Tips, tricks, tools, and techniques for Microsoft Office

Getting rid of spam -- unsolicited e-mail messages that may contain advertising, get-rich-quick schemes, or even pornographic material -- can be a challenge. (Our apologies to the Hormel Company, who make a luncheon meat product of the same name.) Spam is the electronic equivalent of the junk mail you receive in your U.S. Postal Service mailbox except that there are a lot more regulations controlling what can and cannot be sent through the federal mail system.

One of the biggest problems with spam is the shear volume of it that clutters up the Internet. The cost per message for Spam is far less than the USPS’ bulk mailing rate of 19 cents per piece. In fact, I recently read that a bulk e-mailer can buy a list of 150 million addresses for under $100! According to most estimates, as much as 90% of all e-mail transmitted over the Internet is spam. This means that ISPs (Internet Service Providers) are forced to install and maintain mail servers with roughly ten times more capacity than would be necessary if there was no spam. It also means that the typical e-mail user must scan dozens of messages each day to find the few that are legitimate, increasing the risk of accidentally deleting a valid message.

While anti-spam laws are in the works at both the state and federal levels that may eventually reduce the overall volume of spam, there are some things you can do today to reduce the amount of spam that finds its way your inbox.

Spammers obtain e-mail addresses from many sources, and one of those sources is often the recipient. Using software tools similar to Web crawlers, spammers examine Web pages searching for text strings that look like e-mail addresses. That “free” Web site you created to share pictures of your last vacation or your new baby probably has your e-mail address on it, right? And what about the news article you felt compelled to share with 10 close friends? Not only did you broadcast your own address, but you may have also unwittingly added your friends to a mailing list as well. If you want your e-mail address to be a secret, be careful with whom you share it.

When you do receive a spam message, never, ever respond to it in any way. Spammers sometimes use software programs to create random e-mail addresses. As soon as you click the Opt Out link, your address gets moved from the “unverified” list to the “verified” list and will almost certainly be sold to other spammers. Opting out will probably get you more spam, not less.

Until spam can be stopped at the source, the best way to lighten the load on your inbox is to install an e-mail filtering or blocking program such as SpamButcher (http://www.spambutcher.com) on your PC.

SpamButcher directly accesses your POP3 e–mail account and analyzes messages before they are transferred from the server to your PC. Rich Olson, who’s job title is Chief Butcher, says his product uses "fuzzy logic" to analyze a large number of data points associated with each message and determine whether the message is legitimate or not. Legitimate messages are left on the mail server, for retrieval by your mail client.

Spam messages are downloaded by SpamButcher and stored in a special quarantine folder so they never find their way to your inbox. A periodic review of SpamButcher’s Intercepted Spam dialog box (see screenshot at right) gives you the opportunity to recover any misdiagnosed e-mail and add the sender to your list of Known Good Senders. SpamButcher also includes a feature to optionally send an e-mail report of all intercepted messages to you on a regularly scheduled basis.

I consider myself a moderate e-mail user and I receive about 150 spam messages a day. Consequently, I have evaluated several anti-spam programs in recent months. Unlike some of the others I have tested, SpamButcher operates completely independent of my e-mail client and I consider this a real plus. I prefer not to use products that modify another vendor’s software, especially an e-mail client that is routinely updated by security patches.

I have tested SpamButcher with both Outlook Express 6 and Outlook 2000 and I have found it to be the most accurate filter so far. It very rarely allows a spam message into my inbox and I have found only a few cases where it blocked a legitimate message. I’m not saying that my search for the ultimate “spam killer” is over, but until something better comes along, SpamButcher is on duty protecting my inbox from would-be evildoers.

A free 30-day trial version of SpamButcher is available for download on the company’s Web site (http://www.spambutcher.com/). The product can also be purchased at the same location for $29.95.

-- Dick Archer

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