5.1 Safe practice relating to the use of ICT for communication

Table of Contents

1. Using ICT for communication
   1. Electronic mail
   2. Setting up e-mail accounts
   3. Free e-mail services
   4. Sending and receiving e-mails
   5. Using attached files
   6. Size of attached files
   7. Using zipped files
   8. Virus checking
   9. Implementing virus checking
   10. Anti-virus software
   11. Managing e-mails
   12. E-mail folders
   13. Combating Spam
   14. E-mail etiquette
   15. Netiquette
   16. Using news groups
   17. E-mailing multiple recipients
   18. Closing an e-mail account
   19. Using chat rooms
   20. Acceptable practice in chat rooms
   21. More about chat rooms
   22. Secure servers
   23. Scanning and saving images

Combating Spam

All e-mail accounts are bombarded to a greater or lesser extent by unsolicited e-mails sent out by hoaxers or commercial interests. These e-mails are known as "spam". In some cases clients will find the spam e-mail subject as well as the content offensive. Most software systems and web based providers offer processes which can block a large percentage of unsolicited mail.

You should make clients aware that accessing some websites and responding to messages where they are required to type in their e-mail address may aggravate the problem by signing them up to more junk mail. This is a particular problem with unsolicited e-mails which have a link purporting to remove you from the mailing list but in fact confirms that the account is active and will result in more spam.

The spam filtering systems used by web based e-mail providers suffer from the same flaw that all spam filtering exhibits - sometimes, genuine wanted e-mail gets classified as spam and does not appear in the in-box.

You can find out how to manage combat spam from the help pages of the relevant e-mail services. You'll usually find a link to this on the opening page of the service.

Let's have a look now at E-mail etiquette ...