Outlook: Spam Control?

[(PeteCresswell)]

I friend lives and dies by Outlook.

I don't use it, so don't know much about it.

He's getting spammed mercilessly on the email address that he uses for his
professional life and doesn't know what to do about it.

All I could come up with was:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) A gold list. Create new folder called something "Confirmed Email" and
then create a filter for each known correspondent that routes their
emails to that folder. Once he has most of his correspondents filtered,
he's down to occasionally perusing the Inbox for stragglers.

2) Challenge-Response. Switch providers to somebody like Earthlink that
provides challenge/response spam control.

(I am aware of the deep-seated objections that some have against
challenge-response....)

3) Other Means. Switch providers to somebody who does something besides
challenge/response and whose system works.

4) Bogus addresses. Take the time to set up a few freebie accounts in
HotMail, gMail and so-forth and never, ever, under any circumstances
supply your "real" email address to anybody except a trusted individual,
using the bogus addresses for things like online purchases, required
return addresses and so-forth.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Outlook's black list ("Junk Sender's List") doesn't seem helpful against
spammers who a different address with every mailing.

Can anybody come up with something more than the three above? - especially
something that doesn't hinge on changing one's email address.

 

[PA Bear]

Outlook-specific newsgroups include:

news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlook
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlook.Calendaring
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlook.configuration
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlook.Contacts
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlook.Fax
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlook.General
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlook.installation
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlook.interop
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlook.printing
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlook.Program_AddIns
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlook.program_forms
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlook.Program_VBA
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlook.ThirdPartyUtil

 

[Joe Wright]

I friend lives and dies by Outlook.

I don't use it, so don't know much about it.

He's getting spammed mercilessly on the email address that he uses for his
professional life and doesn't know what to do about it.

All I could come up with was:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) A gold list. Create new folder called something "Confirmed Email" and
then create a filter for each known correspondent that routes their
emails to that folder. Once he has most of his correspondents filtered,
he's down to occasionally perusing the Inbox for stragglers.

2) Challenge-Response. Switch providers to somebody like Earthlink that
provides challenge/response spam control.

(I am aware of the deep-seated objections that some have against
challenge-response....)

3) Other Means. Switch providers to somebody who does something besides
challenge/response and whose system works.

4) Bogus addresses. Take the time to set up a few freebie accounts in
HotMail, gMail and so-forth and never, ever, under any circumstances
supply your "real" email address to anybody except a trusted individual,
using the bogus addresses for things like online purchases, required
return addresses and so-forth.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Outlook's black list ("Junk Sender's List") doesn't seem helpful against
spammers who a different address with every mailing.

Can anybody come up with something more than the three above? - especially
something that doesn't hinge on changing one's email address.

The rules are slightly different in Outlook; you have an option to work
with "People in the Address book" (or a similar-reading option). But
the premise is the same: Block all emails not from addresses in your
address book. Just look in the Deleted Items folder for missed emails
before emptying that folder.

Stop SPAM! Create two mail rules in OE.

_First rule:_

A. In "Select the conditions for your rule" click "Where the from line
contains people", click "contains people", click Address Book, click
the first name, shift-click the last, click "From" button, click OK.

B. In "Select the actions for your rule", click "Stop processing more
rules". This will let everyone in your address book fall through to
your Inbox.

C. Name the rule "Pass".

_Second rule:_

A. In "Select the conditions for your rule" click "For all messages"

B. In "Select the actions for your rule", click "Delete it".

C. Name the rule "Delete".

You might want to set OE to delete the Deleted Items folder every time
you close OE. One disadvantage: You might have to close OE in a hurry
sometimes before you have a chance to check for missed messages.

Advantages:

1. No SPAM! No amount of filtering by sender or subject matter will
prevent spammers; they use a different subject and address every few
days. But this setup prevents ALL SPAM from fictitious addresses.

2. Few Viruses! Only viruses from those who have your email address in
their address book.

Disadvantages:

1. You'll have to look in the Deleted Items folder for blocked email. If
you find a mail you actually want, just drag it into the Inbox till you
add that address to the Pass filter.

2. To add addresses to the filter, you'll have to edit it, click
"contains people", click "Address Book" again, and add any new
addresses. That can be an occasional nuisance, but otherwise you'll be
creating many mail rules for SPAM.

 

[P. Johnson]

I friend lives and dies by Outlook.

I don't use it, so don't know much about it.

He's getting spammed mercilessly on the email address that he uses for
his professional life and doesn't know what to do about it.

All I could come up with was: [...]
2) Challenge-Response. Switch providers to somebody like Earthlink that
provides challenge/response spam control.

(I am aware of the deep-seated objections that some have against
challenge-response....)

I wouldn't even consider this a valid suggestion worth mentioning because it
generates more harm than it helps. Earthlink and other challenge-response
sites get blocked by quite a few email providers because of the added trash
CR sends out.

http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Mail/challenge-response.html

It's just like whitelisting users (ie, only allowing email from users that
are in your address book), but you're giving the world access to your
address book, and asking anybody and everyone who emails you, whether or
not they exist, to add themselves to your address book. Anybody of average
intelligence should be able to think of at least half a dozen ways to abuse
this...

Always remember that you can get your internet from one company and have a
different email provider. If you want a quality email provider that has
good spam filtering, you're probably going to have to shop around for what
is comfortable for you.

Sites that use a well-configured SpamAssassin
(http://spamassassin.apache.org/) tend to have low false-positive and
false-negative (spam that doesn't get detected as spam) rate. The success
rate goes up even higher if they let you train the filter.

Sites that use greylisting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greylisting) end up
cutting spam received by a pretty good margin

Another option is to use a mail client such as Mozilla Thunderbird
(http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/) that has a Bayesian
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_filter) spam filter. Bayesian
filters learn what is spam and what's ham (real, not-spam, email) based on
whether you flag a message as ham or spam. The more messages you train
with, the more accurate your filter will be.

Thunderbird will also easily forward messages including their headers as
attachments, so which makes reporting spam with services such as Spamcop
(http://www.spamcop.net/) a snap.

That's only slightly more favorable than challenge-response: Really good
spam methods don't require the user to have decoy email addresses, munge,
or do more than occasionally train a filter to keep it's idea of what you
consider spam up to date.

B. In "Select the actions for your rule", click "Delete it".

C. Name the rule "Delete".

You might want to set OE to delete the Deleted Items folder every time
you close OE. One disadvantage: You might have to close OE in a hurry
sometimes before you have a chance to check for missed messages. [...]
Disadvantages:

1. You'll have to look in the Deleted Items folder for blocked email. If
you find a mail you actually want, just drag it into the Inbox till you
add that address to the Pass filter.

Instead of deleting the message, you might want to move it to a Spam folder
instead. This prevents you from accidentally throwing ham away with all
the spam.

Advantages:

1. No SPAM! No amount of filtering by sender or subject matter will
prevent spammers; they use a different subject and address every few
days. But this setup prevents ALL SPAM from fictitious addresses.

I'd say "days" is a little on the generous side, with various hashbusters
and just plugging new emails from their database of recipients as
the "From:" header, many spammers have a unique From and Subject every
time.

 

[Geoffw]

try setting up a gamil account and forward the providers
address to that account, setup the pop option in gmail to
access the email into outlook

or use a challenge response, I use www.bluebottle.com you
can import into bluebottle all your outlook addresses as
allowed addresses and bluebottle will not challenge them

both of these can be transparent to the end user, I use both
options and almost all my spam is picked up, I check the
spam folders normally once a day to be sure they are not
picking legit email, I could do this weekly or less but a
lot easier to go through a couple of lists of spam rather
then many pages

Geoff

 

[Paul Woodsford]

I friend lives and dies by Outlook.

I don't use it, so don't know much about it.

He's getting spammed mercilessly on the email address that he uses for his
professional life and doesn't know what to do about it.

All I could come up with was:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) A gold list. Create new folder called something "Confirmed Email" and
then create a filter for each known correspondent that routes their
emails to that folder. Once he has most of his correspondents filtered,
he's down to occasionally perusing the Inbox for stragglers.

2) Challenge-Response. Switch providers to somebody like Earthlink that
provides challenge/response spam control.

(I am aware of the deep-seated objections that some have against
challenge-response....)

3) Other Means. Switch providers to somebody who does something besides
challenge/response and whose system works.

4) Bogus addresses. Take the time to set up a few freebie accounts in
HotMail, gMail and so-forth and never, ever, under any circumstances
supply your "real" email address to anybody except a trusted individual,
using the bogus addresses for things like online purchases, required
return addresses and so-forth.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Outlook's black list ("Junk Sender's List") doesn't seem helpful against
spammers who a different address with every mailing.

Can anybody come up with something more than the three above? -
especially
something that doesn't hinge on changing one's email address.

Proven freeware, works very well: http://keir.net/k9.html

Newsgroup/help site:-
http://keir.net/bb/viewforum.php?f=5&sid=7cadcc30037644a1b8eae3591efe579c

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I friend lives and dies by Outlook.

I don't use it, so don't know much about it.

He's getting spammed mercilessly on the email address that he uses for his
professional life and doesn't know what to do about it.

All I could come up with was:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) A gold list. Create new folder called something "Confirmed Email" and
then create a filter for each known correspondent that routes their
emails to that folder. Once he has most of his correspondents filtered,
he's down to occasionally perusing the Inbox for stragglers.

2) Challenge-Response. Switch providers to somebody like Earthlink that
provides challenge/response spam control.

(I am aware of the deep-seated objections that some have against
challenge-response....)

3) Other Means. Switch providers to somebody who does something besides
challenge/response and whose system works.

4) Bogus addresses. Take the time to set up a few freebie accounts in
HotMail, gMail and so-forth and never, ever, under any circumstances
supply your "real" email address to anybody except a trusted individual,
using the bogus addresses for things like online purchases, required
return addresses and so-forth.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Outlook's black list ("Junk Sender's List") doesn't seem helpful against
spammers who a different address with every mailing.

Can anybody come up with something more than the three above? - especially
something that doesn't hinge on changing one's email address.

While it's not possible to completely eliminate spam (unsolicited
commercial email), there are some precautions and steps you can take to
minimize it's impact:

1) Never, ever post your real email address to publicly accessible
forums or newsgroups, such as this one. For years now, spammers have
been using software utilities to scan such places to harvest email
addresses. It's a simple matter to disguise your posted email address
so that these software "bots" can't obtain anything useful. For
example, insert some obviously bogus characters or words into your reply
address, for example: "(e-mail address removed)."

2) Never, ever reply to any spam you receive, even to "unsubscribe" or
"remove" yourself from the spammers' address lists; you'll only compound
the problem. If spammers had any intention of honoring the your desire
not to receive spam, they wouldn't have become spammers in the first
place. When you reply to a spammer, all you're doing is confirming that
he/she has a valid, marketable email address.

3) Be especially leery of any offers from websites for free software,
services, information, etc, that require your email address, or that
require your email address so you can "login" to access the offered
service and/or information. Many such sites are supplementing their
income by collecting addresses to sell to the spammers. For instance,
subscribing to CNN.COM's Breaking News Service will garner you a lot of
additional spam. (Of course, not all such sites have under-handed
motives; it's a judgment call. If the offer seems "too good to be
true," it's most likely a scam.)

4) DO forward any and all spam, with complete headers, to the
originating ISP with a complaint. Not all ISPs will make an effort to
shut down the spammers, but many will. One tool that makes forwarding
such complaints fairly simple is SpamCop (http://spamcop.net).

4) Another useful tool is MailWasher (http://www.mailwasher.net). This
utility allows you to preview your email before downloading it from the
server. Spammers can even be blacklisted, so that any future emails
from them will be automatically deleted from the server.



--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

 

[P. Johnson]

1) Never, ever post your real email address to publicly accessible
forums or newsgroups, such as this one. For years now, spammers have
been using software utilities to scan such places to harvest email
addresses. It's a simple matter to disguise your posted email address
so that these software "bots" can't obtain anything useful. For
example, insert some obviously bogus characters or words into your reply
address, for example: "(e-mail address removed)."

Effective anti-spam measures don't make live-human replies more difficult.
http://www.interhack.net/pubs/munging-harmful/

You're better off using an email provider with effective spam filtering that
you can train based on the spam and non-spam you have, and reporting spam,
than you are with munging.

I don't munge, but I do have a spam-hostile email provider, and I post
extensively on Usenet and on several publicly archived mailing lists.

The percentage email that was spam but was accepted by the mail server
(false-negative filter hit) is 1.67%. My sample is my email archive,
containing 107,082 messages so far, every message that I received since
December 31, 2003. The percentage of email that was not spam, but rejected
as spam (false-positive rate) is 0.0017%, based on email server logs.

No ISP is good at doing email, trying to shop for an ISP based on how they
handle email quickly degrades into the Battle of Who Can Suck Least. You
really need a separate email service provider if you want the job done the
right way. If you're getting a lot of spam, you're using the wrong email
provider.

4) Another useful tool is MailWasher (http://www.mailwasher.net). This
utility allows you to preview your email before downloading it from the
server. Spammers can even be blacklisted, so that any future emails
from them will be automatically deleted from the server.

Don't ever use the "bounce mail" feature in MailWasher, though. It sends
the faked bounce to the address on the "bounced" message's From: header,
which will not be the spammer (and instead, one of the spammer's other
victims) more often than not.