Please help to complete my near victory over spam

Factual Questions
1

It all started with a series of free ISP accounts. I jumped from free one month offer to free one month offer not knowing the hell in store for me.

I went from getting the occasional spam email to receiving over 20 per day. However, I did not cower from my tormentors. I learned how to use message filters in MS Outlook 2000 (WIN98). Currently, 95% of my spam is filtered to a specially designated SPAM folder. And whenever a spam email slips through to my inbox, I update my filters.

I find great satisfaction in deleting the messages from the spam folder each day. However, therein lies the problem that perhaps some SDMB tech genius could address. When I open my SPAM folder to view it’s contents, the first message is automatically highlighted and displayed. And since the SPAM is invariably in HTML and often contains moving images, displaying this garbage email wastes valuable CPU time.

Is there a way I can specify not to “decode” (or display graphic elements, I don’t know the correct terminology) messages within a given folder.

2

…to view its…

3

Can’t you just disable preview for that folder?

IANAOU (I am not an Outlook user) but I seem to recall that fact being mentioned in one of the threads about email-borne viruses–the preview function could execute some viruses in and of itself.

PS–I feel your pain, and also your sense of triumph. I’ve been at it a bit longer than you, I think; I have been adding filters for 3 years now in Eudora; I get maybe 25-30 pieces of spam per day, sometimes more like 70-100, and my spam filters catch all but maybe 2% of what they shoot at me. Great, isn’t it!

I filter mine straight into the trash and never have to see even so much as the subject titles before emptying them, (nyahh nyaah nyaah :p)

4

Can you guys share some filtering techniques? I filter out everything that does not have my email in the address line but other than that I can only think of filtering by specific senders which would be a waste of time.

5

I use Spamcop.net. It’s 99+% effective, and in addition to trapping the spam before it gets to you, it also gives you a very easy way to get the spammer’s account canceled. Talk about satisfaction :slight_smile:

6

Unless you feel a need to view the contents of a spam folder before deleting those messages, you can simply set your rule in Outlook to delete those message after they are received, rather than placing them in a special folder.

7

In Eudora, you can identify two parameters, joined by “and” or “or”, followed by an action. Either parameter can be the contents of the subject line, contents of the From line, contents of the message body, contents of the To line, contents of “any header”, contents of the Date header, contents of the cc: line, contents of the Reply-to header, or “Personality”, which is something you set up on your end and is identified, in relationship to incoming mail, by previous filters.

I have spam filters that nuke messages containing strings like this in the subject line:

$$$
Make money
!!!
porn
Boost Your Windows Reliability
It Really Works
you requested
make money at home
(etc for about 200 lines)

I have spam filters that nuke messages containing strings like these in other headers:

myserver.com
mortgage
(may be forged)
pricenetusa.com
securecredit.com
intelligent-marketing
(etc for about 150 lines)

Finally, I have spam filters that trash messages containing stings like these in the body:

I send you this file in order to have your advice
MONEY
make money at home
Absolutely FREE
*FREE
MONEY!!!
http://www.outboundusa.com
(etc for about 150 lines)

Also, anything not addressed directly to me or containing phrases that indicate that they are LISTSERV’d digests are filtered.

All that goes straight to the trash.

The remaining filters bust up the incoming mail into the mailboxes I use, dividing work from consultant from professional association from personal.

8

Why not just send yourself a message, put it in that folder and delete everything before it?

Then, when an email goes to that folder and you open that folder, it opens your message first, then you can just right click to delete the others manually without reading them.

9

Yep. Sure is.

I use MS Outlook 2000 myself and its pretty simple though you will have to open each of your mail folders (if you’re like me you have several)

  1. Open Outlook.
  2. Go to the mail folder in question.
  3. Go to “View” on the menu bar.
  4. Click on the “Preview” icon.

This will turn off the preview pane in that folder. The bad news is if you want to do it in ALL your folders you have to do them individually. The good news is if you just want to do it in your spam folder you can still have the preview in the other ones.

If you opt to just send all your spam to the trash as AHunter3 suggests you can set Outlook to automatically delete everything in the trash when you log off.

10

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Victory is mine!!! Die spam die!!! (good call arieanne)
PS Thanks for all the helpful suggestions. I didn’t wish to directly delete the messages in case some wheat remained with the chaff.

11

You should take arieanne’s advice and disable the preview option in all your folders in Outlook–one at a Gates-damned time.

There are a number of worms which can theoretically exploit one of the (thousands of) security loopholes in Outlook and run itself just by being previewed.

12

I agree with the reasons for turning off preview pane for spam, but the benefit of turning it off for regular e-mail would be minimal at best. Yes, some viruses can activate from the preview pane, but they also activate if you open the message full-screen. And the preview pane and full-screen are exactly the same in what content they run. So what’s the first thing you do when you get an virus-infected e-mail from someone you know, and you have preview pane off? You double-click on it(because you don’t know which e-mails are infected in advance) and if you’re vulnerable to the security hole, you get infected, exactly the same as if you had the preview pane on.

So even better than turning off preview pane for regular e-mails is making sure you are up-to-date on security patches, turning off scripting, and never opening suspicious attachments.

13

In Outlook Express, select “View”. Then select “Layout”. In the dialog box that opens, uncheck “Show preview pane”.

14

I manage to trap a good proportion of spam in Outlook Express by searching for variations of “To be removed, please email with REMOVE in the subject”. I’ve got a list that is trapping about 75% of spam at the moment. I tend to get spam advertising semi-legitimate stuff most of the time, so “MAKE MONEY FAST!!!” type filters wouldn’t help much.

Anyhow, all my spam goes to a folder for later reviewing in case it traps the wrong thing. In fact I probably read most of it, but it’s still good to know that I trapped the stuff and I’m only reading it because I choose to!

What I’d really like is some simple scripting system to analyse the message, including the Received: header lines, in order to determine the likelihood of a given message being spam. Does anything (mail reader or add-on) exist to permit this kind of scrutiny?