SPAM

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Me2Ewe

Is there an easy way to get rid of spam in outlook express 6. I heard of a
free utility called Spamfighter any feedback from the professionals?
Or do I just use the block senders utility. Not sure if xp pro has
anything
for that or not.
Thanks for any help
Bruce
 
Most of the reviews I've read for spam blocking software are not very
promising. They rarely do a good job and the spammers usually find a way
around them.

The best hope is for Federal legislation that gives the user a way to
prevent it in the first plce.(Think of the Do Not Call List.)
 
OE has the facility to set up rules.. look in OE help for more on this.. you
can also block 'senders'.. your ISP should also be doing something to stop
most of the crap..
 
Me2Ewe said:
Is there an easy way to get rid of spam in outlook express 6. I heard of a
free utility called Spamfighter any feedback from the professionals?
Or do I just use the block senders utility. Not sure if xp pro has
anything
for that or not.
Thanks for any help
Bruce
Click to expand...


While it's not possible to completely eliminate spam (unsolicited
commercial email), there are some precautions and steps you can take to
minimize it's impact:

1) Never, ever post your real email address to publicly accessible
forums or newsgroups, such as this one, as you have done. For years
now, spammers have been using software utilities to scan such places to
harvest email addresses. It's a simple matter to disguise your posted
email address so that these software "bots" can't obtain anything
useful. For example, insert some obviously bogus characters or words
into your reply address, for example: "(e-mail address removed)."

2) Never, ever reply to any spam you receive, even to "unsubscribe" or
"remove" yourself from the spammers' address lists; you'll only compound
the problem. If spammers had any intention of honoring the your desire
not to receive spam, they wouldn't have become spammers in the first
place. When you reply to a spammer, all you're doing is confirming that
he/she has a valid, marketable email address.

3) Be especially leery of any offers from websites for free software,
services, information, etc, that require your email address, or that
require your email address so you can "login" to access the offered
service and/or information. Many such sites are supplementing their
income by collecting addresses to sell to the spammers. For instance,
subscribing to CNN.COM's Breaking News Service will garner you a lot of
additional spam. (Of course, not all such sites have under-handed
motives; it's a judgment call. If the offer seems "too good to be
true," it's most likely a scam.)

4) DO forward any and all spam, with complete headers, to the
originating ISP with a complaint. Not all ISPs will make an effort to
shut down the spammers, but many will. One tool that makes forwarding
such complaints fairly simple is SpamCop (http://spamcop.net).

4) Another useful tool is MailWasher (http://www.mailwasher.net). This
utility allows you to preview your email before downloading it from the
server. Spammers can even be blacklisted, so that any future emails
from them will be automatically deleted from the server.

5) Within Outlook Express or whatever other email client application
you use, add any spammers to your Blocked Senders list, so the their
messages are automatically deleted from the server without being
downloaded to your PC.

--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH
 
Jerry said:
The best hope is for Federal legislation that gives the user a way to
prevent it in the first plce.(Think of the Do Not Call List.)
Click to expand...

I doubt that any more such legislation would do any good. Remember,
spammers already have no ethics (or they wouldn't be spammers in the
first place); yet another toothless, unenforceable law isn't going to
deter them. Existing law, if enforced, should be more than sufficient.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH
 
Bruce Chambers said:
While it's not possible to completely eliminate
spam (unsolicited commercial email), there are some
precautions and steps you can take to minimize it's
impact:

1) Never, ever post your real email address to
publicly accessible forums or newsgroups, such as
this one, as you have done. For years now, spammers
have been using software utilities to scan such
places to harvest email addresses. It's a simple
matter to disguise your posted email address so that
these software "bots" can't obtain anything useful.
For example, insert some obviously bogus characters
or words into your reply address, for example:
"(e-mail address removed)."

2) Never, ever reply to any spam you receive, even
to "unsubscribe" or "remove" yourself from the
spammers' address lists; you'll only compound the
problem. If spammers had any intention of honoring
the your desire not to receive spam, they wouldn't
have become spammers in the first place. When you
reply to a spammer, all you're doing is confirming
that he/she has a valid, marketable email address.

3) Be especially leery of any offers from websites
for free software, services, information, etc, that
require your email address, or that require your
email address so you can "login" to access the
offered service and/or information. Many such sites
are supplementing their income by collecting
addresses to sell to the spammers. For instance,
subscribing to CNN.COM's Breaking News Service will
garner you a lot of additional spam. (Of course, not
all such sites have under-handed motives; it's a
judgment call. If the offer seems "too good to be
true," it's most likely a scam.)

4) DO forward any and all spam, with complete
headers, to the originating ISP with a complaint.
Not all ISPs will make an effort to shut down the
spammers, but many will. One tool that makes
forwarding such complaints fairly simple is SpamCop
(http://spamcop.net).

4) Another useful tool is MailWasher
(http://www.mailwasher.net). This utility allows you
to preview your email before downloading it from the
server. Spammers can even be blacklisted, so that
any future emails from them will be automatically
deleted from the server.

5) Within Outlook Express or whatever other email
client application you use, add any spammers to your
Blocked Senders list, so the their messages are
automatically deleted from the server without being
downloaded to your PC.

--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't
ever count on having both at once. - RAH
Click to expand...

Great response there Bruce. Only think I didn't notice
that I think would be good, would be advice to create a
name that's unique and undictionariable ro guessable;
it's still pretty popular to do a1, a2, a3, a11, a22,
etc.
Best format IMO: TextNumText. I use the first half of
my last name, then the middle digits from my old
military ID, than the last letters of my name but
reversed.

Well, one more thing: Maybe mention that Spamcop (or
whoever) will help with instructions on how to get full
headers, too: Many people think forwarding an email
will do that when you have to forward a spam as an
attachment to keep the headers in shape, and don't know
that CTRL-F3 will display full headers for OE (not
Outlook).

Regards,

Pop
 
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