I had two requests for columns this week: One on how to make your own web page, and the second on how to fight spam. Since the first will take a bit more research on the latest software, I will do the spam topic this week and the web page column as soon as I can.
Spam is very simply junk e-mail. We all get it. You can't be an Internet user today and NOT get it. Spam is here to stay. All you can do is to minimize the flow - you will never be able to get rid of it completely. Disappointed? Get over it! Spam happens!
First of all, how do we get spam? How do they know our e-mail ID? Who are they? The simple answer is that you give it away to anybody and everybody. We all do. We give it away when we enter our e-mail ID at any web page. We give it away when we use Internet newsgroups. There are even less-than-scrupulous ISPs (Internet Service Providers) who sell lists for profit.
One technique that some people use to get around this is to have more than one e-mail Id. To keep the spam from actually coming to your computer, get a second ID at an online service such as Yahoo. Only give out your regular ID to trusted friends. Any time you have to enter an e-mail at a webpage, put the alternate one there instead.
The only problem with this approach is that you can't entirely ignore the messages to the alternate e-mail ID. There may be some important information (perhaps the status of your order from a vendor). So, you still end up looking at the alternate ID anyhow. I don't think this approach is fully effective.
The best thing you can do is to filter the spam out. This means using filtering facilities in your e-mail program to automatically delete the spam, or at least move it someplace other than your normal inbox.
Outlook express has such a spam filter system. To set it up, you first select Tools and then Message Rules, then Mail. Click New to start a new rule. You will now see a window where you can specify one or more Conditions, and then one or more Actions. Look at the lists to see what options are available. One of the more popular conditions is to look for specific words (like Sex, or Million) in the e-mail Subject. In the Conditions, you can specify what to do when the Condition occurs, such as Delete the file or more it to another folder.
What happens is this: Whenever you receive e-mail, it is automatically examined to see if any of the conditions occurs. If so, the action is taken.
Some notes: You can have as many Conditions as you wish. Some Conditions require you to specify some data - click on the appropriate area in the Description to do that. You will almost always specify the "Stop processing further rules" option, as you will usually have only one action to be taken when a condition occurs, and you don't want to process any further rules after that.
Start building up rules to filter spam e-mail that you get. After a while, you will build up a list of effective filters. You can also make developing a new rule easier by going to Message / Create Rule From Message for a specific e-mail that you receive.
In my case, I go a step further. The e-mail program that I use (Microsoft Outlook) has additional filtering capabilities that Outlook Express does not have. You can specify Exceptions to rules. This allow me to, for example, filter all e-mail coming from notorious spam domains, such as juno.com, unless it is from a specific person that I know.
But, as I said, spam is here to stay. I think any effort to regular spam is doomed to failure, in the same way that you still get lots of unwanted phone solicitations. If you tell a phone solicitor to remove you from their calling list, they (theoretically) must comply. But they just reorganize tomorrow as a different company and they are back in business. The same is true of spam.
(Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport / Oak Island area. You can visit his website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail him at bsc@bobseidel.com).