choking on spam
| Gain is normally only acquired with a certain amount of pain. How true in e-business if you have been out of the office for any length of time and are faced with a bulging email box on your return.
Recently there appears to have been a new wave of the Nigerian scam and variants arriving. Not to mention the usual offers of fake university degrees, instant loans or credit, and get-rich-quick schemes. But what is the cure for this email pain variously called spam or junk mail? The Delete key on your keyboard may provide instant gratification, but it isn’t a long-term answer. Leaving aside for now email filtering software and subscription-based mail server solutions, we, as users, can set up message rules and filters to help sort out the wheat from the chaff. Email software such as Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook, Eudora and Netscape all allow users to set criteria on how email messages are handled. A step-by-step guide on setting up message rules can be obtained by hitting the F1 key from within your email software. Iced spam Essentially, these rules or filters work rather like a flow chart or set of protocols where if pre-set conditions are satisfied an action is triggered – in this case, diversion straight to the Deleted Items Folder. For this example, we are using Outlook Express, but the process is largely similar no matter which software you use. Go to Tools/Message Rules and then Mail. In the Mail Rules tab click New. In the first frame headed, ‘Select the Conditions for your rule’ you are presented with a number of options. For now, check the box marked ‘Where the Subject line contains specific words’. Next, in the second frame, ‘Select the Actions for your rule’ check the ‘Delete it’ box. In the ‘Rule Description’ box, click on the blue link ‘contains specific words’. In the next dialogue window, in the topmost text field add in the usual suspects, e.g. GUARANTEED, % off, credit, Viagra, porn, win, sex, refinance, mortgage, APR, etc., then click OK. You will then be returned to the previous dialogue box where you can give your message rule a name and then confirm by clicking OK. Testing the rules Test out your rule with the ‘Apply Now’ buttons and then check what has ended up in your Deleted Items Folder. You may find you need to tweak the message rule to refine what is consigned to the Deleted Items Folder. For instance, the author found that including the word ‘porn’ in the message rule put a number of Silicon.com and vnunet.com newsletters in the ‘Deleted Items Folder’. These emails had all included in the Subject line the phrases ‘Ford Porn Stand’ or ‘Porn deadline’ – news headlines about a porn crackdown at a Ford car plant in England. (Honest, guv) To retrieve the wrong targets from the Deleted Items Folder, go to Tools/Message Rule/Mail, select your message rule and then click Modify. In the second frame ‘Select the Actions for your rule’, click ‘Move it to the specified folder’. In the third frame, click the blue link ‘specified folder’ and select where you want the email returned to. In the author’s case, it was the Alerts&Info folder. Then apply the rule, making sure that it is the Deleted Items Folder you have selected in the ‘Apply Now’ dialogue box. (It may prove simpler in some instances to drag and drop individual emails from the Deleted Items Folder.) Choose your weapon Anyway, you get the idea. Message rules can sometimes be more of a sawn off shotgun than a laser-guided missile. However, for the first while, regularly check the Deleted Items Folder in case the criteria you set is too indiscriminate. If you wish, set up a separate Junk Mail folder and modify your rule to put all filtered mail in there. This is a smart move if there’s a risk you could delete email permanently from the Deleted Items Folder either by accident or if the folder is set to empty after a specified period of time or at shutdown. Apart from the Subject line as a filter trigger, there are other options to employ to beat the spammers. Take care with the ‘Where the From line contains people’. It’s best to put in the full address here. Entering ‘info@’ or ‘sales@’ will more than likely sift out genuine email you wish to read. Also, some spam alleges that you sent it to yourself. To get at the address from which it was really sent, highlight the email in your inbox, right-click and select Properties. On the Details tab, near the bottom of the text, highlight and copy the From email address immediately above your address. You can then enter this email address into the ‘Where the From line contains people’ section of a message rule, or add it to your Blocked Sender list – Tools/Message Rules/Blocked Senders List. Once you are happy that your rule or rules have been refined and fine tuned to nth degree, return to it again and check the ultimate solution to spam -- the ‘Delete it from the server’ option. Useful links |