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Tips for Avoiding Viruses and Spam 

The explosion of Windows viruses and spam has been headlines daily for weeks now. Together, they'll cost U.S. businesses $23 billion this year. It certainly seems as though these problems have grown well beyond the nuisance stage.

What's so upsetting is that there's not a rescue in sight. Not a single short-term anti-spam proposal, technological or legal, holds up under close scrutiny, and Windows viruses are coming thicker, faster and nastier. The SoBig virus alone devastated 30 percent of small businesses, and it's not done yet; yet another version of it is supposed to erupt today.

There's no sure-fire block against spam or viruses, but here are a few routines can significantly reduce your exposure. Yes, everything you're about to read is common knowledge, but apparently not common enough; millions of people could have avoided the SoBig virus.

Windows Viruses

• Most viruses arrive as e-mail attachments. Avoid opening them, especially if they come from strangers, and especially if they're applications (their names end in .exe). • On the other hand, be aware that some viruses forge their return addresses, substituting your friends' (culled from your e-mail address book) or even your own. Examine the wording: does it really sound like (for example) your mom?

• Microsoft is frantically patching the many security holes in Windows, but it says that a big part of the problem is that you, the customers, aren't downloading and installing its patches promptly. Visit www.microsoft.com/security/protect for step-by-step instructions for your version of Windows.

• Particularly if you have a broadband connection like D.S.L. or cable modem, get yourself a firewall. That's a box that goes between your PC and the wall, or a piece of software like the one built into Windows XP, to keep out hackers' virtual fingers. (Of course, turning on firewall software may kill your ability to share files or printers on your office network. You can re-open the so-called ports that you've just shut down, but it takes some technical foraging to do so. To find a list of software firewalls for your Windows version - and to find out how to re-open the ports you need – see http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/firewall.mspx )

• Buy anti-virus software and a subscription to keep it up to date. This advice pains me, because I hate to see McAfee and Symantec getting rich off of our vulnerability and pain (few companies generate so many unsolicited complaint letters in my e-mail box). But painful times call for painful action.

• As Mac and Linux fans are fond of pointing out, neither SoBig nor any of the other well-publicized viruses affect non-Microsoft operating systems. (They're not necessarily less technologically vulnerable; it's just that so far, Windows has served as a much bigger, juicier target for the softwareterrorists who write viruses.

Spam

Every anti-spam technology flags some legitimate e-mail as spam and vice versa. Unfortunately, if you're already getting too much spam, there's not much you can do to back out; the genie is out of the bottle.

And where did the spammers get your e-mail address? Probably from you. Spammers have software robots that scour Web pages, online forms, chat rooms, and message boards, looking for e-mail addresses to copy.

By far the most effective anti-spam technique, then, is to sacrifice your existing, polluted address. Use it only for public places online. Make up a second, clean address that you use exclusively for e-mail. Give it out only to individuals you trust. (My published address, pogue@nytimes.com, is hopelessly overrun by spam. I have a private one, too, but if you think I'm going to print it here, you're outta your mind.)

Protect your clean address in two ways. First, beg your friends not to send it around in their ass-mailed joke mailing lists. Second, avoid simple name-or-noun addresses like Daisy21. They may eventually be guessed by "dictionary attacks" - special software that tries combining numbers with common names and words, sending out spam to every combination it invents until it finds a working address.

In the modern era, we can no longer assume that society will hold itself together because the individuals in it generally self-police themselves (a point made very well by, for example, suicide bombers). At this point, it certainly appears that the spam and virus problems will get worse before they get better.

 In the meantime, here are your options: suffer in silence; follow the steps above; get a Mac or a Linux box; or unplug and move to the Amish country.

Visit David Pogue on the Web at www.DavidPogue.com.