|
Spam has gone way beyond just an annoyance. It is now a time
and productivity thief.
If you use Microsoft's Outlook or Outlook Express
for your e-mail, here are three simple "rules" you
can put into the program that (at least, for me) trap 39 out
of 40 unsolicited e-mail's. With these rules, properly installed,
spam simply isn't a problem.
If you don't use Outlook or Outlook Express,
something similar can be done with other e-mail programs I am
sure. If you have AOL, go here
to deal with spam.
How Does It Work?
First of all, almost all spam is sent to you as a "carbon-copy"
("CC") or a "blind carbon-copy" ("BCC")
message. The first filter rule therefore is to filter out all
e-mail that is "copied" (i.e. not "sent")
to you. Let's call this rule the "Not Sent to Me"
rule.
Unfortunately, legitimate e-mail is also sent to you this
way, and the Not Sent to Me rule will prevent that e-mail
from getting to you too. This rule, in other words, filters too
well.
So you need to save the filtered-out messages in a folder
somewhere so that you can look through them once in a while to
see if anything important was filtered out by mistake.
Secondly, if you know in advance you're going to be getting
CC mail, this mail can be filtered in before the Not
Sent to Me rule has a chance to filter it out.
Thirdly, spam tends to contain certain words in the Subject
line. If the first two rules don't catch the spam, the third
one might.
That's it in 200 words or so. Got it?
Let's lay out a few more details.
Many people participate in group discussions using e-mail.
This e-mail is called "listserv" e-mail or "Yahoo
groups" e-mail. Listserv e-mail is always sent as "Blind
Carbon-Copy" mail ("BCC") so you won't see the
other recipients' e-mail addresses when you get the message.
One nice thing about listserv e-mail is the "Subject"
line always contains an identifying title, something that says
"I'm a message from the 'Sopranos' discussion group!"
If the "Subject" line contains this identifying
title, filter it in before applying the Not Sent to
Me Rule. We'll call this rule the "Discussion Group"
rule.
Finally, the subject line in junk e-mail is often about Viagra
or getting bigger body parts. A rule can be created to filter
out e-mail with any of these words in it, words such as "mortgage,"
"debt," "sexy," and others. It's unlikely
someone is going to send you a real message about having a larger
penis, isn't it? We'll call this rule the "Dirty Words"
rule.
That's about it. These three rules work for me just fine.
Like I said, they catch 39 out of 40 spam messages. Once in a
while they filter out a legitimate message, but since everything
goes into a "Junk" folder, I can look through it before
deleting and recover any mail filtered by mistake.
What follows is a step-by-step procedure (with pictures!)
on how to set up Outlook Express to filter out spam. The procedure
for Outlook and other e-mail programs is similar.
Warnings
- The rules are simple. The steps to set them up are complicated.
Read and follow them carefully. It is highly unlikely you will
screw up your e-mail program, but I am not so naive as to say
you can't. These steps are provided "as-is." If they
don't work, or if you screw up your e-mail program, it is up
to you to fix it.
- It is unlikely I made a mistake in these instructions, but
it is possible. Use them at your own risk. I would be happy to
install these rules on your computer for you, if you would be
happy to pay me to do it. That's what I do for a living, as you
know.
- Follow all the steps.
- Spammers are an aggressive and clever lot. There's no guarantee
the nature of spam e-mail won't change to circumvent these rules.
So there is no guarantee as to how long or how well these steps
will continue to work, or even if they will work at all for you.
Keep coming back to this page for tips as e-mail changes.
You might want to print out this entire page to make it easier
to follow the instructions. Check off each small step as you
do it. Click here to print
this page.
Step 1. Create a "Junk" folder
Outlook Express allows you to create "rules" for
handling messages. We are going to create three different kinds.
Start Outlook Express.
First, we need to create an e-mail folder to hold the suspected
Junk e-mail. That way, any filtered messages can be examined
later to make sure a valuable one wasn't removed by mistake.
|
If your "view" in Outlook Express doesn't show your
Folders, click on View -> Layout:
Make sure "Folder List" is checked:
|
 |
|
and click "OK".
With the Folders displayed, Right-click on "Local
Folders," then left-click on "New Folder...".
|
 |
Name the new folder "Junk?" and press "OK."
The "Junk?" folder should show up in your folders,
under "Local Folders".
Step 2. Creating "Discussion Group" rules
If you don't participate in any e-mail discussion groups,
you can skip ahead to Step 3.
You will have to examine your Discussion Group e-mail for
the text in the "Subject" line that identifies it as
that kind of e-mail. I can't tell you what that text will be,
but it will be the same name or words every time you get e-mail
from that Discussion Group. One Discussion Group I belong to
has the text "[FFC_list]" in the Subject of every e-mail
they send me. So I have a rule that says "If the Subject
line contains [FFC_list]", put that e-mail in the FFC_Inbox
and stop processing any other rules."
You need to get a similar text identifier for each discussion
group you belong to, and create a rule for each one. For purposes
of this example, let's call that text "[ABC]". What
it will actually be is up to the group you belong to.
You need to create a folder to hold this "filtered in"
e-mail. Follow the steps in Step 1 above to create a folder.
Name it something that makes sense to you. For this example,
we'll call it "ABC Inbox".
To get to the e-mail rules in Outlook Express, click on Tools
-> Message Rules -> Mail...
This opens the Message Rules dialog box:
Click the "New..." button. This brings up the "New
Mail Rule" dialog box.
For each "Discussion Group" rule, we want
to create a rule that says, "If the Subject of the message
contains "your discussion group text", move
it to the Discussion Groups folder and stop processing any further
rules on it."
Put a checkmark in the "Where the Subject line contains
specific words" choice.
Click on the contains specific words link and give
it your Discussion Group's particular text. Click "Add."
Click "OK".
Back at the New Mail Rule dialog box, put a checkmark in the
"Move it to the specified folder" choice.
Click on the specified link and choose the "ABC
Inbox" (or whatever folder name) you created at the beginning
of this step
Don't Skip This
Scroll down the "Select the actions for your rule"
list and put a check next to "Stop processing more rules".
This is very important because without it, the Not
Sent to Me rule (which you haven't created yet) will filter
all these Discussion Group messages into the Junk folder.
Make the name of the rule something that makes sense to you,
such as "ABC Group".
Click OK to dismiss the "New Mail Rule" box. Click
OK again to dismiss the "Message Rules" dialog box.
Follow the instructions in this Step 2 for each Discussion
Group you belong to.
You're done with Step 2 and more than half-way done!
Step 3. Create the "Not Sent to Me" rule
Go back to the Mail Rules section of Outlook Express: click
on Tools -> Message Rules -> Mail...
This opens the Message Rules dialog box:
Click the "New..." button. This brings up the "New
Mail Rule" dialog box.
For the "Not Sent to Me" rule, we want to
create a rule that says, "If the message isn't sent to me,
move it to the Junk folder."
Under "Select the Conditions for your rule:", put
a checkmark in the "Where the To line contains people"
choice.
Click on the contains people link and give it your
own e-mail address:
Do not click "Add" or "OK" yet.
Click the "Options..." button.
This brings up the "Rule Condition Options" dialog
box. Choose the "Message does not contain the people below"
choice and click "OK."
Click "OK" to the Select People dialog box.
Back now to the New Mail Rule dialog, in the "Select
the Actions for your rule:" list, put a check in the "Move
it to the specified folder" box.
Click on the specified link, and choose the "Junk?"
folder you created in the first step.
Name this rule "Not Sent to Me" and click the OK
button. Your Not Sent to Me rule is done.
Click "OK" to dismiss the New Message Rule dialog
box.
Step 4. Dirty Words
"Dirty Words" are words that are likely to mean
the e-mail message is spam. I have a few suggestions, and you
are invited to come up with some on your own.
Something I've noticed about some of the spam I've seen is
it often contains my user name in the subject line, something
like "bunkie, how about a lower mortgage rate?" Nobody
I know actually calls me by that name, so that's the first "dirty
word" I'd search for.
You can be imaginative on the rest, being careful to not over-specify
the words to filter out: if you are a urologist, the p-word will
actually appear in legitimate e-mail.
Follow the steps as above (e.g. Rule 3) to start building
a new e-mail rule. Here's what mine looks like:
Remember to send the e-mail filtered by this rule to the "Junk?"
folder you created in Step 1.
Step 5. A Very Important Last Step
You're almost done. The last thing to do is make sure the
rules are in the right order. They must be ordered:
- Discussion Grouprules first, then the
- Not Sent to Me rule, then the
- Dirty Words rule.
|
Using your "new" e-mail program
With all the new folders you've created, things are going
to look different in your e-mail program. For example:
|
 |
Here you see a folder with ABC Discussion Group messages in
it entitled "ABC In." There's also a "Junk?"
folder with two (2) unread messages
in it. You're going to have to click on these folders to see
your Discussion Group mail, and you're going to have to look
through "Junk?" regularly to see if anything was filtered
into there that shouldn't have been.
The "Junk?" folder will get quite full of spam quite
quickly. These messages will have to be deleted. Fortunately
you don't have to look at all this junk in order to remove it.
Simply click on the "Junk?" folder:
...click on any one message there, press Ctrl+A
to select all of the messages in the folder, and press the Delete
key to delete the whole pack of them.
Again, before deleting all the messages, make sure there isn't
something in there that you really want. A quick glance at the
"From" and "Subject" should tell you if it's
spam or not.
The "Deleted Items" folder will get full doing all
this and it must be cleaned up from time to time. Do the same
thing with "Deleted Items" as you do with "Junk?":
- Click on the folder
- Click on any one message
- Press Ctrl+A
- Press Delete
I'll leave the debate on how to rid the world permanently
of spam to another forum, but I feel strongly that "your
right to wave your arm around ends where my nose begins,"
and until spam is under control, this will help control it on
your own machine.
0
|
