Part III
Communicate
Securely
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Chapter 9
Fight the Junk
E-Mail Plague
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How to…
■
Cut down the spam you’re already getting
■
Prevent spammers from getting your address
■
Develop e-mail habits that will protect your address
■
Learn how to use spam filtering applications on your PC
■
Stop spam closer to the source
■ Avoid future spam problems before they affect you
Put an End to Your Spam Problem
Spam, sometimes called unsolicited commercial e-mail, bulk e-mail, or just plain old
junk mail, has been around for quite a bit longer than many folks realize. Spam—the
unwanted e-mail that that clogs our inboxes with advertising and tries our patience—
actually dates back to the earliest days of the Internet, before there was a World Wide

That’s why it’s so important to learn how to take advantage of spam filters.
Spam filtering tools have become, without a doubt, an indispensable tool for
virtually every computer user. Later in this chapter, we’ll introduce you to two
of the best filters, and we’ll show you how to use them to your greatest benefit.
Fight Spam on Your Terms, on Your Turf
Nobody except a spammer loves spam. If you’re frustrated with spam, you’re not
alone. Fortunately, some very bright minds are working on solving the spam
problem—after all, they’re getting spammed, too.
The first step to cut your spam is to understand how spammers get your e-mail
address in the first place, and then to avoid taking part in activities that may reveal
your real e-mail address (such as using chat rooms on AOL, or posting messages to
Usenet newsgroups) in such a way. This will keep the spammers from harvesting
your e-mail address(es). For situations where you won’t need to maintain contact
for long, you can use free services like the Mailinator (www.mailinator.com) or
SneakEmail (www.sneakemail.com) to create addresses you can simply throw
away after one or a few uses.
But engaging in safe computing practices won’t protect you. Even if you do
everything right, spammers have other ways to discover your e-mail address. As
a result, every e-mail address, no matter how well protected, will eventually get
spammed.
Short of trashing your existing e-mail account and creating a completely new
e-mail address for yourself, only filtering spam can rid your inbox of much of
the spam you already receive. Fortunately, you can use any of a number of very
good spam filtering tools—some that you run on your PC, others that your ISP
provides—that will cut your spam intake down to nearly nil.
Avoid Getting Spam in the First Place
Before you worry about spam filters, take a moment for some self reflection. How,
to whom, and under what circumstances you divulge your e-mail addresses to others
directly affects how much spam you’re likely to receive. Certain kinds of behaviors
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Consider the value of your time As an example, let’s say online
pet supply store #1 has the rabbit food you need for $5 less than online pet
supply store #2. In order to buy the rabbit food, you have to fill out an
order form and provide a real e-mail address. But the privacy policy for
store #1 says that they will sell your e-mail and postal mailing address to
lots of their “partners,” which usually means that you’ll get a lot of spam,
as well as “real” junk mail from the postman. If that one-time savings of $5
will result in half an hour of dealing with spam every day from then on, ask
yourself: Is it worth it?
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CHAPTER 9: Fight the Junk E-Mail Plague
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■
See if you can fake it Don’t let a Web site bully you into giving them
your real e-mail address, especially if you never want to, or need to, get
an e-mail message from the owner of the site. (The one exception here is
when you sign up for a message board or private site where the site will
e-mail a password to you—those sites will need a real address.) Most Web
sites won’t be able to tell the difference if you put a fake e-mail address
into a form, as long as there’s an @ sign in there somewhere, and a “.com”
at the end.
■
If you must divulge a valid e-mail address, use a throwaway Just
because a form or a Web site asks for your e-mail address, it doesn’t mean
you have to give them the keys to your e-mail kingdom. Create one, or
several, disposable e-mail addresses (you can start with a free Web mail
service, like Yahoo or Hotmail) that you use only when you register for
Web sites. Use the address once, to get the password, and then ditch the
account. Advanced users may prefer the Mailinator (www.mailinator.com)

that comes before the @ sign, , for example, get
less spam overall and are less likely to get spammed in the first place, than
addresses that are composed of letters alone. Creating an e-mail address
with a number in it doesn’t guarantee you’ll never get spam—it just means
the spammers won’t be as likely to try out the address.
■
Use a free Web mail address if you post to Usenet newsgroups Usenet,
the world’s largest and most diverse message board, is archived by Google
under the name Google Groups (groups.google.com). Any message posted
to any Usenet newsgroup since Usenet was created 30 years ago will be
archived here, along with the e-mail addresses of the message posters.
Spammers know this and regularly screen-scrape Usenet to get new target
addresses. Don’t be one of their victims!
Ditch Your Extremely Spammy Identity
In a worst-case scenario, when the spammers really get your e-mail address in
their sights and just won’t relent, you may have no choice but to completely stop
using a particular e-mail address in order to cut your spam load. While this is
probably the least desirable option for most people, changing an e-mail address is
the quickest way to start with a clean (and spam-free) slate. The older your e-mail
address, the more likely that the address is on the mailing lists of a whole slew of
spammers.
Fortunately, many ISPs make dumping an e-mail address a snap. Many ISPs
will give you the ability to create anywhere from two to five additional e-mail
addresses, and will help you migrate from using your old address to a new one.
Filter Spam on Your PC
Spam filtering software you run on your computer is one of the hottest fields for
technological innovation at the moment. These programs use a complex set of rules
and filters to sort through mail in your inbox, removing the spam while leaving the
“good” e-mail messages behind. For most people, running spam filter software is
the most effective way of ridding your e-mail of unwanted junk, and the process

program should do certain things, you can add and customize rule actions to take
action when a rule is (or isn’t) followed (see Figure 9-3). Anything you can do to
a message manually—highlight it, delete it, move or copy it to different folders,
send a reply, or forward it elsewhere—you can turn into a message rule action.
One important thing to keep in mind while using message rules is this: If a
message contains elements that apply to two or more rules, the actions each rule
takes can interfere with the others. But they won’t do that if you set one additional
action in a rule. Unless you have a specific reason for a message to have two (or
more) rules take actions on it, fill in the check box next to Stop Processing More
Rules when you’re scrolling down the Actions box (see Figure 9-4). If you do that,
OE won’t apply any other rules against messages that “set off” the rule you just
made. Click OK when you’re done.
However, spammers constantly change the words (and the creative spelling
of the words) they use in the body or subject line. So your preprogrammed spam
filter may catch Cialis but not Cia1is (with a numeral 1 instead of a lowercase l).
Outlook Express’ filter is just too literal.
FIGURE 9-2
Pre-fill a message rule with the message’s From: address.
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CHAPTER 9: Fight the Junk E-Mail Plague
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FIGURE 9-3
Customize rule actions to automate tasks.
FIGURE 9-4
Tell OE to stop applying other rules if this one is applied.
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How to Do Everything with Windows XP Home Networking
The same can’t be said for the filter built in to Microsoft Outlook 2003 and XP.

Can it perform whitelisting? Will the spam filter make a friends list for
you? Some filter apps automatically allow messages to pass if they come
from people on your address book. This list, sometimes called a whitelist,
makes it much easier to get the mail you really want to get.
■
Is the filter able to scan previously downloaded mail? Some filters can
only sift through mail for spam as you download it from the mail server. It’s
more convenient if your spam filter software can sort out the junk from
mail you’ve previously downloaded and stored on your hard drive.
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CHAPTER 9: Fight the Junk E-Mail Plague
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■
Will it blacklist an entire e-mail domain? The process of blacklisting
means the filter will automatically block e-mail from certain senders. But
sometimes, you don’t care whether the spam is coming from zzzygot@
yahoo.com or —you just want to stop getting any
mail at all with a “yahoo.com” (experts call this mail domain) at the end.
Not all filters can blacklist an entire domain.
■
Can you adjust how aggressively it filters mail? Spam filtering
software uses highly complex sets of rules to determine what mail is
spam, as determined by the contents of the messages. On some products,
if you find that a lot of spam slips past the filter, you can change a setting
in the program’s preferences that will force the spam filter to take a harder
line with messages the filter thinks might be spam.
■ How much does it cost? Filtering tools needn’t be expensive, but as in
most endeavors in life, you get what you pay for. By all means, download
and try out as many free spam filters as you like. If a free filtering application

action as soon as your mail is downloaded into your inbox. The first thing you’ll
see is a dialog box asking if you want SpamNet to filter your mail (see Figure 9-5).
You won’t hear angels singing when you click Yes, but you might think you died
and went to heaven when you see what happens next. Nearly all your spam will
simply disappear into the ether, never to be seen again (unless you want it to).
SpamNet does a very good job of removing the majority of spam from your
inbox with no user intervention, but part of what makes the software so accurate is
how the program carefully watches which messages you choose to block. Invariably,
a few spams will sneak through the filters. When they do, don’t delete them the
normal way; you can delete them by highlighting the spam messages (you can
select more than one by holding down the
CTRL
key while single-clicking each
spam message) and then clicking the Block button (see Figure 9-6).
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How to Do Everything with Windows XP Home Networking
FIGURE 9-5
The first time you run SpamNet, the program will ask you if you want it
to filter mail you previously downloaded. Click Yes and it will take care
of your spam from then on.
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By using the Block button to delete your messages, you not only rid yourself of
the junk in your inbox, but you help improve the accuracy of the filters for everyone
who uses the service. The program even thanks you for your contribution to the
accuracy of the system as a whole (although after you’ve done it a few times, you
may just want to fill in the Don’t Show Me This Again check box in the “thank
you” dialog shown in Figure 9-7).
CHAPTER 9: Fight the Junk E-Mail Plague
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9

e-mail from getting filtered accidentally.
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CHAPTER 9: Fight the Junk E-Mail Plague
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9
The iHateSpam application has some unique features that set it apart from
SpamNet. For one, you can configure the program to assume that mail written in
the character sets of foreign languages (these look like strings of gibberish text
and odd symbols, unless your PC’s set up to display them in their correct form)
comes from spammers, and block those messages automatically. The program
can also filter messages from folders of older mail already on your hard drive.
iHateSpam also works with a wider range of mail reader programs than SpamNet:
it can sort spam from the Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, and IncrediMail clients,
and from accounts on MSN’s free Hotmail Web mail service (see Figure 9-9).
Download and Install iHateSpam
You can pick up a copy of iHateSpam from their Web site ( />42918) and try it free for 30 days. The software comes as a single installation file
that loads whatever plug-ins it needs into any of its supported clients and sets up
the System Tray application. The program automatically scans the address books
of any mail programs it supports and adds e-mail addresses from the Address
Book (and from messages in the “Sent Mail” folder) to your whitelist.
FIGURE 9-9
Unlike many spam filtering tools, iHateSpam can filter the junk mail from
MSN Hotmail, a Web-based e-mail service.
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After you install iHateSpam, you’ll step through a series of dialog boxes (as
shown in Figure 9-10) asking you about which accounts you want to protect, and
the particular spam filter settings you want to enable for each account. iHateSpam
will check all the boxes by default; you can comfortably leave them checked as
you click Next through them. When it’s done, iHateSpam will download the latest
spam filtering rules from the Web, but you’ll need to reboot your computer in order

FIGURE 9-11
iHateSpam’s Spam Quarantine gives you enough information to figure
out whether the program filtered out a legitimate message as spam.
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How to Do Everything with Windows XP Home Networking
Spam! buttons let the program know when it’s accidentally filtered a message you
want to keep, or when it’s let a spam message through to your inbox. (The latter
button deletes the spam message[s] you’ve highlighted while triggering the program
to update the Community Network about your decision.)
One of our favorite features of iHateSpam is its ability to sift through mail that
you’ve already downloaded and take the junk out (see Figure 9-13). In Outlook or
Outlook Express, click the iHateSpam menu, select Clean, and then select Clean
An Outlook Folder. Leave the radio buttons in their default positions on the Read/
Unread Mail option, and choose the All option for the date range. The program
will then go through the mail and dump any spam you may have previously
downloaded.
As with most spam filtering applications, you’ll notice the program will
improve over time, with training about (and more experience with) your personal
e-mail preferences. As you tell it what messages you like and don’t like, it will get
better at making educated guesses about spam remarkably quickly.
FIGURE 9-12
When you first load iHateSpam, the program scans through your sent
mail to create a “whitelist” of senders that will automatically pass
through the spam filter.
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