Demystifying nasty things in email: Crabby's Daily Tip

Today I'm going to expose a few words, that, in essence mean NASTY THINGS.

(If you want even MORE email terms explained, visit my columns Demystify email terms and get on with your life and Crabby demystifies even more email terms.)

Nasty things in email

• Virus   A software program whose sole intention is to cause problems for your computer. A computer virus behaves similarly to a human virus: It causes mischief by inserting itself into an existing living organism (in this case, your computer). It's usually disguised as something else, and it's often transmitted as an e-mail attachment or a download.
• Worm   A self-replicating computer program, similar to a computer virus. The difference is that a virus attaches itself and becomes a part of another program, but a computer worm, just like the soft-bodied invertebrate animal, is self-replicating. It propagates through the Internet and through e-mail and can be very destructive to the computers that are infected, by altering, installing, or destroying files and programs.
• Flame mail   A "flame" is an intentionally crude, rude, or offensive e-mail message, newsgroup post, or mailing list message. "Flame wars" occur when a series of flames are sent back and forth between two or more people.  
• Spoofing   Attempting to gain access to a Web site or e-mail account by posing as an authorized user.
• Harvesting   An illegal practice of using an automated program to scan Web pages and collect e-mail addresses for use by spammers and phishers. (Even the name is creepy.)
• Phishing   A form of Internet fraud that aims to steal valuable information such as credit cards, social security numbers, user IDs, and passwords.  For example, you could get an e-mail message you assume to be from your bank, asking you to log on to their Web site and verify your account name, password, bank account number, etc. But the Web site, which looks completely legitimate, is a fake. It's a “spoofed” site. (I read that phishing is spelled the way it is because hackers have a tendency to replacing "f" with "ph." Phancy that!)

Pranksters, criminals, and your garden variety hooligans will always exist and will always be looking for ways to scam you out of your money and wreak general havoc for the fun of it. Having a little bit of knowledge about the ways these punks can paralyze you, your computer, and your checkbook can go a long way. Take a look at my column about avoiding Internet scams.

— Crabby