Sending an e-mail to me? Don’t say, ‘Hi’

Every day, my inbox has four or five messages from people saying, “Hi.”

And every day, I delete those messages. I don’t open or otherwise acknowledge them.

Do you really think they are simply saying hello? They all have the same singular goal – to troll my e-mail address.

There are many horrible, immoral people on the Internet doing equally horrible and immoral things. Sometimes, they wrap their malware with graphics of cute animals. Sometimes, they will include a friendly message. But it’s all a facade. It’s insidious, and the only outcome is near-criminal or outright criminal behavior.

An FBI agent recently said that many cyber criminals are just trying to see if your e-mail address is active. That’s why it’s best to delete all suspect messages without opening them. Some e-mails have a script that “informs” the criminal that it’s an active address.

On a side note, when you get a phone call, and no one is there, it could be a criminal seeing if that telephone line is still active. Once again, use Caller ID. Don’t answer if you don’t recognized the caller. Let your voicemail handle it.

The Internet has been a wonderful experience, but it’s also exposed the worst of humankind.

If you plan to send an e-mail, you had better put more than “Hi” in the subject line, because I routinely delete all of them.