Number 242 - July 2003

Learn and Use Blind CC
by Gabe Kingsley March 2003, Santa Barbara PC User's Group
When sending messages to a group of people, unless it is REQUIRED that each one see the names of all others who received the message, PLEASE USE A BLIND RECIPIENT list. I am not aware of an e-mail program that does not allow you to send messages to a list of "blind" recipients in which each person who receives the messages sees only their own address and not the entire list of recipients. If you have AOL it is the easiest thing to do: Simply bracket all recipients in a pair of parentheses (address1, address2) each separated by a comma.    If you use Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express, there is a special field for "Bcc" (Blind copies) just below the "To" and "Cc" rows. If you do not see it when you open the program, click on View and select "Bcc Field." Eudora and Netscape Navigator also have blind recipient capabilities.    Yahoo! And Hotmail users can find the "Bcc" field for entering addresses in the online address header. The Juno mail software works very much like AOL, in that you can enclose multiple addresses in parentheses to make them blind. and as with AOL. they must be separated by a comma. By doing this each recipient will see only their own address, and not anyone else's. just as with this message.    So far, because Macs represent such a small percentage of the computers in use, the people who create the worms and viruses do not	make them work with Mac computers. However, anyone using a Mac who does not hide the recipients of their e-mails makes their recipients vulnerable to the possibility of being hit with a virus from someone else on their CC list!    Anyone who wants to protect their privacy and safety will appreciate your doing this. Few things about e-mail bother me more than when something I sent gets forwarded to a large list of people I don't know, and because my address is now in their message base, I am then vulnerable to receiving a virus or one of those hoax warnings from them ...or anyone to whom they forward that message.    Please try to use blind recipient lists. It will make us all safer from viruses, worms and hoaxes.    Copyright (c) 2002 by Gabe Kingsley. Reproduced with permission. Article reproduction coordinated by Steve Bass. Pasadena IBM Users Group. Gabe Kingsley is a San Francisco Bay Area based consultant and can be reached by email at words4use@yahoo.com if you promise to blind copy him.    This article is brought to you by the Editorial Committee of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an International organization to which this user group belongs.
Number 242 - July 2003