for Telnet - Fetch and Eudora - changes in oh, about 24 hours. OK. Change the dial up. That one changed AT ONCE. Same password. Different servers. Well, I now have a folder and a DATED password so I now know what to type in where, Organization. Always helps. But 24 hours????? Yikes. So--- I sent an email and left a voice message at my older son's office at CISCO - because he is a server God. He called me at home. I was busy building my filter file - making all "delete- move to trash" into "server - delete". Sometimes I take a shortcut. He has a built-in "backdoor - he can get to my mail file. No password required. I don't want to know. Seems I have a whole slew of those nasty dot-pif files. DELETE. And id the sender. He built a Kill File - on the server - that kills these SOBs BEFORE they reach the IN mailbox on the server. He also filtered out things like "penis", "Naked Teen Girls", "breast enlargement". Not the things his mother should receive. These emails I will now never see. And then - we went after BIG files - one from work - duplicate at the office - DELETE. And one with art - from a friend - TOO BIG - DELETE. A few more obvious spams and he got me down to under 10MB. Great! I read my email - and made even more filters. I am on a rage now against SPAM. I promise to read email before midnight from now on - just in case another S.O.B. sends me a big dot-pif file. And I will collect their email addresses. My son is thinking about writing a little filter application for server-side email. To kill attachments that appear to be virus-carriers. Make it freeware. Stick it on the web. For all us long-suffering Moms out there being buried in this stuff and trying to get emails from people we want to know are well and safe. And are trying to do what they say and get back to our normal lives. |
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