eMail eTiquette and other Internet matters
by Jo McIntyre
Don't you just hate spam - those unwanted messages that pile up in email Inboxes?

In this article, I will describe various kinds of spam and give some advice about what to do about it. Legislation will not do it, but not to worry. The market is far stronger than the government.

In descending order of annoyance, spam email consists of offers to sell you pornography, medical treatments, drugs, low-cost loans, insurance products, or other items.

I'll tell you about ways to deal with these below, but first I want to talk about another kind of spam.

It is that which we ourselves may be guilty of sending out, such as forwards of virus warnings and other hoaxes like sad or scary stories about women or children, or news items of questionable accuracy. What makes this spam? When we forward the message to everyone on our email list!

So, first rule of thumb: don't forward a message that did not originate with the person who sent it to you. That is the infamous message with "Fw: fw: fw:.." in the subject line - almost guaranteed to be a hoax.

Here's how to check out whether a warning or other kind of story is accurate. There are three excellent Web sites that find and check out these stories. Some of them are almost ten years old, but they keep circulating because new, naive, innocent people keep running into them and starting up another round.

One of my favorites is: http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/ This page has been looked at almost 14 million

times since it was started in Feb. 1995.

Another great one is http://www.truthorfiction.com This site was founded in 1998 by a reporter experienced in urban legends long before the Internet became popular.

Also good is http://www.snopes.com/index.html which concentrates on Urban Legends, also, but also has good lists and categories of types of hoaxes and tricks.

There's tons of good information on these sites and you can check out the accuracy of any suspicious email you get. They also discuss how to recognize hoaxes, what to do about them and give a little history of hoaxes.

Computer whizzes already know how to deal with incoming spam. They've developed programs to stop it before it gets to their Inbox. For a good summary of some of the programs, plus some all-around good advice on how to deal with spam, check out this Web address: www.komando.com.

This is the Web site of "the Digital Goddess, Kim Komando" who has been handing out excellent advice about all things compauter for many years. And, yes, she is a Goddess. You can find many of her comments about spam here: http://komando.master.com/texis/master/search/?s=SS&q=spam

She also deals with Web annoyances like pop-up ads. If you decide not to get one of the spam filters mentioned on Kim's Web site, there is not much you can do about Web-based spam, but there's plenty you can do to get rid of spam emails. Your mail handling program should have a way to do it.

Here's how to set up filters in Microsoft's Outlook Express, which about 85 percent of computer users have on their computers.

First, go to Tools on the toolbar, then Message Rules, then Mail. There you can set up Rules for filtering your email. Click on New and read the instructions for setting Conditions, Actions and Descriptions. Put in words from offending emails that appear in the Subject lines or From lines of your emails.

Spammers have figured out ways to get around this which you will notice after you get the easy ones out, but it is still a good start.

You also can put spammers on your Blocked Senders list, though that is no longer as effective as it used to be. Still, if an annoying person keeps emailing you, that's a good way to stop his messages from getting in.

Here's how to Block a Sender: Go to Message on the toolbar, click on Block Sender, and Voila! That sender is blocked! What if, oops! you blocked somebody you actually want to get mail from? Go back to Message Rules, in Mail above, go to the Blocked Senders list, find your friend, and remove her from the Blocked Senders list.

My final message is - don't feel bad if you've fallen for one of these tricks. Nearly everyone I exchange emails with has done so at least once.

Some people have figured out how to get a smile out of even the most annoying phenomenon. This is my husband's favorite email received on the subject of viruses:

"You have just received the Amish virus. We are not allowed to use electricity, so we don't have any computers, or programming experience. This virus works on the honor system. Please delete all the files from your hard drive and manually forward this virus to everyone on your mailing list. Thank you for your cooperation.

--- The Amish Computer Engineering Department