Advanced spam Filtering

Three main ways of stopping spam

• A 'Blacklist' deletes mail containing words from a list of your banned words.
• A 'Whitelist' allows only mail from a list of e-mail addresses from people you trust.
• A 'Not My Mail' filter. (why I get spam NOT addressed to me is a mystery).

You really need to use a combination of all three. Mail containing banned words gets deleted first. This consists of more than one rule to make editing easier. Then mail NOT on my list of known trusted addresses gets put in a folder called 'Unknown'. You could call it 'spam' or anything you like.

The last rule also puts any mail not specifically addressed to me in the same folder. I've rolled these two rules into one, but you're better to keep them separate to start with.

If anything appears in the 'Unknown' folder, there's a good chance that it's spam. I can be sure that anything appearing in my Inbox is from someone I know and trust. If any spam does get through with new words, I look for something in the mail that I wouldn't normally find (or the web link address) and amend my rules accordingly.

Screen-shot of my own Mail Rules (your colours may be different)

Ignore the 'Groups' as they are club sorting rules (see Sort Mail)

Create A 'Whitelist' Rule

A Whitelist is a list of emails of the people you're happy to receive mail from. An example of a Whitelist rule:- if any mail is NOT from name1, name2, name3 or name4 etc, move it to the 'Unknown' folder. If mail appears in the 'Unknown' folder which is trusted, add their email to the list.

1. Open Outlook Express.
2. Select Tools from the top menu, then click Message Rules, then Mail.
3. Select Mail Rules from the top boxes if it isn't already selected, then click New.
4. In box 1 (Conditions) - tick Where the From line contains people.
5. In box 2 (Actions) - tick Move it to the specified folder.
   Scroll down the box and tick Stop processing more rules.
   (Stops any further rules duplicating this action).
6. In box 3 (Description) - click on the text contains people
   In the new box that appears, enter the email addresses of friends you know, clicking Add after each one.
7. When you've added all the emails (more can be added later), click Options.
   In Rule Condition Options - tick small circle Message does not contain the people below.
   This alters the rule condition, so it's important to get it right!
   Click OK then OK again to close the 'Select People' box.
8. Then click on the text specified folder.
   In the new box that appears, click New Folder and type in "Unknown".
   It will create a new folder, or you can select one previously created by you.
   Click OK, then OK to close the box.
9. In box 4 (Name of the rule) - you can rename the rule or leave it as it is.
   Renaming it makes it easier for editing.
10. Click OK for the rule, then OK to finish.

New box that appears for Rule Condition Options

Create a 'Not My Address' Rule

Use the same method as the previous rule, but tick Where the To line contains people, and in Rule Condition Options - again tick the small circle Message does not contain the people below.

Conclusion

There will always be some spam that gets through your filters because it's encoded or consists of just images, and spammers are always trying to defeat your filters and the professional filters.

See next page on spam examples.