Email, Phishing and Spam — Oh My!

Email is a wonderful thing! I mean it's hard to believe we ever did without it. I must get hundreds of emails each week, most of it unwanted spam (isn't that redundant?). From phishing attempts to get my bank account information, ads from cheap pharmacies, hot stock tips and others wanting to enlarge certain body parts, it's downright annoying!

It can be difficult, not to mention frustrating, to wade through all that spam to get to the email you actually want to read. Fortunately, you can take steps to help sort out the spam from the important email.

If you're bombarded with spam, here's a few tips that may help you manage spam better:

• Email Program
  If you use an email program like Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird, turn on their built-in spam filters. The filters work quite well at spotting spam and moving it to a separate spam/junk folder.
  
  These filters aren't perfect, though, so you'll need to review the spam folder to see if any good messages were incorrectly identified as spam (these are called false positives). Spam filters typically have options to mark false positives as "not junk" and identify the sender as safe. This prevents the email program from incorrectly identifying future email from the sender as spam.
  
  You may also need to mark some messages as spam that the filter missed. This usually just takes a mouse click, or dragging the message to the spam folder. You can also work with the spam filter preferences or settings to improve the filter's performance.

• Firewall Software
  Some firewall programs include built-in spam filters. I've tried the spam filters in two firewall suites. I currently use ZoneAlarm from Check Point Software, and had previously used PC-cillin from Trend Micro. Both programs' filters work fairly well, but I prefer the ZoneAlarm junk mail filter I'm using now.
  
  The junk mail filter is similar to the anti-spam filter in the email program. However, I found that one filter will catch spam missed by the other and vice versa. I actually use the spam filters in both my email program and firewall software to keep my inbox fairly clean.
  
  The firewall program suites also have anti-phishing filters that help identify fraudulent attempts to trick people into revealing personal information. Some of these phishing emails are pretty cleaver and may be hard to spot without the help from anti-phishing software.

• Email Service Provider
  Most email service providers offer some form of spam filtering. Internet service providers (ISPs) and email services like Google's Gmail provide some spam filtering. These spam filters are usually less effective than those in your email program and firewall, but every little bit helps.
  
  A benefit of using multiple layers of spam filtering is that it improves the overall effectiveness of your spam protection. I've noticed that my Gmail spam filter catches a particular type of spam that my email program and firewall seem to miss.

• Wireless Router
  If you use a wireless router, it may also have some type of anti-spam function. If it does, use it. When it comes to spam, the more layers of filtering you have, the better it is.

To sum it all up, spam is annoying, disruptive and costly. We must do whatever we can to stop it if we want to continue using email effectively.

Never reply to a spammer, even to request to take you off their mailing list. Don't buy their products and services. Remove spammers from your email life and they'll eventually fade away.

By Harry Hiles, HBH Technology LLC — 25 Nov 2007

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