One of the unfortunate problems with having an e-mail account is the proliferation of junk mail, a.k.a. "spam". Some e-mail addresses will be more prone to Spam than others, however, at some point, almost all of us will be victims.

There are many ways that your email address can be obtained. Spammers often employ specialized programs to either gather addresses from mailing list, web sites, newsgroups, or randomly generate them.

One tactic spammers use to confirm a valid email account is to have the victim respond to a message with a removal request. Submitting a removal request in response to such a message so is a bad idea since your response, if it goes back to the spammer rather than some innocent bystander, merely confirms that your e-mail address is valid. The attacks will usually increase in volume and intensity since your address has been confirmed and possibly sold to other spammers as part of various mailing lists. The best way to deal with these messages is to ignore and delete them.

We are often asked if there is anything we can do to cut down on spam, such as blocking senders or domains. This would be an easy solution, and would almost certainly eliminate incoming mail from the source in question. But, that is not feasible for a variety of reasons including the blockage of e-mail from legitimate senders who happen to share the same mail server with the spammer.

As the end user, you have several options at your disposal which will enable you to remedy, somewhat, the Spam issue:

1. Do not respond to the sender of the spam in any way. Instead, report the incident to the Internet Service Provider of the sender, whether it be the Technical Support Department, Webmaster, Hostmaster, or Help Department; whoever you feel will listen and take action. Some good examples are:
     abuse@any.provider.net (this is probably the best choice),
     postmaster@any.provider.net (another good option),
     support@any.provider.net,
     hostmaster@any.provider.net,
     fraud@any.provider.net,
     etc.
   
   
2. There are several Mail Readers on the market, some of which are free, that will allow you to block a particular sender, domain, or both. Those known to posses these capabilities are: Microsoft Outlook Express, Lotus Notes, and Eudora Pro. There are several other good email clients that also fit this description. Click the links below for tutorials on configuring some of these mail clients.
   
   • Microsoft Outlook Express
   • Eudora Pro
   • Lotus Notes
   
   
3. If you would like to use the SpamAssassin header flag to block out spam:

   Mac Eudora Outlook Express 5 Netscape Communicator 4.x Netscape 7 Apple Mailer on Os 10.2.6

   Windows Eudora Outlook 98 & Outlook 2000 Outlook Express Netscape 7

   
   
4. If you are a UNIX/FreeBSD/Linux user with knowledge of procmail and .procmailrc files, you can have configured procmail to channel mail containing specific text to the destination of your choice. Click here for help with Procmail.

We stay abreast of the latest anti-spam tactics, that will enable us to provide the best possible service for our clients. If you have any comments, complaints, or questions, feel free to email: support@inch.com