BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : DECEMBER 18, 2000 ISSUE
BUSINESSWEEK LIFESTYLE Making Mincemeat out of Unwanted E-mail New software can help you get the upper hand over ''spammers'' You've got mail--junk e-mail--and plenty of it. ''Legally lower your taxes offshore.'' ''Does your stock portfolio look like 'SWISS' cheese?'' ''Viagra now only $4.50 online!!'' The number of mass e-mailings has grown 400% over the past year to nearly 5,000 a day, says Brightmail, a San Francisco outfit that sells an early-warning system to companies and Internet service providers who try to block junk mail before it hits your ''inbox.'' It's only going to get worse, says market researcher Ferris Research: Within the next five years, 40% of your incoming e-mail is going to be spam, up from 10% today. Spam is Web speak for what's technically called ''unsolicited commercial e-mail'' or ''unsolicited bulk e-mail.'' If you're like most people, you don't have a clue what to do about it. Every morning, you work your way through your inbox with one finger on the delete key, ready to annihilate any suspicious-looking messages that smell remotely of spam. You can find better ways, and, surprisingly, the easiest may be right under your nose. These days, virtually all the popular e-mail programs, such as Microsoft Outlook, Eudora, and Netscape Messenger come with sophisticated filters that--if you go to the trouble to set them up--will scan and sort your e-mail into different folders, including the trash can. If you're using an earlier version of those e-mail programs, you can download easy-to-use antispam software from the Internet for free, or at a nominal cost. RED ALERT. Here's how it works. All the programs allow you to create rules that screen incoming messages. Outlook's ''rules wizard,'' for example, takes you through a series of clickable statements and fill-in-the-blank fields, and lets you add exceptions to the rule. To wit: Move this message to the ''spam'' folder if ''Viagra'' is in the subject line or body except if it's from ''mydoctor@office.com'' or ''mywife@home.com.'' While you're writing the rules, the program will ask you to create new folders to sort the incoming messages according to your criteria. Once you've instructed the program how to spot spam, those unwanted messages will go to a ''spam'' folder that you can deal with at your leisure. Or, if you're confident you won't be discarding something important, move it directly to Trash. In Outlook, you can click the right mouse button to identify unwanted messages as junk, automatically installing a simple filter that will forever block that sender. By now, though, most spammers have wised up and never mail from the same address twice. You can use the same filtering techniques to sort and highlight the messages you want. A handy rule, for example, is one that flags every message from yourcompany.com and puts it into a special folder. You can even have messages from yourboss@yourcompany.com show up in red--and sound an alert when one arrives. (Better turn the volume down.) The newest versions of other popular e-mail programs, such as Eudora and Netscape, work roughly the same way. The filtering prowess of proprietary e-mail systems, such as America Online's, and Web-based mail from the likes of Yahoo! or Microsoft's Hotmail, is much more limited. In AOL, for example, you cannot filter by key words, only by domain names and e-mail addresses. And while Hotmail will let you screen the ''to,'' ''from,'' and subject lines, you cannot block mail based on offensive words and phrases in the body of the message. You also can download special software from the Internet that will let you filter out spam whether your e-mail program can do it or not. Top picks include SpamKiller ($29.95 at www.spamkiller.com), SpamEater Pro ($24.95 at www.hms.com), and Spam Buster (free at www.contactplus.com). The programs come pre-loaded with thousands of filters and the tools to write your own. A personal favorite is SpamKiller, which is flexible enough to handle both office e-mail networks and home dial-up Internet service providers. It's an e-mail reader to boot, displaying the complete text of messages, not just message headers. These add-on spaminators have their disadvantages, though. Filtering the e-mail can take a few minutes, and the programs generally won't work with Web mail and closed systems such as AOL. The best way to avoid spam is to keep your primary e-mail address off the mailing lists in the first place. If your ISP gives you more than one e-mail address, set up an alternate so that any spam will go to a mailbox you never have to check. Or sign up for an e-mail account at any of the free mail services, such as Yahoo Mail or Hotmail, and use that address for registrations. Spammers use programs called ''bots,'' for robots, to prowl the Internet and harvest all available e-mail addresses. So don't allow your name and e-mail address to be published in an online directory, or inadvertently sign up for mailing lists that you aren't interested in. This usually means that during the registration process you will have to uncheck the boxes that the Web site has so conveniently checked for you. If you have a Web page, don't put your e-mail address on it: Bots are programmed to capture anything following the words ''mail to.'' For the same reason, many experts will tell you not to use your main e-mail address to post on bulletin boards or Internet news groups. That's a tougher problem, however, because the most likely reason you're there is that you want to interact with other posters. Many people use an alias, either a forged address or a throwaway e-mail account, and ask that replies be posted within the news group. Another technique is to ''munge'' your e-mail address, inserting a word or phrase that humans will know to delete but bots won't (at least not yet). Example: johndoeNOSPAM@isp.com. Finally, don't reply to spam, even if it contains an invitation to remove yourself from the mailing list. Some spammers create mailing lists by randomly pairing common names with popular ISPs; a reply verifies that your e-mail address is valid. In some cases, even opening a questionable e-mail will generate a signal to the sender tagging you as a live one. Toss it out before you open it. Technology may be on the side of the spammers, who always seem to be a step ahead. But now you have your own arsenal of tricks. Use them, and much of the spam will simply disappear before it lands in your inbox--unlike that paper stuff clogging the mail slot back home. By LARRY ARMSTRONG _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS Making Mincemeat out of Unwanted E-mail TABLE: How to Avoid Getting Spammed INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

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