With the advent of low cost messaging through the Internet, many eMail users are plagued with a daily dose of unsolicited eMail that dwarfs their legitimate eMail. In many cases, important messages are lost amongst the ever increasing volume of the undesirable messages that can fill a mailbox. Such mail is labelled as "Spam" or "Junk" mail by the media.
Despite the best efforts of the industry and the legislation in place that is designed to prevent such abuse, the "Spammers" continue to find new and innovative methods to circumvent many of the controls that are in place.
The problem is further complicated by the fact that different recipients desire different types of eMail content and use different criteria to differentiate between the "Spam" or "Junk" messages and their legitimate eMail messages.
Whilst no software or system can eliminate the "Spam" eMail for various reasons, there are steps that can be taken to reduce the inconvenience.
We have installed Spam identifying technology which attempts to tag each message based on its likelihood of being "Spam". The tagging is performed inside the message headers so it is not normally visible in the message portion. Your eMail software can then be programmed to identify the tags in these normally invisible headers using standard "eMail message rules" that are built into most eMail software including MS Outlook Express, MS Entourage, and Apple Mail, to name a few. Your software can then handle the "Spam" as you prefer, perhaps moving them down the list as low priority or putting them in a different folder for later reading?
Since "spam" identification relies on "fuzzy logic" and statistical algorithms, it is not an exact science. The system is typically 95&37; accurate which means that out of 100 messages, 95 will be correctly identified as "spam" if it really is spam, or "not spam" if it is not spam. The other five messages on average are wrongly identified, meaning real messages could be potentially wrongly tagged as spam, and spam messages could be potentially wrongly tagged as real messages. Because it is not an exact science, blindly deleting such messages could mean losing a few good messages out of every hundred, hence we do not delete them at the server level.
If you are interested in this feature, you simply need to configure your eMail software as follows:
|
| 1. | For messages which are "Almost Certainly Spam", scan for header "X-Spam-Flag" containing "YES".
|
| 2. | For messages which are "Very Likely To Be Spam", scan for header "X-Spam-Level" containing "*". Increase sensitivity by increasing number of "*" from 1 to 5 maximum. Normal messages will have no "*" tagged. The messages which are "Almost Certainly Spam" will be "*****" being 5 asterisks as the maximum.
|
We still continue to block mail from known "Spam" distributors which can be approximately 120 messages per account per day on average.
Whilst tagging the messages, any message containing a known virus is normally deleted before it reaches your mailbox. However, you should remain vigilant since some viruses are notoriously clever at hiding themselves from virus scanning software - better to be safe than sorry! The virus definitions are normally updated daily.
|
Configuring Apple Mail (MacOS X) software:
|
| 1. | Select the Preferences item under the Apple Menu.
|
| 2. | Select the Rules option as shown in the screen image below:
|
| 3. | Press the Add Rule button. You will be presented with a dialog box to enter details about the new Rule. The selection criteria PopUp menu has an item called Edit Header List which must be selected first. This will cause a small Panel to open:
|
| 4. | In the box marked Header please enter the text X-Spam-Flag and then press the Add Header button as shown in the screen image above.
|
| 5. | Similarly, enter the text X-Spam-Level in the Header box and again press the Add Header button.
|
| 6. | Thereafter, press the OK button to dismiss the Panel and return to the Rules dialog box.
|
| 7. | In the Rules dialog box, give the rule a description such as SpamJunkYes as an example. This rule will be used to act upon messages that are almost certainly "Spam" or "Junk" mail.
|
| 8. | As shown in the screen image below, set the criteria to check the X-Spam-Flag header that Contains the text YES as the trigger and keep Any for the choice of conditions to trigger the action selected:
|
| 9. | Then choose your preferred action. For example, you may wish to mark the message as Flagged, or perhaps move it into a different folder? As soon as you have entered your choice, please press the OK button to save this Message Rule.
|
| 10. | You will be back at the Preferences window. Again select the Rules option and again press the Add Rule button.
|
| 11. | In the Rules dialog box, give this rule a description such as SpamJunkRisk as an example. This rule will be used to act upon messages that are possibly "Spam" or "Junk" mail.
|
| 12. | Again, set the criteria to check the X-Spam-Level header that Contains the text * (single asterisk) as the trigger, and keep Any for the choice of conditions to trigger the action selected:
|
| 13. | Again, you would choose your preferred action such as marking the message as Flagged or moving it into another folder? As soon as you have entered your choice, please press the OK button to save this Message Rule.
|
| 14. | Close the Preferences window to resume your normal use of the software.
|
Configuring MS-OutlookExpress (MacOS 9) or MS-Entourage (MacOS X) software:
|
| 1. | The screen images have been taken from the MacOS X version of MS-Entourage but are very similar in the MacOS 9 versions of MS-Entourage or MS-OutlookExpress.
|
| 2. | Select the Rules item under the Tools Menu. You will be presented with a dialog box similar to the one shown below, although the items listed will vary:
|
| 3. | Select the Mail (POP) item and then press the New button. You will be presented with the Edit Rule dialog box. Name the Rule with SpamJunkYes as an example. This rule will be used to act upon messages that are almost certainly "Spam" or "Junk" mail. Set the criteria to be Specific Header and enter X-Spam-Flag as the text. Select Contains as the operator and then enter YES as the text. Enter your chosen preferred action. For example, you may wish to mark the message as Junk, or perhaps move it into a different folder? As soon as you have entered your choice, please press the OK button to save this Message Rule:
|
| 4. | You will be back at the Rules window. Again select the Mail (POP) item and then press the New button. You will be presented with the Edit Rule dialog box again.
|
| 5. | Name the Rule with SpamJunkRisk as an example. This rule will be used to act upon messages that are possibly "Spam" or "Junk" mail. Set the criteria to be Specific Header and enter X-Spam-Level as the text. Select Contains as the operator and then enter * (a single asterisk) as the text. Enter your chosen preferred action. For example, you may wish to move it into a different folder? As soon as you have entered your choice, please press the OK button to save this Message Rule:
|
| 6. | Close the Rules window to resume your normal use of the software.
|
Configuring Mozilla Thunderbird software:
|
| 1. | The screen images have been taken from the MacOS X version of Mozilla Thunderbird but are very similar to versions designed for other platforms.
|
| 2. | Select the Message Filters item under the Tools Menu. You will be presented with a dialog box similar to the one shown below. Press the New button and select Customise from the criteria PopUp menu which will cause a small panel with New Message Header to open as shown below:
|
| 3. | Enter a new header called X-Spam-Flag and then press the Add button. Enter another header called X-Spam-Level and again press the Add button. Thereafter, press the OK button to dismiss the Panel and return to the Filters dialog box.
|
| 4. | In the Message Filters dialog box, give the filter a description such as SpamJunkYes as an example. This filter will be used to act upon messages that are almost certainly "Spam" or "Junk" mail.
|
| 5. | As shown in the screen image below, set the criteria to check the X-Spam-Flag header that Contains the text YES as the trigger and keep Match Any Of The Following for the choice of conditions to trigger the action selected:
|
| 6. | Then choose your preferred action. For example, you may wish to mark the message as Flagged, or perhaps move it into a different folder? As soon as you have entered your choice, please press the OK button to save this Message Filter.
|
| 7. | You will be back at the Message Filters window. Press the New button and you will be presented with the Message Filters dialog box again.
|
| 8. | Name the Filter with SpamJunkRisk as an example. This filter will be used to act upon messages that are possibly "Spam" or "Junk" mail.
|
| 9. | Set the criteria to check the X-Spam-Level header that Contains the text * (single asterisk) as the trigger and keep Match Any Of The Following for the choice of conditions to trigger the action selected:
|
| 10. | Again, you would choose your preferred action such as marking the message as Flagged or moving it into another folder? As soon as you have entered your choice, please press the OK button to save this Message Filter.
|
| 11. | Press the Close button at the top left of the Message Filters window to resume your normal use of the software.
|
