A few weeks ago I wrote on how spammers are hijacking your PC to send spam. But they don’t necessarily need to get into your computer to do it — they can spoof your e-mail address, forging not only your address but also your e-mail server.

How to avoid this? Follow a few simple tips:

— Never use your real e-mail address to sign up for something on the Internet, or to post on a bulletin board, newsgroup, or chatroom. Use an easily disposable address, or even an entirely fake address, if you don’t need to return to that site.
— Never reply to spam — NEVER. Although many vendors will honorably remove your address from their database, most of the time your reply simply confirms the existence of a valid e-mail address, which makes it very valuable to sell to the next spammer.