Forwarding newspaper articles

[Jonetc15]

I forward articles to a friend from newspapers, to two of which I subscribe and which are behind a pay wall and so copying a link won't work. I click on the email forwarding icon at the end of the report or article.

I then find that my email (outlook.com) is, and I'm asked from which address I want to forward the article. I select the same email address that I use to log on to the newspaper, add my friend's address and send the link (which my friend can then open and read).

I've started to be a little bit concerned that I may be giving the newspaper access to my emails. Although I trust the newspaper, is there potentially a security risk?

Many thanks in advance

Jon

[dionaeamuscipula]

What would be the pathway for them to access your e-mails? You don't appear to be sharing your password?

Conversely, what makes you trust the newspaper? If they *do* get access to your data (your friend's e-mail address, for example), they *will* use it. See for example what Twitter does* when you upload your contacts to see if any of them are on Twitter?

DM

*I know they used to harvest the details for themselves, may have changed post GDPR

[Infrasonic]

You might get spammed on that address if there's a data breach from the newspapers or they don't fully abide by GDPR.

Why not setup an alias address in Outlook.live.com specifically for sharing - that way you'll have less candidates for who has possibly leaked it if there are any issues later on. Aliases go to your inbox as normal, I think you can have up to about ten - I'm running six on my main Outlook.live.com account plus I have other accounts with their own aliases.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/off ... 285b13f1f2

If you want to use a new email address with your existing Outlook.com account, follow the instructions in this article to create an email alias. This will give you an additional email address that uses the same inbox, contact list, and account settings as your primary email address. You can choose which email address to send mail from, and you can sign in to your Outlook.com account with any of your aliases—they all use the same password.

Cont.

[Jonetc15]

What would be the pathway for them to access your e-mails? You don't appear to be sharing your password?

Conversely, what makes you trust the newspaper? If they *do* get access to your data (your friend's e-mail address, for example), they *will* use it. See for example what Twitter does* when you upload your contacts to see if any of them are on Twitter?

DM

*I know they used to harvest the details for themselves, may have changed post GDPR

Thanks dionaeamuscipula. I have to confess that my IT 'skills' are limited, so I've no idea as to the pathway. I simply click on the email icon at the end of the article/report and my pc immediately shows my email home page - i.e. inbox and a list of my outlook.com email addresses and I choose which one to use. This produces a draft email with the link to the article and a covering message. I then complete the process by typing in my friend's email address, and send it.

I'm not on Twitter (nor Facebook) - too much distraction for me...

Jon

[Jonetc15]

You might get spammed on that address if there's a data breach from the newspapers or they don't fully abide by GDPR.

Why not setup an alias address in Outlook.live.com specifically for sharing - that way you'll have less candidates for who has possibly leaked it if there are any issues later on. Aliases go to your inbox as normal, I think you can have up to about ten - I'm running six on my main Outlook.live.com account plus I have other accounts with their own aliases.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/off ... 285b13f1f2

If you want to use a new email address with your existing Outlook.com account, follow the instructions in this article to create an email alias. This will give you an additional email address that uses the same inbox, contact list, and account settings as your primary email address. You can choose which email address to send mail from, and you can sign in to your Outlook.com account with any of your aliases—they all use the same password.

Cont.

Many thanks Infrasonic. I'm not too worried (just a bit...) about being spammed. I can always block spam - provided, of course, that if the message isn't diverted to my junk folder I identify it in my inbox as spam.

I'm really grateful for the suggestion of an alias address and the explanatory link. I'll look at this a.s.a.p. In the meantime I'm sufficiently nervous about security that I may contact the newspapers concerned and ask them to delete any part of my details (if that's possible without deletion my subscription details) and simply stop sending copies of articles. My friend could always take out his own subscription(s)!

Jon

[xeny]

Most web browsers will let you "print" a page as a PDF, which you can then send as an email attachment to a friend.

No issue with the newspaper learning any email address.

[torata]

Most web browsers will let you "print" a page as a PDF, which you can then send as an email attachment to a friend.

Printing as pdf sometimes doesn't work as intended, I've discovered, and it may be that only part of the page gets printed, or page layout goes awry. I use the 'singlefile' add on (in Firefox) which saves the page as a single complete html doc when I want to save something from the internet onto my PC. Any embedded links work.
I find it a very useful add on.
torata

[GoSeigen]

I forward articles to a friend from newspapers, to two of which I subscribe and which are behind a pay wall and so copying a link won't work. I click on the email forwarding icon at the end of the report or article.

I then find that my email (outlook.com) is, and I'm asked from which address I want to forward the article. I select the same email address that I use to log on to the newspaper, add my friend's address and send the link (which my friend can then open and read).

I've started to be a little bit concerned that I may be giving the newspaper access to my emails. Although I trust the newspaper, is there potentially a security risk?

Many thanks in advance

Jon

Straight answer to your question: No, you are not giving the newspaper access to your emails. Without your email password they cannot retrieve your emails.

The risk here is doing something silly yourself, e.g. using the same password for your email account and your newspaper subscription, using a password that has already been leaked in some security breach, or using a very obvious password like "password" or "1234".


GS

[AF62]

I forward articles to a friend from newspapers, to two of which I subscribe and which are behind a pay wall and so copying a link won't work. I click on the email forwarding icon at the end of the report or article.

I then find that my email (outlook.com) is, and I'm asked from which address I want to forward the article. I select the same email address that I use to log on to the newspaper, add my friend's address and send the link (which my friend can then open and read).

I've started to be a little bit concerned that I may be giving the newspaper access to my emails. Although I trust the newspaper, is there potentially a security risk?

Many thanks in advance

Jon

There is no risk to you.

The ability for you to send the full article by email for the newspaper you subscribed to (so they must already know your email address) is simply a marketing device by the newspaper so your friend can see how wonderful the newspaper is and then subscribe themselves.

The paywalls used by most newspapers are not ‘Fort Knox’ and there are browser extensions which will bypass them if that is what anyone wants to do.

[Jonetc15]

Straight answer to your question: No, you are not giving the newspaper access to your emails. Without your email password they cannot retrieve your emails.

The risk here is doing something silly yourself, e.g. using the same password for your email account and your newspaper subscription, using a password that has already been leaked in some security breach, or using a very obvious password like "password" or "1234".GS

and

There is no risk to you.

The ability for you to send the full article by email for the newspaper you subscribed to (so they must already know your email address) is simply a marketing device by the newspaper so your friend can see how wonderful the newspaper is and then subscribe themselves.
The paywalls used by most newspapers are not ‘Fort Knox’ and there are browser extensions which will bypass them if that is what anyone wants to do.

Very many belated thanks for the various replies – better late than never – and especially to GoSeigen and AF62 for such unequivocal reassurances. And also to GS, I confirm that I don’t use the same password twice and they are all reasonably strong.

Again, my apologies for not posting my thanks sooner. I really do appreciate all the help that I unfailingly receive on this invaluable board

Jon