Spam What Can We Do?
Have a look at you inbox. How much of what you saw did you actually want to receive? Is there email that is distasteful and not fit for a Christian mind?
If your inbox contains unwanted material, you are victim to a growing problem called spam. Spam is the term used to refer to email that you don't want to receive, and didn't ask for. I won't go on because I am sure you all know what I am talking about.
You Need a filter
Spam tends to be different from email you want to receive. For example it may contain words that you and your friends wouldn't use, these differences make it possible to filter your email.
What does a filter do?
Most filters are simply classifiers, they decide if an email is a spam or non- spam email and mark it. They don't delete or redirect it. What happens to the spam is up to your mail client. Usually you set it up to detect the marks and move all mail marked spam into a special folder or the trash bin. Unfortunately, filters make mistakes. This is especially bad if it thinks that a good email is spam. Filters try to avoid this but it does happen, so you have to periodically check the spam folder for good email. The longer you have a filter the fewer mistakes it will make.
So why bother to filter...
..if you still have to check that your filter hasn't made a mistake and classified a good email as spam? Part of the advantage of filtering is that it just places the important stuff first. The emails that are strongly non- spam are likely to be urgent and having a filter enables you to get to the important stuff first without having to sift through mountains of spam. You can then easily scan through the spam folder before deleting it all.
What Filter should I use?
To filter out my spam I use POPfile It works by assigning probabilities to each word, as to how likely it will appear in a spam or non- spam email. It then adds up the probability it is a spam versus the probability it is a non- spam. If it's probably spam, it classifies it as spam and visa versa. One great thing about POPfile is that it enables you to classify your email into as many categories as you want. So you can have urgent, personal, work related, etc. "buckets". This increases productivity because it enables you to prioritize emails.
The only drawback of this type of filter is that it requires training to learn what emails you consider to be spam, and which you want to receive. This requires a little bit of work, but once you are passed the initial learning stage you just have to make the odd correction every now and again. (There many other filters, and technologies, I just don't have the space to discuss them here.)
I don't have a problem with spam, so I don't need to filter right?
Correct - if your email address will never be available to a spammer, but the chances are that a some stage one is going to get hold of your address. When this happens you will need to filter your mail. If you get any spam, or your email address is published on the web or somewhere publicly accessible, then I suggest you start filtering now. This way the filter can learn the style of the email you do want to receive Then if a spammer gets your address you will be prepared.
To Bounce or Not To Bounce.
Many spam filters give you the option of bouncing spam emails. The idea is
sound. Give the spammers a message that your email address is invalid then they
won't bother to send you any more. Unfortunately they have discovered this trick
and make fake return addresses. These addresses are usually someone's email
address and they receive 1000's of returned mail (some from bouncing and some
from real invalid email addresses). Often spammers target people who are writing
anti-spam software, or are doing something to stop them. These people get hate
mail and all kinds of stuff, so we shouldn't make the problem worse, and by
bouncing spam you effectively become a spammer as well.
This article was published by www.thischristianlife.com which is an excelent
online christian magazine. You can read this article there, James' Spam Article at This Christian Life.
Also Check out my other spam article "A
Quick History of Anti-Spam Methods"
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