I have tested critically acclaimed spam filtering software and it does not completely eliminate spam from an email address that has been targeted by spammers. The method described in this article is the only way I have found to block spam with 100% certainty, and at the same time allow you to receive all your expected email. The treatment we will be exploring in this article contains exact instructions to setup your own Approved List (White List) with Microsoft® Outlook Express 6 and Outlook XP/2002 and Outlook 2003. Even though Outlook 2003 has some new automated methods that are employed by default to block spam, you may decide to abandon them in favor of implementing this treatment, which will give you more control over your inbox as it maximizes your ability to block spam.
You can skip most of this article, if you use have an email account setup through Netslinger.com. It is real easy to block spam at Netslinger.com. This is what I do. First we logon to the web mail console. Select Settings, and then choose Spam Settings. From there set Spam Filtering to ON. Set the Behavior field to "Deliver to Bulk Mail Folder", if you will be using the Web Mail Console for this email account, and just remember to clean out the Bulk Mail folder and empty the trash regularly. If you will be using Outlook or Outlook Express, set the Behavior field to "Mark Subject with [SPAM]" and read on to see how to filter out messages with the word [SPAM] in the subject. Now select Strength as Medium or higher. Add your friends email accounts to your Whitelist, returning as often as you like to add more friends to your Whitelist. It is that simple. Read on, if you want to know everything there is to know about How to Block Spam.
First of all let us look at the nomenclature. Our process is different because we are looking at a process of inclusion rather than a process of elimination. This is main reason why our treatment is absolutely fool proof. First of all, we are going to capture and keep all the good mail in your Inbox. Then we are going to provide you with the facility to sort through your trash bin to pick-out out the junk that may be important to you. We will be focusing on Safe Senders and Safe Recipients, which is another way of saying Approved List and White List. Rather than wasting time in the creation of Junk Mail Filters or a Block Senders List, which is just another way of saying SPAM Filter and Block List or Black List, we will concentrate our remaining energy on creating filters to sift through your trash bin to pick out messages that you may want from individuals or organizations that are not in your address book.
The following links will lead you
directly to segments of interest. Each section contains some very specific
instructions including screen shots that serve as examples and points of reference.
I recommend that everyone read the first section on "How to Block SPAM" and
the section "How NOT to Block SPAM" before applying this treatment or
deciding if this method is right for you.
SPAM is commonly referred to as email solicitations that you received from a stranger (i.e. junk e-mail). Spam is just like junk mail we get through the Postal Service, but it arrives electronically and in greater volume. But, because it arrives electronically, we can use electronic means called filters to dispose of it. Essentially we will be giving the E-Mail delivery program (Outlook) a set of instructions to work through your Inbox one item at a time and automatically accept or discard the E-Mail.
Wish I could instruct the mailman to do the same thing, but it would be quite illegal for him to perform such a task. See written correspondence is consider part of interstate and international commerce, and according to the US Constitution only congress has the right to regulate commerce. You could have an invoice, a legal notice, or other financial papers mixed in with the unwanted mail. There could be financial consequences for you, if this information was not delivered in a timely fashion. So perhaps you can imagine, this is not something that you can leave up to your ISP or some other organization. Receiving email through any spam filter requires that you act responsibly by looking through the trash and picking out anything that may have gotten in there by mistake.
After implementing this spam filter, you should check your deleted folder for good mail that got missed. When you find something that belongs in your in box you have two choices: add the address to your address book; or, create a filter to flag these message in the future so they are easy to spot in your trash bin. It all depends on the address. Email addresses associates with some newsletters and email list are computer generated numbers. In this case, your only option is to flag the message, because next time it may be a different address.
Getting email from new contacts is easy. In my case, I have an email form on my web site for new prospects and vendors to use to contact me. The email address used by the email form to send the message can be added to your address book, or you can choose as my customer do to use server side scripts to send these emails. Email sent from my server side scripts can arrive using the senders email address, which makes it real easy to add the email address -- all we do is right click on the message and choose "Add Sender to Address Book". If you don't use a form, again you have two choices: add the contact to your address book when you meet them, and/or create a filter to flag messages from new prospects. In either case, it is easier than accepting all emails and then attempt to create mechanisms to block spam in every form imaginable.
Spammers can be real annoying. Trying to filter out spam based on content is almost an impossible task. I regularly get spam that has neither a subject line or a message body, and spammers some spammers use shotgun techniques to figure out your email address. Face it, the only way to eliminate spam by a blocking mechanisms is to focus on its points of contact. Otherwise, the only reliable way to eliminate spam 100% is by sticking to an Approved List.
Spam is a problem because it an ever increasing chore to dispose of it. It really doesn't have to be that way. An E-Mail solicitation from a stranger is not deemed to be legal correspondence, so you don't have to open it. First step toward spam proofing your computer is to change your configuration, so you email browser does not automatically open messages. Opening a message can expose your computer to viruses and confirm your receipt of the email to the spammer.
By default Outlook is setup to open message automatically. To correct this problem, the first thing you need to do is "Turn off the Preview Pane", which is switch on by default. If you have Windows XP Service Pack 2 installed, you may have noticed that it updated Outlook Express to automatically block access to pictures in your Emails by default, "to help prevent the sender from identifying your computer." To turn off the preview pane in Outlook XP/2002 select the View pull-down menu and Preview Pane. In Outlook 2003 select the View pull-down and choose Reading Pane, then select Off. In Outlook Express, choose View, Layout, then uncheck the box that says "Show Preview Pane". Now you won't be forced to view email solicitations from strangers. In the future, it will require a conscious act from you view a message.
From this point forward make an effort to change your behavior, and resist the urge to open email solicitations from strangers. You have taken the very first step to blocking spam from you computer. The steps that follow will show you how to create your own Approved List and filters to flag important messages that end up in your trash bin. When you are done, you will know how to identify spam, block spam, and report spammers to the proper authorities.
Here is one final tip that I would like to share
with everyone to make their life a little easier. For several reasons, I do not
recommend using Outlook to receive E-Mail. If you have it, use
it for your calendar, for your contacts, to send email, but not to receive E-mail. First of all,
there is no safe way to look at the message source in Outlook.
Second it has a proprietary database structure that is prone to fail in an unrecoverable fashion, if you have a large amount of data stored in your
email folders.
Third, it is considerably more susceptible to email born virus attack because
of reason one and because it is tightly integrated with Office. Fourth, it cost cost money.
If you don't already have it, you can
download Outlook Express 6 for free. It is included with the
Internet Explorer 6. Fifth, Outlook's interface keeps changing making it
more difficult to support. Sixth Outlook 2000 and earlier cannot
exclude email based on Approved List. And last but not least, the
seventh reason is the current product's inability to create an exclusion
filter based on something like an Approved List. In Outlook XP, you
can create your own Approved List, but it forced you to move the messages to
another folder -- something other than your Inbox -- creating more overhead.
At the time this article was published, Outlook 2003 restricted the use of
an Approved List to a facility that forced you to apply the filter on all
email accounts. All of these issues makes me wonder if Microsoft is
ever going to get it right for their flagship email client product.
It is best if you have some kind of plan in place before you start adding Message Rules. I have found it to be unwieldy and ineffective to have more than a half dozen rules. So our plan is very simple. First we filter out the mail we want. Then we apply filters to sort out incoming Email List subscriptions.
I wish it was that simple. My message rules,
listed in the figure below, did not turn out exactly as planned for one
reason or another. Originally I put my While List (Approved List)
first, but then I discovered that I need to flag messages before they were
deleted so I could pick them out of the trash. Then after applying
these rules I discovered an anomaly that I had not anticipated -- spammers
were using my own Email address to send me their solicitations. This is
possible because SMTP (the service used to send email) by default does not
authenticate the sender. I chose to put this filter on top rather than
remove my address out of my address book. Then I discovered a couple
spammers had snuck in some spam on my one of my private addresses, so I
blocked them at the bottom.
Please Note: Just like all the other dialog boxes in Outlook, these dialog boxes are modal. You will not be able to work on any message or switch to any other functions in Outlook Express until after you close these dialog boxes. I should also note that these rules are applied in the order that they appear. For this reason it is a good idea to have your information assembled on your Clipboard or in your Notepad before continuing on with the other sections in this article.
From the Outlook Express menu choose the Tools
pull-down menu. Select Message Rules from the choices and then Mail from the
menu on the right. The following dialog box titled New Mail Rule will appear
if you have not yet entered any Message Rules. If you have already
entered some rules, click on the "New" button to arrive at the following
dialog.
The first Mail Rule should actually be setup to capture mail for your Approved List. If you have only one E-Mail account, skip the next two illustrations and paragraphs. The following two paragraphs contain instructions to limit your filter to just one email account.
To have this filter apply to just one of your
accounts, check the box in Section 1 that indicates "Where the message is
from the specified account". If you click on the "specified" link (show
above), the following dialog will appear giving you a list of accounts to
choose from. Choose the account you want to filter and press OK.
The information in the "Account" list in the dialog below matches the identifying information found on the first
field found on the General tab in the account setup.
If you are ready to enter
your approved list, check the first box in Section 1 of the New Rule dialog
box (shown above) labeled "Where the From
line contains people". A link that says "contains people" will appear in
Section 3.
Click on that link labeled "contains people".
The following dialog box titled Select
People will appear giving you the opportunity to specify the E-Mail Addresses
of the people on your Approved List.
Press the button labeled "Address Book" to display the next panel and be give the opportunity to select everyone in your address book at one time.
While holding down the shift key, select the first name in the list by pointing to it with your mouse pointer and left click the mouse. Then scroll down to the bottom of the list by using your mouse and left click on the down arrow to scroll down to the bottom of the list. Then while holding down the shift key, select the last name on the list by pointing to it with your mouse pointer and left click on the mouse. The entire list should turn blue with white letters like the first entry shown in the illustration above. Once you have successfully selected the entire list, press the "From ->" button. Then press OK and this dialog will disappear. If you see a message indicating that some of your contacts did not have an Email address, just press OK.
The Select People dialog box will reappear. If you were successful with your selection, the "Options" button will be pre-selected and your email addresses will appear in the dialog labeled People. Now press the "Options" button to set the criteria and the following dialog box will appear.
Change Rule 1 from the default to the second selection "Message does not contain the people below". Press OK. You will find yourself back at the New Mail Rule dialog. In section 4 labeled Name the Rule, put in "White List" or "Approved List", and Press OK. You will return to the first dialog in this section labeled "Message Rules". If you press OK, you will close this dialog and return to Outlook Express.
Creating your Approved List is the first step. Now you must return here and select the rule you created to update the list when you add contacts to your address book. To modify the list you created choose choose the Tools pull-down menu. Select Message Rules from the choices and then Mail from the menu on the right. Then select the rule you created and press the button labeled "Modify". The Edit Mail Rule dialog, picture below, will appear.
First, uncheck the item in section 1, "Where the From line contains people". This will delete the old entries that appear in section 3 from your list. Now check this box "Where the From line contains people", to re-establish your condition and a link will appear in section 3 labeled "contains people". Click on the link labeled "contains people" and the "Select People" dialog (pictured below) will appear.
Press the button labeled "Address Book" to display the next panel and be give the opportunity to select everyone in your address book at one time.
While holding down the shift key, select the first name in the list by pointing to it with your mouse pointer and left click the mouse. Then scroll down to the bottom of the list by using your mouse and left click on the down arrow to scroll down to the bottom of the list. Then while holding down the shift key, select the last name on the list by pointing to it with your mouse pointer and left click on the mouse. The entire list should turn blue with white letters like the first entry shown in the illustration above. Once you have successfully selected the entire list, press the "From ->" button. Then press OK and this dialog will disappear. If you see a message indicating that some of your contacts did not have an Email address, just press OK.
The Select People dialog box will reappear. If you were successful with your selection, the "Options" button will be pre-selected and your email addresses will appear in the dialog labeled People. Now press the "Options" button to set the criteria and the following dialog box will appear.
Change Rule 1 from the default to the second selection "Message does not contain the people below". Press OK. You will find yourself back at the Edit Mail Rule dialog. Press OK. You will return to the first dialog in this section labeled "Message Rules". If you press OK, you will close this dialog and return to Outlook Express.
Setting up rules to sort out mail in you trash bin is just like setting up an Approved List. Instead of selecting E-Mail address to we will be entering text that identifies the mail we may want to retrieve from the trash bin. In this exercise we will be flagging messages before they get moved to the deleted items folder. If you have the need to distinguish between your E-Mail accounts, you will also get the opportunity to select that criteria as well.
To start this procedure open Outlook Express and choose the Tools pull-down menu. If you have only one E-Mail account, skip the next two illustrations and paragraphs. The following two paragraphs contain instructions to limit your filter to just one email account.
To have this filter apply to just one of your
accounts, check the box in Section 1 that indicates "Where the message is
from the specified account". If you click on the "specified" link (show
above), the following dialog will appear giving you a list of accounts to
choose from. Choose the account you want to filter and press OK.
The information listed matches the identifying information found on the first
field found on the General tab in the account setup.
Lets proceed with the creation of your filtering rule. First lets tell Outlook what we want it to do with the message. In section 1 check a condition that you want to use like the "Subject line" or "message body".
In section 2 check the box that says "Flag it". Next we must decide how we identify the item we will flag. It is easy to flag messages based on the existence of a single word or phrase found on the Subject Line or the content of Body. In my configuration, I have a separate rule listing key words and phrases for both the Subject and the Body. To specify for the Subject Line, check the box in Section 1 of the New Mail Rule dialog that indicates "Where the Subject line contains specific words", or to filter based on the message content specify "Where the message body contains specific words". After selecting either one of these items, a dialog box titled "Type Specific Words" will appear.
Type in each word you have that identifies the messages you want to flag. It is not necessary to use capital letters. The searches are not case sensitive. Press the Add button after each entry and your word will appear in the list.
When you are done entering your list of words press OK. You will return to the New Mail Rule dialog and your list of words should appear in Section 3. If the information for your rule is complete, press OK on the New Mail Rule dialog and your rule will be created. Press OK to close the Message Rule dialog and you can return to Outlook Express.
Outlooks Spam Filters can accommodate more varied needs. If your criteria involves the use of two words in the same message that are not used together in a phrase, you can create a separate rule for them. If after entering the two words in your list you press the "Options.." button in the Specific Words dialog, you will be given the following choices.
In the above example, I instructed the system to look for "printing" and "supplies". If it finds a message that contains those two words, the message will automatically be flagged before it is sent sent to the Deleted Items folder by the Approved List filter.
Run your test to see your filters in action. Once the messages are sent to the deleted items folder, go to your delete items folder and click on the header with the flag to sort the items that are flagged to the top. Click the flag again, and the flagged items will be sorted to the bottom.
Actually the help that included with the product on this subject is OK, even though it is hard to find and lacks visual cues. It even has instructions that will help you copy your rules, which could save time if you want to apply the same list to multiple E-Mail accounts or filter types. You can get help for maintaining your rules by choosing "Contents and Index" from the Help menu. Once there choose the Index tab and type in "Rules". Select from any of the topics listed under the heading and you will be on your way.
Once you have setup up your rules, it is important to test them to make sure they are working as expected. When you run the test, you should see the rules applied against your Inbox, flagging messages and sending them to the Deleted items folder as specified.
Help on this subject is hard to find. To get help on this subject choose "Contents and Index" from the Help menu. Once there choose the Index tab and type in "Applying Rules". Click on this subject and the instructions will appear in the right pane.
If you are really curious about a piece of Email and you want to see it without risking any harm to your computer you can view it in its raw form. It is important that you know how to look at the message safely. If you need to report the Spammer to their ISP or some other agency, you will need to send the complete message including the header. Also, you may need to look at the body of the body message safely so you can determine identifying characteristics to feed into your spam filter. I should note that this could make for difficult reading, if you do not know HTML. However not all Email messages are formatted in HTML, only those posing a threat to your computer.
To view
mail safely in Outlook Express,
right click on it, select Properties.
When the following dialog appear click on the Details tab.
If someone asks you for the message header, this is it. Your ISP and other agencies can use this information to identify the source of the message and the hops it made along the way. You can send it to them by using Cut and Paste. To do so highlight the contents inside the message box by placing your cursor at the top right corner and holding the left mouse button down while you wipe down and to the left. When you have done this correctly the contents will appear in reverse video. While this content appears in reverse video you can copy it by placing your cursor over the highlighted area and right click. Choose "Copy" from the menu that appears to place the contents you selected into your clipboard. Press OK or Cancel to return to the Outlook Express Console, and you can plate it into message that you are preparing.
If you want to view the message source safely,
press button that says "Message Source" (indicated in the above
dialog) and the following dialog box will appear on top of the previous one.
.
From here you can safely view the message without
loading and running any of the programs that may be contained there in, or
executing scripts or web connections that may be imbedded into the HTML.
Note that this message I am using as an example was sent in plain text, and I
have highlighted the words "printing supplies". That is one of the key
phrases, I use in one of my spam filters. Any piece of text that you see
in the message that is not part of an HTML tag may be highlighted and copied
using the methods outlined in the last dialog.
The Outlook product that comes with Microsoft Office® is just similar enough to Outlook Express to get one in trouble. Both products have basically the same set of features. How you get to the features however is totally different between Outlook Express, Outlook XP, and Outlook 2003. Take for instance turning the Preview Pane on and off. It is so easy in Outlook. That it will get you in trouble. Same goes for viewing the message source. You can only view the message header in Outlook after you open the message. This can be accomplished by going to View, Options from the message panel once the message is opened.
Amazingly, these two features haven't changed much between Outlook XP and Outlook 2003. Unfortunately, almost everything else referenced in this article has changed between these two generations of Outlook. Therefore I am not going to get into to much detail in this section. I normally charge for Outlook support, because of the generational differences in the product, and because you should pay for support on products like this that cost you money when there is added complexity. If you get lost, you can always contact me for assistance so we can setup a billing arrangement. If the product doesn't behave as expected, blame Microsoft not me.
The program here is just as with Outlook Express, but it is a bit easier to operate and as a result, in some instances it is also be less functional. I have found that it is best if you have some kind of plan in place before you start adding Message Rules. The product may become unwieldy and ineffective, if you have more than a half dozen rules. So our plan is very simple. First we apply a filter keep all the email from senders in our address book. Then we apply filters to sort out message that find there way into the trash bin like email list subscriptions.
Please Note: Just like all the other dialog boxes in Outlook, these dialog boxes are modal. You will not be able to work on any message or switch to any other functions in Outlook until after you close these dialog boxes. I should also note that these rules are applied in the order that they appear. For this reason it is a good idea to have your information assembled on your Clipboard or in your Notepad before continuing on with the other sections in this article.
The first step is to change the configuration to capture mail for your Approved List. If you want to apply this action to only one of your E-Mail accounts, you better switch to Outlook Express. Outlook's only option is to apply this rule to all accounts. Microsoft did, however, make this quite easy to do; and, the Approved List is maintained automatically.
To bring up the following panel from Outlook 2003, Select "Actions" pull down menu, then "Junk E-mail" pull down, and then "Junk E-mail Options..." that appears on the menu to the right. To send everything but mail from sender in your address book select "Save Lists Only" as I have done below. Uncheck the box labeled "Permanently delete suspected junk" or you won't have the option of seeing what Outlook discarded. Press the button labeled "Apply".
In the next step we will instruct the program to trust email from contacts in your address book. To do this select the tab on the top labeled "Safe Senders". Now check the box labeled, "Also trust e-mail from my Contacts". If you like you can also check the box to "Automatically add people I e-mail" as I have done. If you have addresses to ad that are not part of your contact list, you have the option of adding them here. When you are done with the panel press the button labeled "OK" and you will return to Outlook.
In the next step you will instruct the program to flag email messages that you want to may want to read. To bring up the following panel from Outlook 2003, Select "Tools" pull down menu, then "Rules and Alterts..." pull down. Now click the button labeled "New Rule" and you will be given the option to work through the following panels that are presented. Essentially panels function very much like the panels we described for Outlook Express -- you click on the "Next" button and the associated links to bring up the dialog panels in question.
Essentially all the functions that we mentioned previously for Outlook Express are all available in this Outlook XP with the exception of the last. Gates & Company made no provision to include the Rule Condition Options (the last dialog dialog in the Outlook Express Message Rules section in this article) in the product that you cost you money. You will also notice that most all the screens were changed in keeping with the Wizards theme. The attempt to create a more friendly environment is clearly evident with the interactive help provided by the Office Assistant; and he is there to come to your rescue, if you get lost. If you take the time to get acquainted with the functions in other interface, you will notice the obvious functional similarities.
The Rules Wizard found in Outlook XP/2002 is basically identical to the New Mail Rule dialog in Outlook Express. Microsoft simplified the process some by limiting your actions to "Move".
If you select "people and distribution", you will be show the Rule Address screen below. This will appear to be a drastic change, but actually here again things have been simplified. You are left with only one choice of action, you must select from entries in your address book.
When it comes to setting up your Spam
Filter, you should feel right at home. Everything is right where you
expect it, except the for the Options button. Apparently that was too
complicated for Outlook users.
If you click on the "specific words" link in
the above screen, it will bring up the following screen. Notice anything
different between it and the Outlook Express dialog?
Block Sender: Blocking is too time consuming to be practiced by an individual user. It is much less demanding on an individual to maintain an "Approved List". Mainly because the "Approved List" is much smaller. An "Approved List" is also more effective at keeping out the undesirables than maintaining a "Black List". There just way too many spammers and variations on spam content to identify them without the help of an automated mechanism that can accurately identify the spammer and hold them up for ridicule.
In the event you want to use it, just click on the Message pull-down menu and go to directly to Create Rule from Message. The system will have automatically filled in the From Line. All you need do is give it an action by checking "Delete it" and pressing the OK button. They won't even know they are being blocked unless they call you. Now when the messages arrive from them it will go directly to your deleted folder (trash bin) before you ever see it.
This feature is very powerful. If you remove the @ sign and elements before it, you will kill off all the mail from that domain. Just be careful when setting this up, because you do not want to automatically block everything from a legitimate source. With one flick of the pen, you can blind yourself to most of the users in some remote place like Australia and Romania or to most of the cheapskates in North America in the case of HotMail or Yahoo.
Information for creating and maintaining the Block Sender List can be found online and in the help that came with your product. Be careful though. It is a different method than the one I have described, and it gets processed before everything else. You can get to your Blocked Sender List in Outlook Express by going to Tools, Message Rules, Blocked Sender List.
Open Relay DataBase (ORDB): Contact your ISP and make sure they do not subscribe to an Open Relay Data Base Reporting Service (ORDB). Some Internet Service Providers subscribe to these services to block mail servers from other mail servers. These reports list mail servers that may be experiencing momentary configuration problem. They often make mistakes. Furthermore, it is not legal or ethical for these organizations to interfere with the delivery of your E-mail.
These services, which are claiming to protect you, sell the intelligence they have gathered about mail servers to anyone and everyone, including the spammers. They are like arms salesmen. They profit from death and destruction, because they will sell their wares to either side. The methods they use are best explained in the following simile:
Law enforcement discover a plane that is a potential security risk, which puts the plane at risk for being hijacked. ORDB is sent into action. They alert the terrorists and anyone else who subscribes to their report. Without fear of recrimination the hijackers arrive, take over the plane, and start distributing their propaganda. Without notifying air-traffic control, the authorities, the airport, or the pilots to let them know that they suspect that terrorists could be on board, they kill the pilots to disable the plane. It is not exactly a happy ending. Everyone dies, but the terrorists who go on to remotely control the next plane they discover.
ORDB does not need any evidence of a hijacker before they execute the pilots. Given a license to kill, they maintain a policy of shoot first and ask questions later. After all, the way they see it, it is the pilot's fault. They could care less about the hijacker. Since no effort is made to identify the hijackers, they are free to go about their business and hijack another unsuspecting aircraft. Unfortunately, the users are the real casualties, because they are the passengers on the plane (the real victims) who are sent to a rather terrifying death in this plane that is flying out of control.
In the mean time, the server is left without the ability to deliver Email to selected areas for several days, weeks or months at a time. Nobody seems to know why, because nobody is talking. What transpires later is very much like having a argument where everyone puts their fingers in their ears. It pretty much just turns into a shouting match between the deaf and dumb.
At least some of the ORDB services will notify the sender that their mail was not delivered, the reason often is very confusing to the user. You can find a partial list of offending servers listed by the various ORDBs at SAMSPADE. Unfortunately, they do not list all of them. For some, you just have to wait until you attempt deliver an email and that that delivery is denied. These services are inclined to discriminate against the small ISP. Rarely, do they go after anyone like Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, MSN or another large institution, which has been observed to allow mail relaying or been an originating point for most SPAM.
To make matters worse. Quite recently, we observed that some of the bigger players were automatically blocking mail and not letting either party (sender or receiver) in on the fact that the mail was not delivered. Not sure about their reasoning. I suspect it may have been picked up by the Anti-Virus software on their servers. I should like to note that mail viruses do not threaten servers except in the volume of mail they generate. On the flip side, large companies like AOL who are suffering financially (with their membership dwindling) have decided to look for new sources of revenue. AOL considers charging large companies for the rights to bypass their junk mail filters.
If you want to report Spam you should send the unwanted Email, including the header, to Abuse@ the address for the ISP where the Spam originated. Make sure you retrieve the entire Message Source. You can also report spam to SpamCop, which will uses statistical methods to identify and report spammers. SpamCop will ferret through your message and identify the source for you. Upon your request it will notify the ISP and add the message you gave them to their database.
Cybertron also has a spam database that it will be making available online shortly. The software we are developing has an auto updating database feature for its SPAM Filters, which relies on the advertisers contact information that is reported by the client systems. The product also features an automatic block to all known E-Mail threats.
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Web Page Created on July 29, 2003.
Web Page Last Maintained on
Friday, December 18, 2009
Copyright 2003-2006, Cybertron, Incorporated, Atlanta, Georgia.