On this episode of the Deemable Tech podcast, Ray and Tom answer more of your questions about unwanted emails, transferring your copy of Windows to a friend and more.

The guys are also once again joined by producer Sean Birch to discuss some interesting news from the tech world, including the Kickstarter project that raised almost $60,000 to make a batch of potato salad, and a hotel that threatened to fine customers who left negative Yelp reviews.

#64 Bacn and Potato Salad

Links mentioned in this episode:

Lifehacker: How to Wipe Spam Email in Your Inbox

Use iTunes to Your iOS Device to Factor Settings

Restoring Your iOS Device Using Recovery Mode

Potato Salad Kickstarter – By the Numbers

Hotel Adds Negative Online Review Fine Clause to Terms of Service

Facebook Mood Experiment

OkCupid Experiment

Q: The other day I got a phone a call from someone who claimed to be from Microsoft. He told me my antivirus software was out of a date, and that they would update it for me for free. He wanted me to go to a website and download a program that would let him control my computer so he could update it. I decided to wait until I heard back from you to see if this was legit or not. What do you think?

Image Credit: Tap Call

A: There’s no question about it, Frank, this is a scam. The cost of having people at Microsoft call all of their users about their antivirus software would be astronomical. Plus, how would they have gotten your phone number in the first place? You made the right choice to not believe them. Unfortunately, many other people will be the victims of these types of scam artists.

If they had gotten control of your computer, they would have installed software to turn it into a spam sending machine. Your computer would have started cranking out thousands of emails trying to convince people to buy herbal supplements and who knows what else. And, of course, the “Prince of Nigeria” probably would have used it to send out some “important” emails. These scammers could have even used the information on your computer to steal your identity.

What should you do if you mistakenly do let someone have control of your computer, and you suspect them of not being who they say they are? The first thing you would need to do is unplug your computer from the Internet. Pull the cord out of the wall; turn off your Wi-Fi; do whatever it takes.

The next step would be to format your hard drive and reinstall Windows. You could try to uninstall programs and run your antivirus software, but the best bet would be to wipe it and start with a clean slate. This may sound pretty severe, but remember: these are criminals who, at the very least, are using your computer to send spam.

There’s a possibility that these scam artists may call you back after you’ve reinstalled Windows. You have shut off their money-making spam machine, and they’ll probably be upset about it. They might even threaten you to get you to turn it back on. Depending on what they have done, we would recommend contacting your Internet service provider and/or the police.

We should clarify that if you called Microsoft or a local IT company, and they needed access to your computer to help you with a problem that you called them about, you should be able to trust them. But if you receive an unsolicited call like this, you have no reason to believe that the person on the phone is actually who they say they are.

Q: I have a problem. Recently my friends have been getting emails from me that are empty except for suspicious links in them. It looks like spam. I’m sure that I’m not the one sending them! What do I do?

A: You’re not alone here, Ashton. We’ve gotten strange emails from friends on numerous occasions with nothing but a link or just weird text in the message. It goes without saying that you should never click that link. If a friend unexpectedly sends you a link to a website that you aren’t familiar with, don’t assume it’s safe to click! Contact them through another method like Facebook or on the phone, and ask them if they really sent you that link and what it is.

Image credit: notoriousxl / Flickr

It sounds like you and your friends have found yourselves the victims of unscrupulous spammers. You see, spammers know people are much more likely to open an email from people they know, so what they try to do is make an email look like it’s from someone they know. There are several ways they can do this.

The first way is to somehow break into your account, and actually send spam emails from it. To do this, of course, they need your password. The way they are most likely to get this is to pose as a website you often visit and ask for your email address and password. You give it to them, thinking it’s legit, and then they can simply log in and go crazy with your inbox.

Another similar method is to infect your computer with a piece of malware that will take over your email. In either case, the first thing that you need to do is to change your password! That will lock them out.

We want to stress the need to be very careful about where you enter your email address and password. When you are about to enter that information on a website, pay close attention to the address bar at the top of your browser. There should be a lock icon visible next to the address, showing that this site is securely encrypted. In addition, the normal address for the website should show. For instance, if you’re logging into Yahoo Mail you should expect to see “us.mail.yahoo.com”.

Changing your password should stop spammers from sending spam directly from your account. Unfortunately, it won’t necessarily stop them from impersonating you. There’s a third type of email attack where spammers send emails that look like they come from you but don’t. This is harder to defend against, as your email account hasn’t actually been compromised. The good news is that usually the spam isn’t going to people you know because the spammers don’t have access to your address book. However, you may receive strange bounce back emails telling you that a message you never sent could not be delivered. That’s a clue that this is happening.

If you’re the victim of this type of spam, your best bet is to, well, wait. You’re only hope is that the spammers will get tired of using your address and just move on to a different one. If they don’t, your other option may be a painful one: changing your email address and updating your information on every other site you use that address to log into.

That can be a long and arduous process, so it’s a good idea to be proactive. Be wary of giving your primary email address to everyone who asks, and think about having a secondary address that you can use to sign up for new websites that you aren’t familiar with. That will keep your main email address from winding up on some list of emails for unscrupulous spammers. And, again, always double check the web address of a site before you enter your email and password to make sure it’s the real deal.