The Fight against Spam

 

Please read the following instructions and then download your Spam Bully

1. go to Spam Bully
2. download the trial version for your own mail server – Outlook Express, or Vista or Outlook
3. Close your mail program and Internet Explorer
4. Install on your C drive – your hard drive (HDD)
5. At the end of the install, a small black screen pops up saying the service is running.
6. Next time you start your mail program you will need to setup SpamBully.
7. At the first screen you can just click next – it will then gather info from all the folders in your mail program and flag these as acceptable.
8. If you choose advance options, you can specify from which folders it should choose acceptable email addresses.
9. The program will then start learning – this might take anything up to 10 minutes depending on the amount of mails and folders you have.
10.  When done, it will tell you the wizard has completed successfully and you can close.
11.  Now your mail program will open and you will see a new row of buttons.
12.  You will also now have 2 new folders – one called Spam and one called Unsure.
13.  The program will automatically dump all spam into the Spam folder and those it is unsure about in the Unsure folder. You must then just follow up regularly in those two folders. Those that are spam – you can select them and tick the spam button at the top, those that are not, select them and tick the not spam button – these will then be put back into your inbox.
14.  Furthermore you can help fight spam by going through your Spam folder and select and click Fight Back on each of those, the IP addresses used to send those spam will then be blacklisted.
15.  Keep in mind that you are training the program to eventually recognise all spam mails and putting those into the Spam folder.
16.  Empty the Spam folder regularly with the empty spam folder button.
17. If you like the program, you pay $29.99 for the full version.

 

Solutions to the Gunk Mail issue

 

If you have been following the past 2 or 3 newsletters you would have seen the issue with GUNK MAIL. After some late night research, we have come up with a solution as follows.

 

GUNK Filters on the Server

 

We have set the current filters on the servers to very strict, however the baddies have found ways to bypass any filtering system. It is getting so bad that clients using their telkomsa email addresses are complaining about a similar flood of GUNK.

 

Why Filters are not enough

 

All of you would have received a similar mail/s as this one below:-

 

 

The current filter we use on our servers are called Sp@m Assassin, one of the best there is. This program must be “trained” by writing into it all the possible variations a gunker can possibly use to send you.

 

Allow us to demonstrate the impossibility of this simple sounding task! Please read the example mail above again. Note the very subtle “additions” to the way the words are spelled - V P X L pi ll s. Note the gaps between the letters? Therein lies the problem.

 

This is how it really looks in the coding of the page (keep in mind that a computer reads the coding, not what the human eye sees) :-

 

V kuw P sws X ota L pi ltm ll br s (I added the bold to make it more visible)

 

Note the extra letters they put into the equation, which causes the gaps human readers see between the letters in the mails.

 

In order to allow Sp@ m Assassin to effectively stop all gunk mails – and in this specific case I am referring ONLY to the part in bold above, not even a full email, it would mean having to allow for every possible variation a gunker can come up with in this scenario.

 

All they have to do is change one of the “in between” letters every time! This leaves them with hundreds and possibly thousands of possible variations in only these two words. That still leaves the rest of the content of this one email.

 

The gunker thus ensures that he has literally hundreds of thousands or more variations on just this one email. And they have software that automatically generates this, so the emails are being sent at an overwhelming rate with no chance of blocking every one. In order to have Sp@ M Assassin effectively block every possibility on just this one email would mean that we have to write every possible variation into it to start with.

 

THUS - Add a whole section with maybe 10 staff and a couple of months just to stop this one email!! It is simply not a practical solution. And gunkers know this.

 

 

Where do they get your address from?

 

Easy - they simply harvest it from the coding of your website. By using harvesting software they simply run through millions of websites harvesting any and all email addresses by reading the coding. So we need to hide the email address in the coding.

 

Also, an email address such as info@ - is a given - and you can literally send gunkmail to any info@ anydomain and you might get a 80% success rate.

 

Further - people send mails to you saying that Microsoft or similar is giving away money if you just send this mail to as many people as you can, with testimonials of it having worked for others - CAUTION !! This is a known method of harvesting email adresses - all the addresses that you forward this mail to, will start receiving viagra offers within one week, so please notify all your friends as well. Don't forward mail unless from a trusted source.

 

OR - get yourself a gmail account (free of charge) and get all your friends to forward all the "teddy bear" mails to that account, and use the business email address for business only.

 

The Best Possible Solution

 

There is light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, two lights. But as these things go, there are negatives as well as positives.

 

First solution – Redo your current email address so that it shows on your website as a Flash file. This would mean it looks more like a picture and not text. Please see www.weddingphotography2u.com for an example – note the block stating “Contact us” - above the flashing pics.

 

We currently use Flash to design booking/enquiry forms on new websites because search engines are unable to access and read the content in a Flash file. This means they cannot access the recipient email address to gunk it.

 

As a matter of interest, this is also the reason why a website designed entirely in Flash will never be able to rank in search engines.

 

Pros:

i. We adapt it to the look & feel of your website.
ii. Very effectively stops incoming gunk from your website.

Cons:

i. We have to totally delete your existing email addresses from the server. This means you will have to stop using the existing email addresses.
ii. This might present a problem as you obviously use this on your marketing material.
iii. We then have to make new email addresses – for instance info@ might become information@, bookings@ might become booknow@, sachatraub@ might become sacha.traub@ etc.
iv.

If we keep your existing email addresses, even if making a new address in Flash format, the gunk mails will simply keep on coming because the gunkers have long ago harvested it. The only effective solution is for it to be gotten rid of completely.

So, on the negative side you will have to get new email addresses. On the positive side however, you will ensure that the gunk problem dries up virtually overnight.

 

Cost:

Being a huge exercise to complete if we do it for all clients, we have decided to charge 1 hour's maintenance per site (if you have more than one site, please speak to us re a price first.)

 

R296.40 once-off per website (VAT included)

 

Second solution – download and install Sp@m Bully (you just have to love that one!) onto your computer by following instructions at the top.

 

Pros:

i. Really effective tool to combat gunk mails you have already received. Routes them to a “sp @ m” or “unsure” folder, where you can either delete them or combat them – blacklist them.
ii. Definitely makes a difference to the amount of gunk mails that end up in your inbox, leaving you with work related mails only. Saves time as you do not have to sort out the gunk from the proper emails first, it is done for you.
iii. You can also “train” it by teaching it to allow certain emails etc.

Cons:

i. Does not really "stop" gunk mails being sent to you.

Cost:

US$29.99 – you pay Sp@m Bully to use their program.

 

Lots of food for thought, but at the end of the day we all need to decide how much of a pain in the you know what our daily doses of gunk has become and act accordingly.

 

Please contact us with your enquiries and/or instructions.