A third thing to consider when trying to determine if a website is trustworthy: does the links page match the page's intent and audience? A links page may be an outdated concept for some sites, but it can still be a way to judge a site's purpose and audience. If a links page does not include several retail and informative sites related to the product or service, it may be wise to ask why it is limited. If a links page seems to include strange tangent sites, ask why those links are included.

In my work email account, I received about 150 messages this morning. As usual, at least 120 of them were not related to my work duties in any way. However, I have noticed that many of the messages seem to have patterns in their subject lines.

Pattern #1: a short phrase such as 'URGENT,' 'Amatuer Matchm' and 'Awaiting your respond.' As two of those three examples show, the words are rarely spelled correctly. Some spam emails string words together in a nonsensical way, but I suspect that short phrases are less likely to be noticed by anti-spam software. Especially if they are not too incoherent.

Pattern #2: long descriptions of products. One spam message has the subject line "WHAT A SHARP PHONE 100 LEFT SHARP TM150." While it is not complete nonsense, and while the words seem to be describing a real phone, the capital letters and the way they are strung together is very suspicious.

More patterns seen in subject lines of suspicious email:

#8. Contests, lotteries, and so on. I have done my best to avoid emails with subject lines such as "WINNING NOTIFICATION" and "Congratulations You Have Won."

#9. Euphemisms, especially for pharmacy products. Today's email subjects include the following alternate descriptions of Viagra-like products: "Alpha male," "Fastest_UP!" and "Healthy Spermatazoa."

#10. Vagueness. It is very rare to find a genuine customer email with a subject line such as "hi," "I tried to call," or "important email."

Scientific tests frequently compare an experiment with a control group, which is allowed to grow in a normal way. Any changes that happen in the experiment are compared to a control group.

While this is rarely possible with a computer and the internet, the notion of "new rate of change compared to original rate of change" may be a useful one when it comes to malicious software. Once a person installs a new program, if any adverse effects appear on the computer, one should be able to trace them back to the new program. A company involved with software should be prepared to accept responsibility for its software. Shifting the blame is not acceptable. It is not reasonable to expect that a negative effect would appear without any outside prompting.