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5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
S. Kumar (LHB)
on
December 19, 2003
View comments about this article!
(Editor's note: I decided to go ahead and run this article even though it is not "ham radio related" since anyone reading this obviously is active on the Internet and therefore has an e-mail account. Anyone who has an e-mail account will inevitably receive spam. So it is intended to help out fellow Hams, or at least give them a start in combating spam, as it is a widespread problem that affects all of us.)
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5
Zero- Cost Spam Prevention Tools For All Situations!
By S. Kumar, Learnhomebusiness.com
Anyone who uses email knows what Spam is!
It's annoying and time consuming to wade through volumes
of fraud, con and obscene emails to filter out the really
important ones. And I am sure you are affected by this
menace in some form or other.
How do we reduce this intolerable amounts of junk?
Here are 5 Zero-Cost tools to prevent junk cluttering your
mail box. (You can access them all from a single source
and the info is given at the end of this article.)
_________________________
For the Average Email User
1. Spam.N-Dream, - For the POP3 Mail user.
By far this is the easiest and effective solution for
anyone
with a POP3 email ID. For e.g. you@aol.com.
Spam.n-dream.com is a web based service that retrieves all
your email for you and sends you only the emails from
email ID's that are pre-authenticated by you. This means,
no one can send you an email unless you give prior
permission.
This service is very effective - let me tell you that.
2. SpamPal, - The Desktop Solution
SpamPal is a program that sits between your email client
and your mailbox, checking your email as you retrieve it.
Any email messages that SpamPal considers to be junk will
be "tagged" with a special header; you simply
configure your email client to filter anything with this
header into a separate folder and your Spam won't be mixed
up with the rest of your email anymore!
____________________
For the Website Owner
Posting your email address on your website is a sure way
to
attract junk. (e.g. support@yoursite.com)
In case you are not aware, there exists special software's
that harvest anything with an @ in between. This means,
your posted emails are sitting ducks for an avalanche of
junk.
1. Enkoder Form 6.0, - A Simple Solution for the
Webmaster
One way to protect yourself is to "encode" your
address, The Enkoder Form will encrypt your Email address
and convert it to a JavaScript, hiding it from Email
harvesting robots which crawl the web for exposed
addresses.
Simply copy this JavaScript and paste it into your Web
page where you want the email to appear.
2. Master SpamBot Buster, - A Thorough CGI Solution
Master Spambot Buster stops robots harvesting email
addresses from your web pages. But the script does more
than that! It completely stops harvesting your email
address from:
-Newsletters, -Newsgroup postings, -Discussion list
postings,
-Instant messages, -Print ads, -Or any other document
Instead of publishing your email address, you use the
Master Spambot Buster method so that your email address is
protected from everywhere and from all documents.
This is a great software released by willmaster.com
3. NATATA Anti-Spam Encoder, - Desktop Solution
This program searches for email addresses either from all
your web pages or a single page and encodes them all in
minutes automatically. Its pure HTML encoding and no Java
used.
You do not have to be technically savvy to use this one as
it automatically inserts the codes into your web pages. In
2
minutes you can entirely encrypt all your web pages.
This is by far, the best software that I came across
You may access all the 5 tools given above from here:
http://www.learnhomebusiness.com/bonuses/spamtools.htm
I hope, these resources will help you to reduce the junk
clogging your mail box.
****************************************
Copyright 2003: S. Kumar,
http://www.learnhomebusiness.com
Author of eBook:"Become A Global Homebusiness Pro..."
Direct Download Here At Zero Cost-
http://www.learnhomebusiness.com/HomeBiz.htm
*****************************************
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5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by OLDFART13 on November 28, 2003
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Excess spam is one of the reasons that I have stopped useing my ARRL email address. That is when all the spam started. I will try some of the sugestions you made in your article. TU
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RE: 5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by KC9ETP on December 19, 2003
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If fact this whole story is SPAM, It's just a way to drive traffic to the authors site.
A quick google search and I found this story posted on 250 other sites!
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RE: 5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by KE4MOB on December 19, 2003
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I wouldn't touch this guy's site with a 10 foot pole!! If you go to his site and download those "freebies" I'd bet a dollar to a donut you also get some backdoor "spyware" to provide HIM with all sorts of good information on YOUR web habits.
Before you EVER download any Spam busters or popup blockers MAKE SURE THE SITE IS REPUTABLE AND THE PROGRAMS ARE LEGIT. Else your computer may be "phoning home" and telling someone else everything you do.
Steve, KE4MOB
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5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by N4UJF on December 19, 2003
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I don't know why but I was just thinking about the friendly little pick-pocket guy in the beginning of the movie "Casablanca".
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5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by OBSERVER11 on December 19, 2003
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Outlook offers a pretty decent anti-spam feature -- FILTERS!
Spam me once, you will never spam me again.
Filter on all freeservers, all .br, .kr, yahoo.co, and just delete email from these countries since 99.7% will be spam. I filter out the entire 200.xxx.xxx.xxx root domain. Since I have done this, my spam has gone from over 400 spams per day to 10. I can handle 10.
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5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by KE4ZHN on December 19, 2003
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No thanks.... Anyone with half a braincell can set up their email program to handle spam, no need for trojan horse crap like this.
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RE: 5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by N8AUC on December 19, 2003
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Kumar's call sign.....probably something like UR1LID.
I think the rest of you have hit this nail squarely on the head.
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5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by NS1Z on December 19, 2003
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What I found successful was setting up mailboxes/folders for mail I expect. Mail is sorted upon arrival and unwanted mail hits the inbox. I only look at the inbox after I have read the "real" mail, and then only the headers. After that I confirm my delete key is still working... 8-)
Isn't there a case pending currently dealing with a spammer trying to sell "pop-up" ad blockers via a pop-up ad? The US government is involved in that one...
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5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by LNXAUTHOR on December 19, 2003
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- hmmm... commercial anti-SPAM software and services? i don't think so!
- i use Spamassassin and 'whitelisting'...
- Do NOT pay for anti-SPAM software! there are much better free alternatives...
- if your ISP offers a Web-based interface to your email account, you can set your own filtering (such as deleting all email from Korea, Germany, China, Russia, or in the case of our fellow hams overseas, from the U.S.)... i've had one email account since 1994, and was getting up to 6MB (several hundred) SPAM messages per day... now? ZERO, zilch, nada... you can also set up a "Friends and Family" list, in which ONLY approved senders get through...
- SPAM is awful, and exploits open protocols... NY state is in the process of prosecuting an individual for being a SPAM'r... this single person is responsible for much of the SPAM being sent in the U.S., and is one of the top three SPAM'rs in the world...
- here's the list of the top 10 miscreants:
Alan Ralsky - Michigan
Damon DeCrescenzo - Docdrugs - Florida
Scott Richter - Saverealbig.com - NY
Chris Smith / rizler.com - Minnesota
Eddy Marin - Oneroute - Florida
Thomas Cowles - Empire Towers - Ohio
Eric Reinertsen - Florida
Gaven Stubberfield - North Carolina
Juan Garavaglia aka Super-Zonda - Argentina
Webfinity/Dynamic Pipe - Canada
- these individuals and entities are responsible for nearly ALL the SPAM you get... in many cases, false names are used to register service for ISPs, shell companies are used to obfuscate identities, and each time one conduit is 'outed,' the scumbags move onto a different account...
- every one of low-lifes has HUNDREDS of different accounts and domains... trying to track and eradicate them through account termination is nearly futile - like playing "Whack-a-Mole"...
- these people are responsible for falsifying email headers, hijacking your email account, flooding your inbox, spreading porn, offering illegal drugs to teenagers, and selling many illicit and illegal goods and services...
- they make $MILLIONS of dollars and profit from your misery... and you know why?
- because people actually respond to and buy goods from SPAM!!!
- thankfully i've set up my email so that only one or two messages get through a day...
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RE: 5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by NI0C on December 19, 2003
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These days the only spam I get is from my Internet service provider trying to give me tips on avoiding spam! Every time I look at one of these, my firewall program detects an outgoing packet, which I do not allow.
Getting rid of "alias" addresses (such as those offered by ARRL) is a good way to avoid spam.
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RE: 5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by N2WEC on December 19, 2003
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I don't understand why everybody gets all this SPAM. I use the ARRL proxy server and I do not get any of this crap and I use my computer on the Internet every day.
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RE: 5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by KC8VWM on December 19, 2003
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>>I don't understand why everybody gets all this SPAM.<<
where have you been living?
...in a "spiderhole" ?
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RE: 5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by KC8VWM on December 19, 2003
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Half of the so called "Anti Spam" software is designed to collect your email address and send it to the "mothership" for proper designation purposes.
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RE: 5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by KC8VWM on December 19, 2003
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>>>>And this is related to amateur radio how? <<<<
Well firstly spammers are known to bleed over onto 75 meter QSO's.
Secondly, spammers are slowing down the internet and interfering with my APRS network.
I agree in part to your comment, but isn't it rather odd that 99.9% of Amateurs also have PC's in their shacks?
Is this an x-files conspiracy?...
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5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by K3PZ on December 19, 2003
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I have been using Mailwasher for the last few years with good success. I have cut my spam down to almost nothing and it's also free:
www.mailwasher.net
Paul Zora
K3PZ
Port St Lucie, FL
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5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by KC9ETP on December 19, 2003
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>>>>>(Editor's note: I decided to go ahead and run this article even though it is not "ham radio related" since anyone reading this obviously is active on the Internet and therefore has an e-mail account. Anyone who has an e-mail account will inevitably receive spam. So it is intended to help out fellow Hams, or at least give them a start in combating spam, as it is a widespread problem that affects all of us.)<<<<
Anyone reading this also eats, so is it time for the eHam cookbook? ;-)
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5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by KE4DRN on December 19, 2003
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Ok, lets not shoot the Eham.net messenger !
If just a few people learn something new today then it is a good topic.
I find that what little spam I do receive is proportional to the number of posts to usenet.
I use a seperate email address that is a dead drop
so nothing gets to me that way. Once in a while I can get some spam with my callsign but what can you do ?
I also filter out a lot of the weird fonts from the subject or sender fields.
Here is some good info on stopping those nasty popup ads (not the kind on eham !) nothing to buy or sell.
http://bshagnasty.home.att.net/browsersettings.htm
73 james
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5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by K2WO on December 20, 2003
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I have been using SpamPal for a couple of months now and it works great. It is very effective and best of all it is free. I still get some spam, but this program has eliminated 90% of it and it is very easy to configure. Give it a try...I think that you will like it.
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RE: 5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by W2IRT on December 20, 2003
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If you use Eudora (PC and MAC versions), upgrade to version 6. It encompases an extremely effective anti-spam tool that uses Baysean filtering to "learn" what is and isn't spam. I use it in conjuction with Spamnix on my 8 POP-3 accounts that I check regularly and I may get a couple through the filters in a week. Easily kills thousands a day.
Eudora 6 alone is worth the price of admission for that feature on its own, actually.
73, Peter
W2IRT
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5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by KT4XF on December 20, 2003
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TNX LNXAUTROR, for daylighting the spamrs; let's all join Spitzer's militia!!!
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RE: 5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by WA4MJF on December 20, 2003
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LNXAUHTOR, you can delete Stubberfield.
He and his partner are in Wake County Jail
awaiting extradition to the Commonwealth
of Virginia for trial on many, many spam
felony charges.
Unfortunately, VA won't execute them :-(
Happy Holidaze,
Ronnie
A soreback!
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RE: 5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by NN6EE on December 20, 2003
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Dunno!!!
Usually getting "FREEWARE" to fix whatever problem invariably brings on it's own problems because of the other commercial garbage that comes IMBEDDED in it!!!
EE
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RE: 5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by KB9TYC on December 20, 2003
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All I see here is the authors attempt to sell something. It’s all a bunch of crap. The only way to cut down spam is to control everything yourself. Notice how you can put in your email address at the bottom to get even more spam.
This is some of the things I do:
1. Don’t post my email addresses anywhere on any web sites. (I hate how eham.net forces you to post your own)
2. Use SpamAssassin and Amavis on my server to cut the spam down.
3. Use custom scripts to block spam on my server using miscellaneous RBLS. (2890 blocked since December 1st)
4. Set Outlook 2003 to NOT download any images in messages.
5. Block spam harvesters from crawling or accessing my websites using mod_rewrite and htaccess.
6. Having a call@arrl.net email address is a dumb idea. (I shut mine down and that took care of a lot of spam mail)
7. Using your ISP’s email address in any way is a dumb idea. (I have never used mine. My friend is a different story though. 100’s a week for him)
I hate spam with a passion and hope spammers get locked up for a long time. I don’t see that happening like it should anytime soon. I still get about 10 spam messages a day but Outlook takes care of those. That is down from about 100 a day.
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5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by KG4YJR on December 20, 2003
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SPAM Abbreviations
The meat:
Some Parts Are Meat
Squirrels, Pigs And Monkeys
Spoiled Pork And Meat
Email:
Stupid People Asking for Money
Some People Are Morons
And as far as eHam goes:
Stop Posting Anonymous Messages
There's more but these are my favorites.
Dave
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5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by WA2JJH on December 20, 2003
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Everybody hates spam. Except the spam merchants.
Good thing that new laws make spam illegal.
However how enforceable is it? That is why we will never be spam free.
Watch out for free-ware. Some free-ware has spyware in it. Spyware harvest's personal data. Spyware also reports your browsing habits.
They say as many as 9 out of 10 PC's have spyware installed. The two biggest legit spammers that use spyware are double click and alexia. I you go to their sites, they claim what they are doing is not illegal.
Spyware penetrates firewalls and fools virus detectors. I downloaded a free spyware eliminator.
Sure enough was alexia and double click. These we some of the first few .com companies to see the exploitability of the during the boom times of internet. (when the nasdaq was 5000).
The free spyware hunter was bugged! The Free ware-spyware detector, even said use at your own risk!
If you want to get rid of spyware, buy one. Black ice and others run under $30.
I also have my firewall set to ultra high. I see all sorts of crap trying to get in.
A virus detector is a must. However a properly confiquired firewall and spyware filter will keep spam at a minimum.
True having all my security settings on max, slows down my internet browsing. However after finding out how many of my friends machines had spyware on them, I will take the slower browsing.
Someone asked what spam has to do with ham radio.
Many hams have computers in their shacks. Download a free ham radio program, and you will get targeted spam.
Spam cost the U.S. over 10 Billion dollars. Some spam has deadly payloads. Spam is like mildew. Useless and it stinks! It is the SWR of the internet.
Sorry for the rant. 73 and happy generic holiday greetings to all. MIKE
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5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by KG4YJR on December 20, 2003
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Some of the freeware with the spyware in it will tell you about it as sometimes the license agreement that 99% of us just click yes without even reading states that to use their software the tracking is part of the license terms for using the software.
Programs like "keystroke loggers" cannot be picked up by a simple virus scanner, after all, it's not a virus but a legitimate program used by employers to track employee email and Internet abuse. Others use it to find those easy to spot 16 digit credit card numbers or anything that looks like a password.
Let me add that I've never gotten a virus or bug from an email but I have gotten them from legitimate, big name software vendors by downloading programs, updates and patches from infected servers.
73
Dave
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5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by K4JF on December 20, 2003
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What the >bleep< does this mean: "SpamPal is a program that sits between your email client and your mailbox, checking your email as you retrieve it."
How would you ever get a program to sit somewhere in your service provider's computer?? This is just nonsensical.
As for the questions about hams with computers, Why Not??? Hams were the FIRST to use in-home minicomputers. Years before business's "data processing priesthood" ever allowed them in business.
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RE: 5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by KC8VWM on December 21, 2003
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>>>>They say as many as 9 out of 10 PC's have spyware installed. <<<<
Best legit spyware detector and removal utility I ever found. (no silly, of course I don't work for them)
Did I mention the word FREE? ... oh yeah FREE!
Works pretty good, I have used it on 3 of my PC's for about a year now. I was surprised to find over 35 spyware programs running in my PC all at the same time! That just HAS to be slowing down my internet connection and taking up bandwidth huh?!
Apparently, this is not unusual for most PC's. Anti Virus software does NOT detect spyware!
According to an authority on this "Spyware" is not illegal nor is it "supposed" to be harmful to your PC.
Apparently it is a "marketing tool" that collects information on your "browsing habits" for marketing research purposes.
It packages nice little compact data files on your PC and then uploads them to the "mothership" through your internet connection in the background while you are online.
My opinion about it's effects differs, and you mileage may vary.
Here's the download link for those interested:
http://www.tucows.com/preview/236049.html
(Comment for Webmaster - Can Eham make posted links "clickable" in the message forums?)
73
Charles - KC8VWM
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5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by KC5EYC on December 21, 2003
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May I also suggest a service called Mailblocks. This is not software but a service. If you get an email from someone not in your address book the message is pending and the sender gets a challege/response email. He/She must click on a link and type in the numbers in the block to prove they are not a computer. If you send someone and email and they reply from the same address they will not get the challege/reponse email. Once a person is white liested they are white listed for life unless you take them out of your address book. I have been using this service for two months now and NEVER get spam in my inbox. It does come at a price. It is normally $9.95/year but when I signed up for it I got three years for the price of one. You get a 15 MB mailbox too. A 100 MB mailbox is available for $24.95/year. Check it out at http://www.mailblocks.com.
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RE: 5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by K2LES on December 22, 2003
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I've been doing the network administrator thing for many years now. I recommend the following freeware to secure your PC's against viruses, hackers and other problems that come to you via the internet.
* SPAMMUNITION - anti-spam plug-in for the full Outlook client (doesn't work with Outlook Express - but then again you're asking for trouble by using OE). It needs a little bit of "teaching" to learn how to differentiate between what you consider SPAM and acceptable mail. Has whitelisting. Been using it for months - been happy with the product.
* ADAWARE - to detect/remove Spyware. Spyware can be a source of many headaches for people connected to the internet.
* AVG ANTIVIRUS - free, reliable, doesn't bog your PC down, works just as well as any other retail / commercial antivirus software out there.
* ZONEALARM - Internet firewall. Your IP address (the numerical address of your PC on the internet) has many ports that are usually open by default that can make your PC vulnerable to outside attackers. Think of it as a building with many doors that are wide open letting anyone in. For web surfing and e-mail, you don't need any open ports. (Also, if you have Windows 2000 or XP, you can secure your internet connection in your network properties instead of using a 3rd party firewall. I won't go into how to do it here - but the information on how to do it is freely available on the internet.)
The biggest problem I see with internet users is that they don't take the time to figure out how to maintain their PC's properly. The tools are out there - but computers do need some TLC from time to time to keep them running.
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RE: 5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by AD7DB on December 22, 2003
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On your web page, do not put in your email address as text, or worse, a direct "mail to" link to click on. Spambots roam the web looking for email addresses to harvest.
Use an image file (GIF, JPG etc) which has your email address in it. The spambots aren't good at recognizing that the image is really conveying human readable information. Don't put anything on the ALTernate text for it.
There are various sites that allow you to create interesting animated banners and other artwork. You can use such an image at the bottom of your screens to allow readers to know how to send you an email. They can read it, the spambots can't.
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RE: 5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by VE7NGR on December 22, 2003
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I second W2IRT's reccommendation of a Bayesian filter. There are a number of free ones available, including a plugin for the excellent SpamPal. This is what I use, and once the filter is well trained, it is extremely effective. I'm having a bad month if a single spam message gets through, or if a single good message doesn't.
K4JF says: "How would you ever get a program to sit somewhere in your service provider's computer?? This is just nonsensical."
Just because you don't understand something does not make it nonsensical! Also, if you reread what you were replying to, nothing was said about doing anything on the server side - it is all client side. SpamPal runs on your computer (not your ISP's computer), and acts as both a POP3 client and a POP3 server. You configure your mail software to connect to SpamPal's POP3 server; SpamPal then connects to your ISP's POP3 server. As it downloads each message, it decides if it's spam or not, adds an appropriate header, and passes the message on to your mail software, which can be set up to do whatever you want based on the SpamPal header.
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RE: 5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by K4NR on December 23, 2003
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My web and email hosting is provided by QTH.com. Scott has SPAM Assassin running on his email servers. Any email determined to be SPAM is marked and then attached to a plain text email. I use Outlook's filters to move any marked email to a SPAM folder. I can quickly scan the headers just in case something I need gets marked as SPAM (I've only had this happen once). I found the majority of my SPAM coming in on my ARRL.net email address.
73 de Tom, K4NR
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5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by N3DRK on December 25, 2003
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When I had the ARRL.Net email address I was getting upwards of 100 spam emails a day! I got rid of it about 4 months ago and I have not received greater than 2 dozen since then! Get rid of the ARRL service.
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5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by K4JF on December 26, 2003
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To VE7NGR. I understand perfectly that the only "mail software" on my computer is Internet Explorer, which does a lot more than that, in fact the mail part is just incidental in displaying an internet page. Any "configuring" of mail is not on MY computer.
Some people do have the "freebee" services that dump mail to your computer, then you look it up. But most of us use services such as ATT, AOL, BellSouth, and others that don't do that.
So from your description, this is a plug-in for Explorer that sees when mail is on the screen and runs it through some kind of algorithm to detect spam from the headers (I never look inside spam). Then it tags it somehow, and I supposedly go from there. Doesn't sound like it would be all that helpful to me. Spam is pretty easy for me to spot just from the addresses and subject line, without having to look for some kind of "tag", too.
But still, might be worth a look.
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RE: 5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by VE7NGR on December 26, 2003
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Mail this to a friend!
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K4JF:
Most free services (yahoo, hotmail, etc) require you to read your email with a web browser - it doesn't get downloaded to your computer.
Most internet service providers (the company that provides the actual internet connection, usually via dialup, DSL or cable) provide POP3 or IMAP email accounts where your mail software (Outlook, Eudora, etc - not Internet Explorer, which is a web browser) downloads the email to the computer.
SpamPal is not a plugin. It is a program which runs in the background, and basically acts as a middleman between your mail software and the server. If you use a web interface to access your email, it will be of no use to you.
I'm not familiar with ATT or BellSouth, and not very familiar with AOL. Personally I don't like services like AOL which force you to use their custom software. All I want is a connection to the internet and a POP3 email account. I *want* to download my email to my computer (so I can save as much email as I want without filling up my mailbox, so I can filter it with tools like SpamPal, etc, so I can change internet service providers without loosing all my saved email, etc).
BTW, the point of the tag added by SpamPal is not something for you to look for, it's something for your email software to look for and filter out the spam automatically. All my spam gets sorted into a seperate "spam" folder - I never see it. I periodically take a quick look through the folder just in case something that isn't spam got mislabelled, then delete everything.
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RE: 5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by KC2HJN on December 27, 2003
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Mail this to a friend!
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Just what I want...someones software going through my Email. I wonder how many of these "free" programs are written or distributed by law enforcement?
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5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by K9TTT on December 27, 2003
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Five easy, no cost, ways to eliminate spam:
1: Eliminate the ARRL address
2: Use 2 mailboxes--one "restricted" (you set who goes there), and your ISP box for everything else. Check it occassionly.
3: Don't store ANY sensitive info on your computer.
4. Don't visit "those" sites.
5. All computers come with an anti-spam device included for free. All you have to do is use it. Called in most circles "DELETE". (Why even bother to look at it.)
That's the methods I used to use, until I bought this new computer and added all the firewalls, spy protecters, mail washers, and anti virus programs money could buy. This guy from Nigera sent me $12,800.00 dollarsUS currenccy doit with.....<g>
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5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by N9QQB on December 30, 2003
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Anyone that exchanges e-mail with anyone is going to get some spam sooner or later, especially if you ever buy/sell anything online. The best tool, hands down, I have encountered so far is SpamBayes, an open-source set of programs that learns from you what is spam and what is not.
Interestingly, messages that you consider desirable, i.e. not spam, are called "ham" by the program.
SpamBayes is not for everyone. There's no warranty, it's not a commercial product, its supported by a community, not a customer service department. It's updated from time to time. It has a plug in for recent versions of Outlook but not Outlook Express, and not for any of those '97 or '98 versions. For any of those, and for Eudora / Pegasus / Linux or Unix / any other POP3 mail client / any other IMAP client, you have to run their POP3 proxy service on your machine, or their IMAP service, and for that, it's inconvenient on WIndows 95, 98, and ME. For NT, 2000, XP, and Linux, you can run them as services or daemons and it's fine. It's just not trivial.
I run XP at home, with the best e-mail program ever: Eudora Pro. Spambayes works well for me.
Spambayes is trained by pointing to a message and saying "SPAM" or "HAM" and it learns without you having to specify what about the message makes it one or the other. It then scores each message and based on the scores, classifies it as "SPAM" "HAM" or "UNSURE." After you've trained it on some number of messages, the mistakes it makes in classifying drops to a very low number. On my machine, I don't train very much anymore, just occasionally when new types of spam crop up, and it never calls a good message SPAM. Sometimes it calls a spam UNSURE though- about 2% of spam comes through as UNSURE or HAM. When that number rises to about 5% I train on those messages and it stops.
Training is via a web page that's hosted on your machine- you don't have to connect to train.
Spambayes is at http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/download.html
But please note: You have to get the Python package too. Spambayes is written in Python, a Perl-like language. See download notes on the sourceforge page above.
de N9QQB
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5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools
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by N9QQB on December 30, 2003
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Mail this to a friend!
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If you are concerned about back-door programs, get Ad-aware. In fact, get it anyhow. Anybody on the 'net who has a conscience has an antivirus program that they keep up-to-date (you do, right?) just like they use the minimum power needed to make the contact, right? And don't spray a bunch of excess RF around and generate TVI, right?
Well, guess what, its easy to install, unwittingly, programs that track what websites you've been to, or what programs you use, and no anti-virus program will find them or remove them. All you gotta do is visit some web sites, or install some innocous program, and all of the sudden, you have a hidden ad server or call-home program on your machine that you know nothing about. How many people's PC's have I fixed that saw Comet Cursor and downloaded it? "Hmmm, cute! Animated mouse pointers! I'm going to install that." Well, that's spyware. And that's just one example.
Be a good surfer. Get a antivirus program like Norton or McAfee. Make sure your subscription is updated- what's $20/year compared to unknowlingly spreading viruses to all your friends? THEN get Spybot or Ad-aware (the later being my favorite, and free besides).
This is no different from maintaining a properly operating shack and taking care of safetly and RF exposure issues. If you are going to be on the air, know the rules and issues and take care of them. If you are going to be on the net, know those issues and be on guard.
73 de n9qqb
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