Ask Leo! #589 – Security Questions, Bouncing Email, Ignored Email, and more…

Subscribe to Comments

Just wanted to let you know that I've enabled a long-requested feature on the Ask Leo! web site that allows you to subscribe to comments on articles you might be interested in.

You can get notified by email when any new comment is posted on a specific article, or only when someone replies to a comment you've posted.

Just look beneath the comment form on any article page.

Leo's Blog

The Death of the Security Question

Continue Reading: The Death of the Security Question
https://askleo.com/21676

Featured

Will I Lose My Email If I Don't Check It For a While?

I just moved and was not able to check my email for 3-4 weeks. Will I still receive emails sent in that time period?

Probably, but it depends on a couple of things: the rules that your email provider might impose, and just how popular you are.

It's definitely something worth planning ahead for.

Continue Reading: Will I Lose My Email If I Don't Check It For a While?
https://askleo.com/2606

Can I Count on Mail to a Bad Address Bouncing Back?

Will email that I send bounce back to me to let me know if the recipient's email address is closed or no longer exists, or will it just go out into space never to be seen again?

Unfortunately, the answer is:

  1. both
  2. neither
  3. all of the above

Email bounce messages are both annoying and informative. They can help you fix a problem with an email you've sent, or they can simply be another message in a big pile of spam.

Unfortunately, about the only thing you can count on is that you cannot count on bounce messages.

Continue Reading: Can I Count on Mail to a Bad Address Bouncing Back?
https://askleo.com/2870

Sponsor

Backing Up 101

Previous Issue

Most recent forum posts

Questions recently posted at The Ask Leo! Forum. If you see "Answer Needed!", maybe you can help!

More: All forum questions in need of an answer.

Glossary Term

bounce

A bounce is an email message sent in response to an email message that cannot be delivered for some reason. The term refers to your original message "bouncing back" to you.

A message indicating that an email message has been delayed, but may still be delivered, is sometimes also incorrectly referred to as bounce. More accurately, the final message indicating that the message had not been delivered would be the bounce message.

Bounce messages are not guaranteed, meaning that not getting a bounce in response to sending an email message does not guarantee that the message has been delivered. Bounces themselves can be lost in the mail, or email providers can elect not to send them in some circumstances.

Glossary Terms are featured selections from The Ask Leo! Glossary.
Have a term you'd like defined? Submit it here.

Featured Comments

How Do I Tell Which Program Is Using So Much Memory?

Karl Menzel writes:

Good article, but much more useful to let us know WHAT to turn off.

Leo writes:

There's no simple answer. It's different for everyone and every computer.

Paul Faulkner writes:

I just wanted to add that a way I've described RAM and HDDs to people in the past is analogous to a library:

Think of the library building as a hard disk. The buiilding may be huge like a warehouse or small like a shop - but it's empty until you actually put books in it.

Think of your programs and data files as the reference books or essays and dissertations which would be stored in the library. If you have a lot of such books, your library building will need to be large (like a warehouse) rather than small (like the shop) to hold them all.

Think of RAM as the library tickets. If you have only two library tickets, you may only get 2 books out to have open on your desk at any one time (analagous to only having a small amount of RAM). You could have a vast warehouse with all those books stored in them but if you can only have two at a time, rather than reading from a reference instruction book or writing an essay into an exercise book, you are going to have an awful lot of getting up and down going back and froth through security between the study area and the book repository itself if you only have 2 tickets! If you have 8 tickets or better 20 tickets then you can have multiple reading books and multiple notebooks open on your desk in the study area at any one time saving you having to spend a lot of time going back and forth to and from the book storage area in the warehouse.

So to recap. The hard disk is like the physical building; the programs and other files you have are like the content of the building (a big building doesn't mean it has anything in it) and the RAM is the amount of items you can get on the desk you site at when your read fromor write into what you actually keep stored in the building itself.

And Leo - your stuff is almost always very informative and easy to digest - keep up the good work.... And I hope my analogy will prove helpful to the bemused and lost in the fog! Paul Faulkner

Encryption, Padlocks, and Back Doors

Ray Smith writes:

'You're trusting that the key will always and only be owned by the right people.' - Indeed, and this is the - no pun intended - key issue. Create a backdoor and sooner or later - likely sooner - the mechanism to unlock that door will become public domain: it'll either be discovered by hackers or leaked/sold by an internal source. Adding an extraordinary access mechanism to a system invariably makes that system less secure (remember the CALEA/DoD phone systems debacle?). Or, to put it another way, if you create a backdoor for the good guys, it's almost inevitable that a bad guy will step through it.

Solid encryption is absolutely essential: it's what makes things like online banking and commerce possible. Break encryption, and you break the internet.

Ask Leo! on Business

Recent posts...

Tweaking Wordpress

With Wordpress installed it's time to begin making some adjustments to its configuration, including increasing its security.

Read: Tweaking Wordpress

Installing Wordpress

With Wordpress as our selected Content Management System (CMS), I'll walk you through the steps to install it on your site using our example web host.

Read: Installing Wordpress

Leo's Books

Backing Up 101 Saved! - Backing Up with Macrium Reflect - 2nd Edition Saved! Backing Up With EaseUS Todo
Saved! - Backing Up with Windows 7 Backup Saved! - Backing Up with Windows 8 Backup
Just Do This: Back Up! The Ask Leo! Guide to Internet Safety The Ask Leo! Guide to Routine Maintenance Maintaining Windows XP - A Practical Guide

More Ask Leo!

Facebook - YouTube - Google+ - Twitter
Amazon - GoodReads
More..

Administration

Need more help with or have questions about the newsletter? Check out the newsletter administration page.

Help Ask Leo! Just forward this message, in its entirety (but without your unsubscribe link below) to your friends. Or, just point them at https://newsletter.askleo.com for their own FREE subscription!

Newsletter contents Copyright © 2016,
Leo A. Notenboom & Puget Sound Software, LLC.
Ask Leo! is a registered trademark ® of Puget Sound Software, LLC

Posted: March 1, 2016 in: 2016
Shortlink: https://newsletter.askleo.com/7428
« Previous post:
Next post: »

New Here?

Let me suggest my collection of best and most important articles to get you started.

Of course I strongly recommend you search the site -- there's a ton of information just waiting for you.

Finally, if you just can't find what you're looking for, ask me!

Confident Computing

Confident Computing is the weekly newsletter from Ask Leo!. Each week I give you tools, tips, tricks, answers, and solutions to help you navigate today’s complex world of technology and do so in a way that protects your privacy, your time, and your money, and even help you better connect with the people around you.

The Ask Leo! Guide to Staying Safe on the Internet – FREE Edition

Subscribe for FREE today and claim your copy of The Ask Leo! Guide to Staying Safe on the Internet – FREE Edition. Culled from the articles published on Ask Leo! this FREE downloadable PDF will help you identify the most important steps you can take to keep your computer, and yourself, safe as you navigate today’s digital landscape.



My Privacy Pledge

Leo Who?

I'm Leo Notenboom and I've been playing with computers since I took a required programming class in 1976. I spent over 18 years as a software engineer at Microsoft, and after "retiring" in 2001 I started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place to help you find answers and become more confident using this amazing technology at our fingertips. More about Leo.