This has nothing to do with genealogy but everything to do about clicking on links or being tricked into supplying information without checking first. Lately, there has been a lot of "hacking" of passwords and likely you've received an e-mail from someone you knew with some unrelated message with a link to follow. Every time that happens, I try to inform that subscriber (or friend) that his password has been hacked and that the hacker is sending out e-mails that look like it comes from the individual, but doesn't. I have to put that person's e-mail address on "moderation" which means all their posts will come to me and I decide if they are legit or not. If they are ok, I release to the list; if not, they are discarded. Last May, as careful as I am, I had my computer system lock up and a message that I had been infected with a trojan. There was no way to get out of their site; no matter what I did, I was trapped in their site. It looked totally legit as the computer appeared to be doing strange things. They offered a program which would clean the system of this trojan and, without thinking and just shutting down the computer, I downloaded the program for a mere $59.95. Guess what - THAT was the trojan and my system continued to go "wild." I shut down immediately and called and then drove to the bank as I had put the price of the program on my credit card. Within 10 minutes, my card was cancelled - but they had already tapped into my account and would have had a field day. They had my credit card number, name, address - everything. Thankfully, my bank was very, very alert but in the time it took me to go one mile to the bank, my card had been compromised. The bank refunded my money on my request only - and a print out I'd provided about this trojan. Today I received an email from a security system company (four in fact) which are totally legit; I have checked them out. They informed me that my credit card had been hacked by this group and that they were under federal investigation. There were 3 people, all from Moscow, Russia. To prove that this was a legit e-mail, they listed the information on my card including name, credit card number, amount, my address, etc, all except the security code. All this was in the hands of this group.! They said (a little too late) to cancel this credit card account. It took awhile! Since my money was refunded, I am giving this e-mail to my bank if they want to investigate further and try to get their money back. Thankfully, I'd contacted my computer tech who came in and deleted the trojan before it did any damage; shutting down immediately had stopped its spreading throughout my system. So, this is just a warning. These crooks are getting very sophisticated in getting your information. If you shop on line as I do, be careful. I had my password hacked on Face Book; they caught it and locked my account - someone in Mexico was trying to get to my account! I have learned again that even though it's frustrating, change your password on a regular basis. Make it harder for a hacker to figure it out - another thing I must rectify. So - even though you get an e-mail from a friend and it looks suspicious - don't click on it. Write that friend and ask them if THEY sent the e-mail. If not, delete it. Some are just spam, some are very serious. Rootsweb does a good job of catching spam and spoofed e-mails to the lists. If in doubt, the message comes to the list administrator and we have to go to the web site and look at it. We can then release it to the list or discard it. But - they do sneak through as the hackers make them look more and more legitimate. I have been sending an e-mail to the individual to whom I'm forwarding something (involving a link to a website) and alerting them that it really is from me or a personal message so the receiver knows it's me! Thanks for reading! Sandi To post to lists: [email protected] or [email protected] Sandi's Puzzlers: http://www.gensoup.org/gorinpuzzles/index.php Sandi's Website: http://ggpublishing.tripod.com/