Frequently Asked Questions

See also Hermes Internet Reference Manual, available in two formats: Windows 95/98/NT HELP, and RTF (text). The manual is free, and is available for downloading – see the first page of this Web site.

KC's Tech's Computer Help Centre	Well, I have to admit, I didn't think this page would be so useful to so many people! I want to make it the first place you go to get computer help, and to do that, you have to tell me how I can help you! So, bookmark this page and then send me requests for info and I'll see if I can find a site for you to get the help you need.
Info Avenue technical Support	Windows and Macintosh. The Info Avenue Technical Support is a collection of common problems and fixes as compiled by Technical Support. From here, you can search for documents to help your problem in this knowledge base or in the entire site.
PC & Windows Help	University of Alberta, Canada – Windows 3.x / 95 / 98 / NT information, FAQs, tips and tricks, virus information, anti-spam resources, etc.
Bud's troubleshooter	Everything you want to know about Windows 95 and Windows 98
System Optimization Information	Comprehensive sites dedicated to opimising performance of your PC, links to many other resources.

Internet and Privacy

What information can someone find about me on Internet?

	see Privacy on the Internet page. How informationabout Web users can be collected, how to protect your privacy, etc.
	do you want to protect your privacy? see Electronic Privacy Information Centre.

I had a message that someone sends me a cookie. Is it a virus?

No, a cookie is not a virus. A cookie is a message given to a Web browser (you) by a Web server (page you look at). The browser stores the message in a text file called cookie.txt. The message is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. The main purpose of cookies is to identify users and possibly prepare customized Web pages for them. Do you want to know more? See What Are Cookies? Web page.

Windows 9x

Why I can't save my password when dialing?

Windows 9x Dial-Up Networking save password bug (password is not saved) and how to fix it. More information on this bug is also available directly from Microsoft Knowledge Base at:

Dial-Up Networking Password Is Not Saved
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q148/9/25.ASP

Save Password Check Box Is Unavailable
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q137/3/61.ASP

If you want to find solution to another problem in Microsoft Knowledge Base, go to their entry page:
http://support.microsoft.com/directory/
and search for any keywords, for example "password is not saved".

Ethical marketing using Internet

Some sites with advice for people who would like to use the Internet for marketing in ethical way:

Advertise Successfully AND Ethically on the Internet! (Communicate, Don't Inundate!)
http://www.coyotecom.com/advertise.html

Ethics and the Internet
ttp://www.duke.edu/~wgrobin/ethics/

Ethics in Marketting
http://www.mba.wfu.edu/faculty/nickles/WebPages/Team9/ethics.html/

CYBER HAZARDS: Legal and Ethical Pitfalls in Using the Internet©
http://www.txdirect.net/users/rrichard/hazard.htm

What is mail relay? Why ISPs do not allow it?

The following article courtesy By Chip Rosenthal, slightly shortened, full original copy is available at http://maps.vix.com/tsi/ar-what.html

A third-party mail relay occurs when a mail server processes a mail message where neither the sender nor the recipient is a local user. This is illustrated in the figure below. In this example, both the sender and the recipient are outside local domain. The mail server is an entirely unrelated third party to this transaction. The message really has no business passing through this server.

Hermes Internet mail server can not be used as a "victim.com"! To protect ours and yours interest our mail server is configured to automatically reject all e-mail relay requests. It accepts messages sent from local addresses to be delivered to any address on the Internet, and from any Internet address to be delivered to local addresses.

When connected to the Internet using other ISP service:

you can: collect your Hermes e-mail. In your e-mail program specify our incoming mail server (POP3): mail.hermes.net.au

you can not: send e-mail to non-Hermes Internet addresses. In your e-mail program you have to specify outgoing mail server (SMTP) with belongs to the ISP you used to dial-up and connect to the Internet.

Third-party relay has some legitimate uses. Network administrators have used it to debug mail connectivity. It has been used to route around known mail problems. Although it was rarely needed, it has proved useful on those occasions.

These days, however, the legitimate uses of mail relay are dwarfed by the number of mailer hijackings. A hijacking occurs when massive amounts of mail are relayed through a server. Most hijackings are done by junk emailers – the so-called spammers – trying to spew their unwanted messages all over the Internet.

In the past mail relay was a useful tool. These days, thanks to the spammers, mail relay is a significant threat to Internet operations.

Why do spammers relay email?

There are several reasons why spammers use third-party relays.

There are a number of dedicated spam operations flooding the net with unwanted junk mail from known, fixed locations. Many network administrators have started to filter out all connections from these so-called spamhaus operations. The spammers have had to develop new techniques to evade the blockades. Their current favourite is to hijack a third-party mail server. The spammers, in effect, launder their junk email through third-party relays to slip through the spam filters.

Spammers use relays to increase the number of messages they can spew. A lowly PC sitting at the end of a phone line can only pump out a limited number of messages. If, however, the spammer can grab a hold of a high-powered mail host with a super-fast net connection, then they can push through hundreds of times more junk mail. Further, if the spammer can relay through several mail servers in parallel, they can flood the net with extraordinary amounts of junk mail. The spammer credo is, Why pay for expensive network and computer resources when we can just steal yours?

Spammers can hide behind third-party relays. If a spammer sends junk email directly, network managers can trace back the connection and deal with the problem. If, instead, the spammer relays the mail, they may be able to obscure their identity. Even if the spammer can't hide completely, they will deflect a significant portion of the complaints away from themselves and towards the administrators of the hijacked host. In fact, many spammers forge bogus mail headers to encourage this misdirection.

Spammers hijack mail servers because it greatly increases the amount of spam they can deliver, all at no cost to them. Of course, they are stealing – and possibly damaging – your resources to do it. That doesn't concern the spammer. The entire junk email business is a scheme built upon the principle of shifting costs onto others.

Conclusion

An Internet mail server performs third-party relay when it processes a message from a non-local sender to a non-local recipient. At one time, this was a little-used but helpful feature. These days, junk emailers abuse this capability at an alarming rate. They use the stolen capacity to greatly increase the amount of spam they can deliver.