I was "online" long before most people had heard of the Internet and have never heard of using aliases as a security precaution. Years ago I participated in online forums where pseudonyms were prohibited, with the though being that by using their real name participants would be more civil. This seems to be an example of the fine line between prudence and paranoia. We just saw a major security breach where a company's records were compromised. Certainly the only information released wasn't a list of email addresses. So now somebody has a list of email addresses, names, company affiliations, and the like. What good does having a fictitious email address do those people?

Dead for me too. I don't seem to have any involvement with any of the companies listed, unfortunately, my 84 yr old mother does. Now, if I can just somehow convince her that not all arriving into her 'in box' is legitimate mail, that it really is OK to delete things without opening :( Here's the CNN report from a few days ago - it doesn't sound wildly dangerous if people are just vigilant about spam and phishing attempts - and know not to click on those links. Here is a link that might be useful: Epsilon on CNN from Apr 6

Someone asked this previously and as I recall no solution was found. I just asked google about this problem and found this solution: The Send Items.dbx file has reached the file size limit (2 GB) that the Outlook Express can handle it. After send the email, OE can't copy to Send Items folder the mail that was send, and the mail stills at the Outbox folder. All my steps to solve this problem: - To backup mails inside the Send Items folder, i create a new folder and copy all mails to this new folder; - Exit Outlook Express; - Delete Send Items.dbx file; - Start Outlook Express (OE Will create a new, and empty, Send Items.dbx file). It was the last post to this thread.

Yes, it's spam and it's called spoofing as mentioned. While it's not technically "dangerous" to open them, you could be asking for more spam by opening it. Often they'll put in a little code to tell if you've opened it and that verifies the email address. A verified email address is worth much more than an unverified one in the spamming world. Not unlike a known telephone number is worth more to a telemarketer. When you get this stuff, delete it, or pay the price. OJ, sometimes people will do the right thing and use BCC when they send mail to multiple people. They usually put their own address in the "To" field and "BCC" the others so addresses will be hidden. It's the right thing to do. Now that doesn't mean that it's *not* spam though! :) People who send to everyone in their address book and not BCC, and also the people who just forward hoaxes and other junk should have their computers confiscated.