newbie asking for help with outlook express

  • Thread starter Thread starter Gail B
  • Start date Start date
G

Gail B

hello, i connected my computer up to the internet today and was told to
use outlook express for my email. every time i connect and go to
outlook express i am getting a bunch of spam in my inbox. can someone
please give me step by step instructions on how to stop or prevent this
from happening? i would most certainly appreciate any help given.
thank you
gail
 
Unfortunately some advertisers program their computers to generate long
lists of email addresses using all combinations of characters, knowing
that a few of them will correspond to people's email addresses. the
small percentage of people that make purchases from the ads is enough to
encourage them.

NEVER click the links to unsubscribe or "stop receiving these messages".
That only confirms your address as having a live person using it. Once
the spammers know they "have a live one" they share the address with
each other and the problem multiplies.

It's not a good idea to open the messages either. The advertisers can
include a picture in the ad in a way that allows them to log the email
address of each person that allows the picture to display in a mail
client. This logging even occurs when the message is viewed in the
Outlook Express preview pane. This issue is less serious on Windows XP
computers that have service pack 2 installed. The default settings with
service pack 2 installed woun't perform the action to generate the
advertiser's log until a special toolbar is clicked "to view the graphic".

Be VERY wary of any messages inviting you to use a bank account to help
them wire money out of some foreign nation. Also be wary of messages
asking for confirmation of internet banking, auction site or auction
fund escrow user names or passwords. Some messages impersonate these
busnesses and contain links to confinceing fake web sites. Don't access
online banking, auction or escrow logins by clicking a link in an email,
now matter how authentic it looks. Always access these sites by typing
in your browser's address bar or with a favorite/bookmark you set after
typing the address in the browser's address bar.

Many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) offer spam filtering to reduce
the flood of junk mail. Your ISP should provide you with instructions on
setting up the filter. Unfortunately these filters occasionaly block a
message you want to receive. I have mine sent to a junk mail folder so
that I can reveiw them a couple of times a week. I can ussually
recognize what messages are spam and which ones aren't.

Outlook Express has some filtering capabilities as well. I have mine set
up to shunt messages containing numerous words like "free" "mortgage"
and "girls" to a suspicious message folder. Look for "Message Rules" on
the "Tools" menu. Unfortunately some advertisers intentionaly misspell
words in a effort to bypass such filtering. This method occasionaly
obstructs a desireable message as well.
 
Gail B said:
hello, i connected my computer up to the internet today and was told
to use outlook express for my email. every time i connect and go to
outlook express i am getting a bunch of spam in my inbox. can someone
please give me step by step instructions on how to stop or prevent
this from happening? i would most certainly appreciate any help given.
thank you
gail
Click to expand...

Who is your e-mail provider? Do they provide a webmail interface? Do
they have an account settings page? If so, do they have an option to
enable spam filtering? If they don't provide spam filtering then check
into e-mail providers that do provide it. Spamcop.net has accounts that
are supposed to be spam-free but there are plenty of e-mail providers
that include spam filtering.

Otherwise, install a client-side spam filtering product. I use SpamPal
and several of its plug-ins (all are free) and they have their own forum
for getting help, but there are lots of anti-spam products.

Announcing your true e-mail address in newsgroups is a guaranteed method
of ensuring to up the amount of spam you receive. Spambots roam the
newsgroups looking for e-mail addresses. Munge it or use a bogus one
(if you never want to take a discussion offline from the newsgroup to
move it to e-mail). If webtv.com is your ISP then
http://www.webtv.com/pc/experience/email.asp says they provide spam
filtering. However, if it is the same level of filtering as afforded to
Hotmail accounts then get used to some spam. Microsoft hasn't been very
effective in their spam filtering. I've had both Hotmail and Yahoo
accounts and Hotmail gets hits a lot more with spam than my Yahoo
accounts.
 
Since you are already on the spammers list, that list will be sold and
resold. This will only excaberate the problem. Secondly never post your
e-mail address to a discussion group. If you really want to place your e-mail
address on these sites, try this: (e-mail address removed)

Spammers programs scan these sites for address frequently. I suggest that
you get a new e-mail address. One that can't be easily generated by a
computer. Something like (e-mail address removed)
 
Chuck, good advice but she should use a fake, non-existent domain along with
some character as I've done with mine as in #notme.com. First, the spammers
aren't only harvesting the e-mail address they also are harvesting the rest
of the information including the domain that leads them to the ISP. They
then use a scattershot method for hitting as many possible combinations as
they can generate @that domain and they will use her name to generate in
various combinations to see if they hit a valid ID which brings them to an
active e-mail address.

Second, by using an invalid domain, any spam generator will end up sending
the e-mail nowhere into something of a cyber black hole as opposed to
clogging up some ISP's pipes and some Internet backbone as well.
 
Back
Top