Unsolicited commercial email--spam--has become the most frequent complaint among users of the Internet. Its blaring subject lines and gaudy content--repetitive at best and frequently offensive--have made it much harder to make productive use of computers. Fighting Spam for Dummies presents some techniques for keeping your email address off spammers' mailing lists and, when that fails, keeping junk mail out of your primary inbox with filters and other utilities. As a last resort, the book (which, oddly, has three co-authors of its 200 small pages) shows you how to adjust your email program so it doesn't automatically show pictures and is less likely to spread viruses. There's a fair bit of interesting material in this book, a lot of which has to do with the tricks spammers use to conceal their identities. You'll find detailed instructions on how to convert the header lines of a garbage message--complete with obfuscated URLs and fake IP addresses--into the real origin of the message. Of course, there's not much more to do once you've figured out that the message originated in Taiwan or Russia, but that's not the fault of the authors. Elsewhere in this slender handbook, you'll find click-by-click instructions for erecting filters and making other worthwhile configuration changes in Eudora, Netscape and Mozilla Mail, several versions of Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express, and several Webmail sites. --David Wall Topics covered: Where spam comes from and what you can do about it. Instructions for configuring email clients focus on software for Microsoft Windows.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.
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