Spam, Spam, Spam and More Spam
Customer: What have you got, then?
Waitress: Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg, bacon and spam; egg, bacon, sausage and spam; spam, bacon, sausage and spam; spam, egg, spam, spam, bacon and spam; spam, spam, spam, egg and spam; spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam, spam, spam and spam; or Lobster thermidor aux crevettes with a mornay sauce garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam." - Monty Pythons Flying Circus, 1970
Don't think you are going to get rid of spam entirely. In my humble opinion, that wont happen. But you can reduce the amount of spam you get. Do two things. One, if you have a ucdavis.edu email account, make sure you take advantage of the campus spam filtering program Spam Assassin. Two, the newer versions of Eudora, Outlook, and Netscape Mail have their own spam filters. Use these in addition to the campus filter.
Use the UC Davis Spam Assassin
Spam filtering software on the campus email servers conducts tests on all the email that passes through to identify and tag suspected spam. Everyone receiving email via one of the central campus email servers is automatically enrolled in the UC Davis spam filtering service. You can view and change your spam filtering settings at any time. The resources below are available to help you decide which settings are best for you, enable you to view and/or change your settings and take advantage of other spam filtering features provided by UC Davis and/or your email program.
Learn More About Spam, Spam Filtering and Settings
Campus Spam Tagging and Filtering
View/Change Spam Filtering Services
View/Change spam filtering settings now
You will be prompted to enter your UC Davis email login and kerberos password before you can continue. Once authenticated, you can adjust your settings as you see fit. If you seem to be getting a lot of spam, a more aggressive approach might be helpful. However it is important to realize that the more aggressive the approach, the greater the possibility of legitimate email being targeted and deleted as spam.
Using Junk Mail/SpamWatch in Eudora
Eudora 6.0 or higher for Windows and Macintosh have a Junk Mail feature built in.
Spammers continually try to get around any spam-block, so Eudoras Junk Mail has the capacity to learn, they call it SpamWatch. Basically its learning is based on words found in the emails. To train Spamwatch, use the Junk and Not Junk commands.
If a message comes to your Inbox that is really spam, highlight the message, then select Junk from the Message pull-down menu (you can also right click on the message and select Junk from the menu that appears). The message will be transferred into the Junk mailbox.
Similarly, if you have a message in your Junk mailbox that is not Junk, highlight the message, then use the Not Junk command. The message will be transferred out of the Junk mailbox.
It is also important to go to the Tools menu/Options/Junk Mail category (on the Mac it is Special menu/Settings/Junk Mail category). Move the threshold to about 50. The lower the number the more email gets filtered to the junk mailbox. Check "Mail isn't junk if sender is in address book." This way mail you receive from somone in your address book will never be considered junk.
More information can be found on Qualcomm's online help:
http://www.eudora.com/techsupport/tutorials/spamwatch.html
Using Outlook to filter spam
One of the biggest benefits of using Outlook is the ability to use the SpamBayes plugin. SpamBayes is a powerful spam filter. I am one of those lucky people who get lots of spam, and by that I mean up to 100 pieces of spam a day. With SpamBayes running, only two or three of those end up in my Inbox each day. SpamBayes learns what your idea of spam is by building rules based on what you call spam and what you call ham ("ham" is good mail). To prepare for using SpamBayes you might want to save your spam for a few days to jumpstart the training process.
Now, let's go get SpamBayes. Click on the "download the installation program" link on this page to get the installer:
http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/windows.html
On the download page, click on the file icon for a server in North America to download the file. Click Run in the Download Complete dialog box or save the file to your desktop. Double-click on the SpamBayes installer if necessary. If you get a security warning about the publisher not being verified, go ahead and run it anyway. Click Next, make certain that the Microsoft Outlook Addin is selected and click Next, click Next, click Next, click Install, lastly click Finish. The Welcome file is very informative, so you might want to read it, but I have condensed much of that information in the next section.
Training SpamBayes
The first time you open Outlook after installing SpamBayes you will see the SpamBayes Configuration Wizard. If you took my earlier advice and put a couple of days' worth of spam in your Junk Email folder, you can choose the second option in the list; otherwise, just use the default and click Next. If you haven't saved any spam in the Junk Email folder, the second screen gives you the option to get out of the Wizard and do that so you can run the wizard later on or just continue without training SpamBayes. If you did not save any spam ahead of time and you decide to delay the training, you can restart the wizard by clicking on the SpamBayes button in your toolbar, selecting SpamBayes Manager, and then clicking the Configuration Wizard button after you have stored up some spam. If you did prepare, the second screen lets you pick some folders that have good mail (ham), i.e., your Inbox, and some folders that have bad mail (spam), i.e., your Junk Email folder, to base the training on. After you choose those folders, SpamBayes trains itself using the folders you have picked. The next few screens are best left with the default settings, so just keep clicking Next until you see Finish.
SpamBayes Settings
Now that you have SpamBayes installed and it has some initial training, here are some other settings that will help it run smoother. To access these settings, click on SpamBayes in your toolbar and select SpamBayes Manager. Click the Advanced tab and slide both sliders all the way left so the time on the right says 0.0 seconds. This will let SpamBayes filter your messages right away rather than waiting for awhile between messages. Click the Filtering tab and check the Mark Spam as Read option to keep the messages from being tagged as unread in your Junk Email folder. This keeps Outlook from showing how many messages are in the Junk Email folder in the folder list on the left column -- the blue number in parentheses, i.e., (253). It also will keep the spam out of your Unread Mail folder.
Look in your Junk Suspects folder frequently. Move ham to your Inbox either by dragging it or by clicking Recover from Spam in the toolbar. Move spam to your Junk Email folder by dragging it there or clicking Delete as Spam in the toolbar. If you do this, SpamBayes will constantly refine its rule set and get better and better at filtering spam out of your Inbox.
Netscape Mail's Junk Mail
In version 7.1 Netscape introduced its junk mail controls. Netscape Mail automatically detects incoming messages that appear to be junk mail (also known as spam). Junk mail detection is turned on by default for all accounts.
When Mail detects a message that appears to be junk mail, it marks the message's Junk Status column with a junk mail icon. By default, the Junk Status column is located to the right of the Subject column, but you can relocate it by dragging it to a new location.
Like Eudora and Outlook, Netscape Mail needs to learn what you consider junk. Train Mail to identify what is junk by clicking in the message's Junk Status column so that the junk icon appears. Conversely, for a message incorrectly marked as junk, click the message's junk icon to remove it and mark the message as not junk. If you're reading a message that's not junk, click the Not Junk button in the message's header (to the right of the recipients). Over time, Mail becomes smarter at identifying the types of messages you consider to be junk.
The next thing you need to do is go to the Tools Menu and select Junk Mail Controls. Like Eudora, this allows you to exlude mail from being considered junk if it is from people in your address book. It is also here that you you tell the program to send the mail to the junk mailbox automatically.
To find out more look under Controlling Junk Mail in the Help menu in Netscape under Help and Support.
More on filters
You can always set up your own email filters. You can filter for specific words in the headers or in the body of the message and have the messages sent to any mailbox you would like. For example you can filter on words related to sexual performance, pharmacies, mortgages, body part enlargement. I'm trying not to be vulgar here, but you get the idea.
In Eudora go to the Tools menu/Filters (on the Mac it is Special menu/Settings/Filters). Select New. Check Match incoming. For the Header, select Any Header. In the box next to Contains, fill in the word you want to filter, such as Valium. Under Action, select Transfer To. Then click on the box next to Transfer To and select the mailbox where you want it sent, for example the Junk mailbox. Close the filter dialog box and say yes when it asks if you want to save the filter.
In Outlook and Outlook Express you define rules. In Outlook 2002 use the Rules Wizard in the Tool menu. In Outlook Express, depending on the version, use Message Rules for mail or else Inbox Assistant in the Tools menu.
In Netscape Mail use Message Filters in the Tools menu.
Customer: Have you got anything without spam in it?
Waitress: Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
If you have any questions or feedback, please see our Avoiding Spam Feedback form.