By Dan Kittay

Technology is a wonderful thing when it works well, the saying goes.

But sometimes even when things work as they're supposed to, it's not such a wonderful thing.

Take e-mail, for instance. As designed by those who built the Internet (I think it was Al Gore, but I could be wrong), it was intended as a simple, open way for those using the Internet (mostly academics and government folks at the time) to communicate with each other. That openness, which makes it easy for anybody to send an e-mail to just about anybody else, is at the heart of the massive problems we face with viruses, worms and with unsolicited advertising e-mails, or spam.

At best, we all get bombarded with e-mails indicating there's something wrong with various parts of our bodies. At worst, those e-mails can contain malicious computer code that can do anything from sending copies of itself to your contacts, to bringing Web sites to their knees, to allowing your computer to unknowingly be used to facilitate the spread of more spam.

So what do we do about all this unwanted e-mail? There are all kinds of proposals out there, ranging from charging a fee for each e-mail sent, to the recently-enacted CAN-SPAM law. But there are things you can do on your own computer to reduce the junk e-mail you receive, as well as minimize its possible harmful effects.

First, don't do anything that makes it easy for spammers to get your e-mail address, said Catherine Sanders Reach, a research specialist at the ABA's Legal Technology Resource Center.

• "Don't put personal addresses on your Web site," Reach advised. Instead, use a form that site visitors can fill out and send without seeing the address of the recipient, she said. If you must put an address on the site, be aware that spammers use software that searches Web sites looking for the "@" in e-mail addresses. So consider spelling out an address such as "name at domain.com," Reach said.

• Don't reply to any spam you receive, even if it is offering to take you off a mailing list. "When you reply, you let them know that they have a legitimate address," which helps ensure you will get more spam, Reach said.

• Don't give out your e-mail address in any public forum, such as a mailing list or Web site, unless you have to, Reach said. Public mailing lists that get archived can be searched by spammers and "harvested" for e-mail addresses.

Can the spam
As for dealing with spam sent to you, Reach suggested using e-mail software on your computer to help segregate the spam you receive into one folder, where you can check and delete it. She prefers this end-user approach over running e-mail filtering software on an association's e-mail server, as server-based software can sometimes mistakenly mark legitimate e-mail as spam, and perhaps cause an association to miss important e-mail.

"Most modern versions of [individual]e-mail software have some junk mail filtering built in," Reach said. Take advantage of these features, but be sure to check what the program designates as spam, to be sure a message hasn't been incorrectly tagged, Reach advised.

While promotional spam is annoying, malicious spam can do real harm to your computer and those on your network. There is a simple way for any user to prevent such damage, however--"Don't open e-mail unless you have to," Reach said.

The worms and viruses that currently exist all have one thing in common: they won't work unless you open the e-mail and somehow activate them. Usually that means clicking on an attachment that contains an executable file (in the Windows world that's one with .exe at the end of its name), or in recent cases on a .zip file that performs its evil when it is expanded.

"Don't open an attachment unless you know who it's from AND you know what it is," Reach said. Since viruses often use the address book on the infected computer to send e-mail to other computers, it's not enough to recognize the sender. You also need to have some idea of what the attachment is. "If you're not sure, e-mail the person who sent it to you and ask them what it is," Reach suggested.

Keeping virus software up-to-date is another helpful way to minimize damage from infected e-mails, Reach said.

Any association needs to have in its budget adequate resources for dealing with spam and its associated dangers, Reach said. There are low- and no-cost versions of some important spam-fighting tools, she noted.