Stop Twitter's "follow-me" spam in its tracks

<b>This article is about how to stop the annoying email messages that Twitter sends when an acquaintance joins Twitter and decides that they think you should follow them there too.</b><br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><a name="more"></a><h2>What happens if a "friend" invites to you follow them on Twitter</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgm-Tfd_SnzaQAQ3Jem3CybaCcyntp07Owc2VIIjPhqJkQMMJizW2dQSDGRMhafNP1lj2Hgtgt8IiRb6eEI6YhAIM_e3oRj7JtySxEn9gHhe-JAqs4Ce1sYQy4XT4eGCIAVx00q3WEbIjQ/s351/say-no-to-twitter-spam-icon.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgm-Tfd_SnzaQAQ3Jem3CybaCcyntp07Owc2VIIjPhqJkQMMJizW2dQSDGRMhafNP1lj2Hgtgt8IiRb6eEI6YhAIM_e3oRj7JtySxEn9gHhe-JAqs4Ce1sYQy4XT4eGCIAVx00q3WEbIjQ/s320/say-no-to-twitter-spam-icon.png" width="320" /></a></div>A few weeks ago, I got an email message saying that Helen Someone had just signed up to Twitter, and had provided my email address as someone who followed her elsewhere, and who she thought should follow her here too.<br /><br />But I'm already on Twitter, and my account there is linked to a different email address than the one which Ms Someone "generously" chose to share with Twitter. And frankly, I get enough email from her already, the last thing I want her doing is bugging me on Twitter too. <br /><br />So what did I do? Like any sensible person, I deleted the email.<br /><br />But now, every few days, I get an email message like this :<br /><blockquote><i> <br />---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------<br />Subject: Helen Someone is still waiting for you to join Twitter...<br />From: "Twitter" <n-znelp npgevk.pb.am-ddef6="" postmaster.twitter.com=""><br />Date: Fri, March 29, 2013 4:26 am<br />To: me@email.com<br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Helen Someone is still waiting for you to join Twitter...<br /><br />Twitter helps you stay connected with what's happening right now and with the people and organizations you care about.<br /><br />Accept invitation     https://twitter.com/i/535c9c20b....5487e4f01449c029<br /><br />------------------------<br /><br />This message was sent by Twitter on behalf of Twitter users who entered your email address to invite you to Twitter.<br />Unsubscribe: https://twitter.com/i/o?t=1&iid=05f4a3...d=68+26+20130328<br /><br />Need help?<br />https://support.twitter.com<br /><br /></n-znelp></i></blockquote><br />Or like this, if I look at it an email client that shows the graphics - notice that the "how to un-subscribe" message is in very small print, down the bottom of the page.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVYj4oMGBZJ0ywXrc0fDAIoTi8IjbKxduuocTxGsbEP8ooTY3sFIljYz6UXqb0wwRp4IR6xN-0UZSgZ_znf23egD5QBbxLBFWttxkdYjYPPlSGYNnM_-lgfv_ZxW0RQ-mlpCsm2ZoMz3fm/s415/still-waiting-for-you-to-join-twitter-annoying-email-message-contents-graphic-format.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVYj4oMGBZJ0ywXrc0fDAIoTi8IjbKxduuocTxGsbEP8ooTY3sFIljYz6UXqb0wwRp4IR6xN-0UZSgZ_znf23egD5QBbxLBFWttxkdYjYPPlSGYNnM_-lgfv_ZxW0RQ-mlpCsm2ZoMz3fm/s640/still-waiting-for-you-to-join-twitter-annoying-email-message-contents-graphic-format.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><h2>How to stop these messages</h2>At first I just ignored these messages: I figured that Twitter would give up and leave me alone after one or two reminders. But that hasn't happened: they keep reminding me, and I'm getting sick of deleting the same message over and over again.<br /><br />So today I went looking for how to stop the reminders from happening.   Basically there are two options:<br /><br /><h3>Option 1:  Sign up to Twitter</h3>Accept the invitation, sign up for a new twitter account, turn off all email notifications for this account - and never uses the account again.<br /><br /><b>Advantage</b>: this stops the annoying messages - and makes sure you won't get them from any other "friends" who give Twitter the same address.<br /><br /><b>Disadvantage</b>: other friends (who maybe you do want to follow in Twitter) may enter the same email address, and Twitter may connect them to this same Twitter-account that you never use.   You won't get a notification.<br /><br /><br /><br /><h3>Option 2:  Use the un-subscribe link that's provided</h3>If you look at the email contents, there is actually an unsubscribe link near the bottom of the message - f your email client shows the graphic version of the message it's right down in the ultra-small print at the bottom.<br /><br />Click the link provided - or copy-and-paste it to a web-browser.<br /><br />This will turn off the annoying messages from this person - and it will also stop your email address from getting messages if other people join Twitter and suggest you should follow them there.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM20pbrajXAV8cuq6896_UDOgd4J8Rs0TCJm14656K_cLB0Br8ziFHpR6JLGWBUFlL60mu3g9X4OHDZRjJLpcgs5uGb-3Ocw20vDHKP8je3fgko2YJgiuXL4MXqvoCFlrY8tRsqVzlYv2e/s645/twitter-sorry-to-bother-you-wont-do-it-again-to-this-email-address.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM20pbrajXAV8cuq6896_UDOgd4J8Rs0TCJm14656K_cLB0Br8ziFHpR6JLGWBUFlL60mu3g9X4OHDZRjJLpcgs5uGb-3Ocw20vDHKP8je3fgko2YJgiuXL4MXqvoCFlrY8tRsqVzlYv2e/s640/twitter-sorry-to-bother-you-wont-do-it-again-to-this-email-address.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><br /><h2>Is this Ok</h2><br />Which option would you recommend?<br /><br />More importantly - <b>do you think it's ok to share other people's addresses with social networking sites that you sign up to, in the way that Ms Someone gave my address to Twitter?</b><br /><br /><br /><hr /><h2>Related Articles:</h2><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/04/putting-follow-me-on-twitter-button.html">Put a "follow me on Twitter" link into your blog</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/07/putting-email-links-into-your-blog.html">Showing an email address in Blogger</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/04/tools-for-linking-blogger-and-social.html">Tools for linking your blog to social sharing websites</a>

Stop Twitter's "follow-me" spam in its tracks

This article is about how to stop the annoying email messages that Twitter sends when an acquaintance joins Twitter and decides that they th...

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Phishing for AdSense - or How Not to Get Hacked

<p></p><div><a class="addthis_button" href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&username=gracey"><img alt="Bookmark and Share" height="16" src="http://s7.addthis.com/static/btn/v2/lg-share-en.gif" style="border: 0pt none ;" width="125" /></a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://s7.addthis.com/js/250/addthis_widget.js#username=gracey"></script></div><p></p>In recent weeks I have noticed an increase in spam email coming into my mail accounts. In particular, these emails are purported to be from:<br /><br />AdSense<br />AdWords<br />Blogger<br />Google<br /><br />To date, none of them have actually been from any of those places, except the most recent one. They have been from spammers and scammers who hope someone will click a link in the email. Once clicked, the link will take a person to a page that is most likely set up to resemble a real page from any of those places, however, any sign in information you enter will be captured and used by the scammer.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);">How Will a Spammer/Scammer/Phisher Use My Information</span><br /><br />If you use AdSense, they'll have the information to login to your AdSense account and redirect your earnings to themselves, or the information close out your account, or to do anything you can do in your AdSense account.<br /><br />If you use Blogger, they'll have access to all your blogs. This means they can edit or change them, including putting their own adsense codes on your blog and removing yours. Most likely they are hoping your blogger login information is the same as your AdSense login. And it probably is.<br /><br />With the Google account they can login to any service you use under Google.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);">What To Do When You Get An Email From any Google Source</span><br /><br />The first thing you should do -<span style="font-weight: bold;"> don't panic</span>. These guys often send emails saying your AdSense account has been disabled, and telling you to click the link to have it restored. The same sort of email is also used for Blogger accounts. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Whatever you do, don't click any links in an email, even if you think it's from AdSense</span>. <span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255); font-weight: bold;">Find out first who it's really from.</span><br /><br />AdSense may indeed send you an email that your account is disabled, if it really is. And they do contain links, but usually the link leads only to a page on the AdSense Help Center.<br /><br />The next thing you should do is check the header information. If you use gmail for your login you can show the header information by opening the email.<br /><br />If you use the newer version of gmail, there is a link near the top and off to the right a little that says "show details".<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIXleiIqL_DRizSrsBtCsKg-7gpqydKD8tF-vIw7RJjMTmIZjLGetI0DhqSbVtCzCNw0oknrYRnjGz7dv9S-XyKuV4ts6_ypTkvNvDs-51VeswamjE-gyvnBO86nTxZ_dbks7Jib2qi8c/s1600-h/showdetails.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5442625098548446514" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIXleiIqL_DRizSrsBtCsKg-7gpqydKD8tF-vIw7RJjMTmIZjLGetI0DhqSbVtCzCNw0oknrYRnjGz7dv9S-XyKuV4ts6_ypTkvNvDs-51VeswamjE-gyvnBO86nTxZ_dbks7Jib2qi8c/s400/showdetails.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 115px;" /></a>When you click that, gmail will display the information in the email headers.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCuuvIaRW7IKfsxecO3-ozjlH1eQx6Gyjb0D2HZR8_EZzfeni-D9LgSmvhogni-6bSVxTFSvXyic6CTUKufhJX5G8pEdLPWTe1BF8ihre-eZAbhACXseB8nz_xIpRqNOmHYpU-MRZKGu0/s1600-h/headerdetails.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5442626752279442610" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCuuvIaRW7IKfsxecO3-ozjlH1eQx6Gyjb0D2HZR8_EZzfeni-D9LgSmvhogni-6bSVxTFSvXyic6CTUKufhJX5G8pEdLPWTe1BF8ihre-eZAbhACXseB8nz_xIpRqNOmHYpU-MRZKGu0/s400/headerdetails.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 218px;" /></a><br />Check the information in the "From" and "Reply To" fields, as well as the "mailed by" and "signed-by" fields.<br /><br />If you are still not certain, go the help forum and ask for help deciphering whether or not it's "really" from AdSense or Google or Blogger. Be sure to use the appropriate forum - if the email says it's <a href="http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/blogger?hl=en&utm_source=HC&utm_medium=leftnav&utm_campaign=blogger">from Blogger, use the Blogger help forum</a>, if it says it's <a href="http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/AdSense?hl=en">from AdSense, use the AdSense help forum</a>.<br /><br />When you are unsure - <span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);">under no circumstances should you click any link in the email</span>. <br /><br />You can check the link by using the google safe browsing diagnostic page for the link. You do that by typing this string in the search bar and appending it with the page named in the link below - the link below is using the url for the blog you are reading now:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http://helpfulinformationfornewbies.blogspot.com/">http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">site=http://helpfulinformationfornewbies.blogspot.com/</span><br /></a><br />Change the part in red to the page url in the email link.<br /><br />The linked page in the email used in the example above can be seen below:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http:www.google.com/adplanner"></a><a href="http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http//:www.google.com/adplanner">http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">site=http//:www.google.com/adplanner</span></a><br /><br />This tool will tell you whether or not the site is hosting any malware or has been seen in the past to hold any malware.<br /><br />Other things you can do are to copy the link from your email and enter it into your browser search bar. This will take you to the page that the link goes to, where you can see the information on the page.<br /><br />Look at the page carefully and note it's location displayed in the browser. In the case of the email I used as an example, the browser displays the following URL ("x" replaces the real information to protect the innocent):<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghLHpPKrpyoM1dTp1KYDpAe2OPdHH0TJsjEIMti1UGSok04zXWqNJm9Clv4usFxO-hpyUe0GHNQxoZFewdBrTRaiB7DWr965DuRW_xF_3sa2-oKclGQEXmO0uSQtLKyotRPF358HuB9dk/s1600-h/url.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5442633096548916626" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghLHpPKrpyoM1dTp1KYDpAe2OPdHH0TJsjEIMti1UGSok04zXWqNJm9Clv4usFxO-hpyUe0GHNQxoZFewdBrTRaiB7DWr965DuRW_xF_3sa2-oKclGQEXmO0uSQtLKyotRPF358HuB9dk/s400/url.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 43px;" /></a>You can see that this URL goes to a secure google accounts login page for the Google Ad Planner.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">If you are still uncomfortable</span> about clicking anything on this page, then leave the page and navigate on your own to your Google Accounts page the way you normally would. Click on the service link from your own Google Accounts page (for wherever the email is from - Blogger or AdSense) and login from there.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255); font-weight: bold;">Take Charge of Your Own Security</span><br /><br />Never click links in an email without first ensuring it's security.<br />Use safe browsing ad-ons or plug-ins to avoid phishing or malware sites.<br />Use pop-up blockers to prevent scam ads from showing.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Read and investigate things before you sign up or click any links.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);"><br />Places You can Find Help with Security Issues</span><br /><br />"<a href="http://forums.whatthetech.com/forums.html">What The Tech Forums</a>" - trustworthy and helpful with useful free software listings<br /><br />"<a href="http://www.safer-networking.org/en/home/index.html">Safer Networking Forums</a>" - also trustworthy will some excellent free software on site<br /><br />"<a href="http://www.google.com/support/websearch/?ctx=web">Google Search Help</a>" - helpful information in their Help Center for safe surfing & browsing.<br /><p></p>

Phishing for AdSense - or How Not to Get Hacked

In recent weeks I have noticed an increase in spam email coming into my mail accounts. In particular, these emails are purported to be from:...

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