Fighting spam for dummies

If you have e-mail, you have spam--that annoying electronic junk mail that jams your inbox, sometimes makes you blush, and takes a lot of the fun out of your online experience. Spam wastes thousands of hours and costs you, the recipient of the stuff you don't want, thousands of dollars in increased costs that your Internet service provider eventually passes along to you. In fact, a European survey in 2001 revealed that spam costs about $9.4 billion each year!

Spammers spam because they're not paying for it, you are. The good news is, you can fight back, and Fighting Spam For Dummies tells you how. Find out

Where spam comes from How to set up spam filters How folders help filter out spam What additional programs can help Where--and how--to report spam How best to lobby for spam control

You'll get the plai n-English explanation for activating any additional protection offered by your ISP, and discover how to make the best use of any spam filter that came with your e-mail program. Fighting Spam For Dummies will arm you with information about

Making your address harder for spammers to grab Why simply hitting "delete" isn't enough Tracking down the source of the spam What you can learn from e-mail headers How spam filters work--and why they aren't foolproof Setting up the maximum level of filtration for your e-mail program and ISP What information your ISP needs when you report spam How--and how not--to complain Adding protection with POPFile Ways to protect your clients if you're a network administrator

The ultimate solution to spam has yet to be found, but these Internet-savvy authors give you the tools to help level the playing field. They also offer some solid suggestions for anti-spam laws and how you can join the war on spam.

Author Notes

JOHN R. LEVINE and MARGARET LEVINE YOUNG are the bestselling coauthors of numerous books, including The Internet For Dummies .

RAY EVERETT CHURCH is Chief Privacy Officer for ePrivacyGroup.com.

Introduction	p. 1
What's in This Book	p. 2
Conventions and Icons in This Book	p. 2
Write to Us--That's Not Spam!	p. 3
Part I The World of Spam	p. 5
Chapter 1 How Spam Works--and Drives You Crazy!	p. 7
Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam	p. 8
Why Spam Works	p. 9
The economics of spam	p. 9
Why spam is a bigger problem than you think	p. 10
There's no such thing as a free lunch, particularly on the Internet	p. 10
Spam is a bad deal for everybody (except the spammer)	p. 11
Who Hath Spammed Thee? (The Spammer Food Chain)	p. 12
Why "Just Hit the Delete Key!" Is No Answer	p. 15
More Ways You Pay for Spam	p. 15
Calling Erin Brockovich!	p. 17
Why Spam Is Hard to Stop	p. 18
The price of speed: Accuracy	p. 19
Whitelists, blacklists, filters	p. 20
Can You Really Fight Back Against Spam? Yes!	p. 21
Chapter 2 How Spammers Get Your Address	p. 25
When You're a Spammer, the World Is Your Garden	p. 26
From the Yellow Pages to the Dictionary	p. 27
Keeping One Step Ahead of the Spammers	p. 28
What More Can You Do?	p. 33
Chapter 3 There Oughtta Be a Law Against Spam!	p. 35
Is Spam Already Illegal?	p. 35
Libertarians, stop reading here!	p. 36
Technology isn't the only answer	p. 37
Laws can do stuff that technology can't	p. 38
Spam: The Elusive Definition	p. 38
How art thou spam?	p. 39
Spam is in the eye of the beholder	p. 40
Current Laws on Spam	p. 42
State-by-state	p. 43
Spam around the world	p. 43
How to Make Spam Laws Work	p. 44
Power to the People!	p. 45
The Future of Antispam Laws	p. 46
Chapter 4 Talk to the Hand 'Cuz the Spammer Don't Care	p. 47
Look at E-Mail Headers	p. 48
Follow the flow of Received headers	p. 50
Look up the owner of the last verifiable mail-handling server	p. 52
Investigate the Contents of the Spam	p. 54
Get Ready to Address Your Complaints	p. 55
Send Your Complaints--Nicely	p. 57
When complaints bounce back, go upstream	p. 59
Don't complain to IANA!	p. 61
When All Else Fails, Tell It To Your ISP	p. 61
Part II Filtering Spam Out of Your Inbox	p. 63
Chapter 5 Mailbox Filtering in Your E-Mail Program	p. 65
Where Messages Live: Mail Folders and Mailboxes	p. 66
Moving Your Messages with Filters	p. 67
Identifying Spam for Filtering	p. 67
Another Approach: Filter Everything Except Spam	p. 68
Which E-Mail Program Do You Use?	p. 69
Chapter 6 Filtering Spam in Outlook Express and Outlook	p. 73
Folders Are Your Friends	p. 75
What folders do you have?	p. 75
Creating a folder for your spam	p. 76
Turning On Junk E-Mail Blocking (Outlook 2003)	p. 77
Spam-blocking levels in Outlook 2003	p. 77
Setting Outlook 2003 to block your spam	p. 78
Telling Outlook 2003 who your friends are	p. 80
Telling Outlook 2003 which mailing lists you're on	p. 80
Turning On Junk E-Mail Blocking (Outlook 2000 and Outlook 2002)	p. 81
Blocking Messages by Sender	p. 83
Viewing your Blocked Senders list	p. 83
Blocking messages from entire domains	p. 84
Reviewing Your Spam	p. 85
Blocking Web Bugs Disguised as Graphics (Outlook 2003)	p. 87
How Outlook 2003 displays pictures	p. 88
Turning off the Outlook 2003 picture-blocking feature	p. 89
Sorting Spam Directly into the Trash	p. 90
Creating Rules to Trash Spam	p. 91
Creating a new rule in Outlook Express	p. 91
Creating a new rule in Outlook 2003	p. 96
Creating a new rule in Outlook 2000 or Outlook 2002	p. 101
Chapter 7 Filtering Spam in Netscape and Mozilla Mail	p. 105
Using the Netscape/Mozilla Mail Junk Mail Controls	p. 106
Configuring your junk mail controls	p. 107
Training Netscape/Mozilla Mail to recognize spam	p. 108
Creating a Folder for Your Spam (Or Other Messages)	p. 109
Creating Message Filters to Trash Spam	p. 110
Chapter 8 Filtering Spam in Eudora	p. 115
Watching Out for Spam with SpamWatch	p. 116
Configuring SpamWatch	p. 116
Checking your Junk folder	p. 119
Marking spam that SpamWatch missed	p. 120
Moving Messages into Eudora Mailboxes	p. 121
Creating Eudora mailboxes	p. 121
Creating Eudora filters to trash spam	p. 121
Chapter 9 Filtering Spam in AOL and AOL Communicator	p. 125
Fighting Spam in AOL 9	p. 126
Setting your AOL spam options	p. 126
Creating folders for your mail	p. 127
Junking Spam in AOL Communicator Mail	p. 128
Getting AOL Communicator	p. 128
Blocking spam in AOL Communicator Mail	p. 129
Training your spam filters	p. 131
Showing, hiding, and deleting spam	p. 131
Creating folders in AOL Communicator Mail	p. 132
Creating filters in AOL Communicator Mail	p. 133
Using Netscape to Read Your AOL Mail	p. 134
Chapter 10 Filtering Spam in Hotmail, MSN, and Yahoo! Mail	p. 137
Spam Options for Hotmail and MSN Users	p. 138
Setting your Hotmail or MSN spam options	p. 138
Reading Hotmail or MSN mail from Outlook Express or Outlook	p. 140
Reading Hotmail or MSN mail with any old e-mail program	p. 141
Spam Options for Yahoo! Mail Users	p. 142
Setting your Yahoo! Mail filtering options	p. 142
Reading Yahoo! Mail with another e-mail program	p. 143
Part III Spam-Filtering Programs and Services	p. 145
Chapter 11 A Round-Up of Desktop Antispam Programs	p. 147
Most E-Mail Programs Can't Go It Alone	p. 148
How third-party programs work	p. 148
What if you don't POP?	p. 153
POPFile: The Open Source Spam Filter	p. 154
How POPFile tags messages	p. 155
Installing POPFile	p. 157
Setting POPFile to run on Windows Startup	p. 158
Talking to POPFile	p. 159
Creating buckets in POPFile	p. 160
Configuring your e-mail program to work with POPFile	p. 162
Configuring Outlook Express or Outlook for POPFile	p. 163
Configuring Pegasus for POPFile	p. 164
Training POPFile	p. 165
Adding Spam Bully to Outlook and Outlook Express	p. 168
Separating spam from mail with Spam Bully	p. 169
Managing your black-and-white lists	p. 170
Keeping Spam Bully under control	p. 170
Chapter 12 Antispam Services for Just Plain Folks	p. 173
Filters for Your Existing Mailbox	p. 175
Filtered Mail Addresses	p. 175
Lots of Mail Addresses	p. 177
Chapter 13 Server-Side Spam Filtering for Network Administrators	p. 179
Server Filtering Techniques	p. 180
DNS blacklists and whitelists	p. 180
Bulk counting	p. 182
Timing and greylists	p. 183
Approaches to Combination Filtering	p. 184
If You Use Windows Server and Exchange	p. 185
Filtering on Unix and Linux Servers	p. 186
But, Does It Make Toast?	p. 188
Third-Party Services	p. 189
A Checklist for Server Spam Filters	p. 190
Part IV The Part of Tens	p. 191
Chapter 14 Ten Spam Scams	p. 193
Help Steal Millions from an African Country	p. 193
Make Lots of Money with No Work	p. 194
You've Won a Free Vacation	p. 194
Verify Your Account -- Not!	p. 195
Get Free Cable or Satellite TV	p. 195
Repair Your Bad Credit	p. 196
Become Thin and Beautiful	p. 196
Get Drugs Without a Prescription, Cheap	p. 197
Make, Uh, Your Body Parts Bigger	p. 197
Free Porn	p. 198
Chapter 15 Ten Internet Annoyances and How to Get Rid of Them	p. 199
Squashing Browser Pop-Ups	p. 200
Protecting Your System from Intruders	p. 201
Don't Let Viruses In	p. 203
Checking for Spyware and Adware	p. 204
Don't Limit Yourself to One Web Page	p. 205
Covering Your Tracks	p. 206
Finding Pages That Used to Be There	p. 207
Has This Page Changed?	p. 208
Sending Mail to All Your Buddies	p. 209
Index	p. 211

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Author Notes

Table of Contents