New Message From BASS Lake St. Clair Event

[Dan]

Got this in my email today.

Hello;

We are completing forms for everyone to go between Canadian and American waters as easy as possible.   We need everyones middle initial to complete these forms.  Please email us your middle initial by Friday July 12. 2013.

Thank you


--
B.A.S.S Tournament Department

3500 Blue Lake Drive
Suit 330
Birmingham, AL  35243

Toll Free: (877) 227-7872
Main Number (205) 313-0900

[motocross269]

I am not getting any of these emails....I better call them....Thanks for keeping us posted,
I have received my confirmation packet.

[Dan]

I not only sent them my middle initial, but my complete legal name. Figured it wouldn't hurt. I'll be sure to post any emails from BASS I receive. They have already emailed me back saying that they did receive the information from me.

[djkimmel]

Check your spam folders. They send out more email than my websites do and a fair amount of my system email ends up in people's spam folders due to automated spam filtering.

[motocross269]

Check your spam folders. They send out more email than my websites do and a fair amount of my system email ends up in people's spam folders due to automated spam filtering.

That was it....thanks both Dans....
I have msn outlook...bow do I turn off the filfer?...

[djkimmel]

If you mean Windows Outlook - go to menu Tools | Options - Preferences tab - Junk E-mail button. If Bassmaster is sending email from bassmaster.com, add @bassmaster.com to your Safe Senders list. Won't work if they are using a mail service though you can add known email service providers too as long as you are sure they are a legitimate one who rarely lets a spammer in (Constant Contact, Aweber, iContact to name a few).

There are filter settings on the Junk E-mail Options too. Usually, if you add an email address to your address book, the email program will not send email from that address to your spam folder. If they use a service though that changes the 'From' address by adding random numbers to the beginning that probably won't work. Watch out for companies that send email from a subdomain too like @mail.bassmaster.com. Can't remember if they do that but many do.

Plus, email is prefiltered by the big email providers and most email servers (like even mine) so a score is assigned before you get it that may cause it to go to their online junk email folder before you get it, or your computer's junk email folder. The big email providers also discard some email without your knowledge with their super secret filters. Most ISPs do that. Hopefully, they get it right more than wrong but I know a certain small percentage of my websites' email to people never gets to them.

I suggest adding their 'From' email address to your address book first if it is something straightforward that they usually use. Try the add to Safe Senders too if you want to be pretty sure you get all the good stuff from someone.


Note: it is real easy for a spammer to fake the From email address/domain to just about anything so don't click on links in an email just because it says it is from Bassmaster.com or GreatLakesBass.com. FIRST, mouse over the link and see what the popup says it is actually going to or view the email source first to be sure. There is also a way to check email headers to get a better idea of where an email really came from. Don't trust the text of the link you see in the visible email. That can be anything too such as www.awesomefishingvideos.com. (Sorry to anyone who actually clicked on that. But I did warn you...)

[Dan]

So, I mouse over the link and it gets darker, but no pop up menu appears.??

[djkimmel]

The mouse over pop-up part would be for email in Microsoft Outlook.

For browsers (Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer), you would look usually in the bottom right corner of the browser window to see the real link pop-up before clicking on it.

Unfortunately for those of you mired in the mysterious, secretive world of Apple with the Safari browser, they want you to be surprised instead. You don't get a pop-up with Safari browser.

Just to be safe, you could right-click on the link and choose Inspect element from the pop-up menu. Then look at the

Code Select Expand

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/Fred?feature=watch" target="_blank"> right before text of the link you are wondering about.

The html code text between the single or double quotes after href= is the actual web URL you would taken to if you clicked the link. It could be the end result. Or... a redirect to a different end result depending upon the purpose of the link.

Malware will often use one URL to forward you to a different, or chain of different, URLs down the line until you get to their bad end result so all those weird email you get from your 'Mom' saying "I thought you'd like this link"

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http://2g313gadsg3g34.infectedwebsite.com/gotcha?badthingstohappen34g3g13whenyouclickthis may lead you to a phishing web page or malware or a redirect to a more evil exploit website somewhere in the Netherlands, Russia, China and other places. The link can look a lot less harmful and still lead to a bad place since many website owners don't keep their websites updated or follow diligent security practices with their website AND their personal computers.

I now see malware email using creative characters in their URLs to fool spam filters and other malware filters taking advantage of the way browsers will read the character literally while the filters and other tools will not understand the character. An example would be using a URL ending in .coⓜ instead of .com like this worthless spam email I received today (don't try this link!!):

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<a href="http://fklbjufjxk.medicalclassicinc.coⓜ/KywyXOAaHn9jiw!XfN!h9i4chA.aYG!wl7k29L6-Ghuwxb4?=almquqorxivkqx"> (it was also base64 encoded in the email so it was part of a loooonngg meaningless-looking block of gobbledy-gook - technical term - like:

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Cgo8ZGl2IHN0eWxlPSJ0ZXh0LWFsaWduOmNlbnRlciI+Cgo8YSBocmVmPSJodHRwOi8vbGRqbG1u
Lm1lZGljYWxjbGFzc2ljaW5jLmNv4pOcL0t5d3lYT0FhSG45Lmppd1guZk5oOWk0UlFJIWF2QSFD

Though some regular email services do use base64 encoding, it is a flag to me. But no one swaps out their real letters with alternate letters ⓜ for m if they are legitimate. Be careful out there.

[djkimmel]

Okay. Back to the regularly scheduled post. (I just have this stuff in my head a lot thanks to spammers and hackers the world over such as the one from an Indian Internet network who tried to hack my email server a few minutes ago - failed once again. @%#$%#$ twerps and bots!)

[Rangerman]

Well Thanks  for someone looking after the borders even it's not the US

[djkimmel]

There are all kinds of borders...

[Dan]

Thanks DK