Stealth Email

As far as email viruses go, the ILOVEYOU virus is probably the most popular. Dubbed as the “Love Bug,” the ILOVEYOU virus invaded the computer world by spreading “love virus” to a number of computer systems all over the world. Some people even thought that it was the aftershock of the Y2K bug that caused glitches in several computer systems at the beginning of the new millennium. Although it was proven to be independent from the Y2K bug, the ILOVEYOU virus caused a technological havoc that kept the entire virtual world on its toes.

Opening the ILOVEYOU attachment

The ILOVEYOU email contains an attachment that is labeled LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs. Upon the activation of the said attachment, the virus automatically forwards the ILOVEYOU email to everybody on your address list. What’s worse is that the forwarded emails will all bear your name as the sender.

Replacing the system files

The effects of the ILOVEYOU virus are not limited to the involuntary forwarding of virus emails to everybody on your address list. In fact, when you open the ILOVEYOU virus attachment, the virus will automatically search the hard drive of your computer and will replace all MP3, JPEG, JPG, and DOC files with copies of itself bearing the .VBS extension.

Downloading the Trojan Horse

Another harmful effect of opening the ILOVEYOU virus attachment is that the virus downloads a Trojan Horse called WIN-BUGSFIX.exe from a certain website hosted by Sky Internet, a Philippine Internet service provider. The downloaded Trojan Horse then invades your computer system by collecting all your usernames and passwords and sends them to mailme@super.net.ph, the email address of the notorious author of the ILOVEYOU virus.

There may be times when sending an anonymous email is more appropriate than sending one from your own personal email. There are many reasons for hiding your identity from the person you want to send an email to. Perhaps you’re just shy about revealing yourself, or it might be that you want to share some sensitive information that you don’t want the recipient to know that it came from you. In case you’d rather not reveal your identity when sending emails, then you should definitely consider using an anonymous email service.

Reasons for using an anonymous email service

* Sending emails through an anonymous email service can help you protect your identity when reporting fraud to an institution. In cases such as this, sending the information via your personal mail can have you labeled as a whistleblower and can even lead to serious repercussions. Choosing to send the information via an anonymous email service can help you avoid the adverse consequences that can result from divulging such sensitive information.
* You can use an anonymous email service to keep your personal email address private when sending feedback to a website or blogger. When you use an anonymous email service to send emails, you can be sure that other users won’t get your personal email address and send you various marketing promotions, offers, or spam.

To make sure that the message you’re sending is really protected, you can encrypt it first before sending it via an anonymous email service. Encrypting the message gives you the assurance that anyone who runs the anonymous email service is not reading your email and isn’t privy to any information that you put in your message.