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Spam, spam...good for your heart, the more you eat the more
you...
Wait, that's for beans. Spam isn't good for anything, except
bogging down the internet bandwidth and e-mail boxes. So what should we do about
it? How can we lead a spam-free Internet life? This tutorial will be the tool
used to banish spam to the furthest reaches of the digital universe, and maybe
we'll get some spammers along the way.
Now let's answer the age old question, WHAT
IS SPAM?
- Is it something that we are powerless against? NO!
- Is it the new wave in marketing? NO!
- Is it the only pink meat on earth? [Bad question]
Spam is e-mail that you have not requested from someone,
Whether it is from a company or an individual. Regardless of
whether the message is to warn you about some new virus that can step out of
your hard drive and run around on your floor, or that you have won a new car, or
how to enlarge a body part, if you haven't asked for it, it is spam.
Let's keep in mind that when signing up for some services at different sites,
there may be an option or condition about
receiving continuing literature about other product or product updates. If you
do not uncheck this option or if it is a
condition, then this isn't spam. Fortunately, once the e-mails start, there is
usually an unsubscribe mechanism, but beware
of unsubscribing. We'll discuss unsubscribing in more detail below.
Keep in mind that there are those spammers that try to "cloak" who
they are in the sender field of your mail. Sometimes you may get an e-mail from
"postmaster" or "admin". Just trash them. Even more
malicious then a spammer cloaking their senders name, are viruses that
self-replicate. These viruses "hijack" the victim's e-mail
distribution list and send themselves to the people on the list. This means that
if your friend is infected with this type of virus, you will get an e-mail from
them that contains the virus ready to infect you. In order to protect yourself
from these types of attacks, always confirm that the sender included an
attachment and verify its contents. If your friend ever replies with an "I
don't know," then ask them to tell you what the attachment contains, and if
they cannot, then delete the e-mail. It is better to be safe than sorry.
So to sum it all up in a sentence, if you didn't ask for it, then it is spam.
Now. let's kick spam to the curb.
Filters are our friends
A Filter can be used on two-levels:
- Word - Filtering on a word or phrase allows you to control
which e-mails make it to your inbox based on content. For instance, if
you're tired of getting e-mails about increasing your sales, you can filter
"increase sales" and all e-mails that contain this phrase can be
automatically deleted.
- Internet Address - Filtering on an e-mail address restricts
all correspondence from a particular address. This means that the spammer is
out of luck regardless of the content.
Oooo...you wrote a bad word!
Every e-mail client, whether it is Outlook, Outlook Express, AOL Mail, Netscape
Mail, Yahoo Mail (and the list goes on and
on) has a mechanism that will allow you to filter out e-mails based on words in
the message. The most common filtered words are:
000 per day
000 per month
000 per week
Act now
affiliate program
all rights reserved
An invitation to
any future mailing
Bad credit
Bankruptcy
be a millionaire
big money
Broadcast E-mail
Burn fat
Call now
Cash back
Chain letter
claim your
click this link
Consolidate today
Credit approval
Credit counseling
Debt consolidation
Doctor approved pill
E-mail marketing
Equity line of credit
follow the link
For only $
free sample
Free to the first
Full refund
get a free
Get rich
Hair loss
Herbal remedies
home based business
home business
Home equity
if you wish to be removed
Increase sales
Largest payoff
Liens
life insurance
limited time offer
Look younger
Loosest slots
Lose 10 pounds
Lowest mortgage interest rates
mailing list
mailinglist
Major credit cards
make money
Mlm
Money problems
No more debt
no obligation
No obligation
Non secured
not mlm
Not mlm
Not multilevel
Not multi-level
offer only available
Online casino
opt out
opt-out
optout
Order by fax
Order by phone
Order now
Order within
Over weight
please read the following
Rate quote
Rates slashed
referring url
remo ve in the subject line
remove in the subject line
REMOVE in the subject line
remove me
remove yourself
removed from future mailing
Removed in subject line
reply to this message
reply with
retirement business
Second mortgage
sign up today
Single deck black jack
Stop balding
stop future mailing
Student loans
subscribe
subscription
This E-mail complies
this is not spam
to be removed
To be removed
trial offer
Try it for free
unsubscribe
Vacation giveaway
very low-cost
Viagra
Video poker
web cam
webcam
Why wait
write in subject line
write remove in the subject line
you win
you won
You’re already approved
* I've left out the words
used in "Adult" e-mails. Whether you use these words in conversation
is not the point, you should
probably filter them out or else you will continue to get these e-mails.
This list is compiled from a couple of other lists, but definitely covers the
gamut of spam e-mail terms. Always redirect
your spam to a specific folder for a month or so before permanently deleting
them as they arrive, because there might some mail that gets filtered that you
actually may want to read.
I do not use a list of words, but actually I only filter on one word, which is
pretty effective for me. This word is so
powerful that it filters all the spam I receive. It even filters e-mail I want
to keep, so I use another filter in special
cases to avoid removing legitimate e-mails. I know what you're thinking, what's
the word? The word is, drum roll please, "unsubscribe."
This is just my guesstimate, but 80-90% of spam have the word
unsubscribe in it. The Netizens
Protection Act of 1999, requires spammers to include instructions to opt-out
of the e-mail. The word used to describe opting-out is unsubscribe.
Let's block the "976" numbers of electronic
mail.
Filtering spam based on the actual e-mail address of the sender is effective to
a degree, but not in whole since spammers have a myriad of email addresses at
their disposal. However, if you filter off at the domain name level it will
prevent any email from that domain from getting through to your inbox. Just like
the word list above, there is a list of spammers e-mail addresses and domains
that can be downloaded and integrated into your e-mail client. The list that I
use is at GazNet.
Please go there to download the list and the instructions for use. If you can,
leave a donation for the work being done at GazNet.
Unfortunately the instructions are only for Outlook users. This doesn't mean
that the list can't be used in the other e-mail clients, but it would have to be
typed in, which is about 35,000 entries. Eudora users can create or append to their filters.pce file but it
would still require converting the files to Eudora filter files. If I ever
find the time to do this conversion, I will.
Wonder twin powers activate!
If you have set up a word filter based off the word "unsubscribe" and
have redirected it to a folder, then you can also you can now add the domains of
those emails and their emails to your address filter list if it isn't already
part of the list. why do this? Filtering emails based on words isn't very
accurate since you could be receiving legitimate emails that contain one
of the words. Let's say you won a sweepstakes online, and the signature of the
e-mails have the word "unsubscribe" or some
other word that is being filtered. Well, you will lose that e-mail. By filtering
based off of a domain or e-mail address you can target spammers more accurately.
Here are instructions on creating word and address filters.
Outlook
Netscape
Eudora
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