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Introduction
Unsolicited commercial e-mail, commonly known as UCE or "spam", is a fast
growing problem on the Internet. Most likely, you have received e-mail from businesses and
individuals with whom you are completely unfamiliar who are trying to sell you some
product or service.
Almost always, these messages offer some way for you to be removed from their
"mailing list". More often than not, remove requests are ignored, or worse: they
get you on more junk lists! If you ask to be removed, the spammer knows that mail to your
address is read, which makes your address more valuable to them. Tip: Never send
remove requests in response to junk mail. Moreover, they have no right to add your address
to their mailing list without your consent in the first place. Your best effort is to send
mail to their provider's abuse department. Simply forward the unwanted mail to
abuse@[their domain] to inform their provider of the bulk e-mail. Most providers have
Acceptable Use Policies that explicitly prohibit the sending of bulk e-mail and will take
actions against any users found doing such.
These "mailing lists" are usually created by harvesting e-mail addresses from
Usenet news articles and/or Web pages. If you have ever posted to Usenet or left your
address on a Web page somewhere, you're probably on someone's mailing list. Tip:
Munging, or altering your email address in such a way that a human reader can
figure out the true address, is a common practice on Usenet for foiling address
harvesters. Be original though; they've caught on to common tricks like sticking
NOSPAM in the middle of your address. Also, be kind to your ISP by munging on the
right-hand side of the @ so the junk never makes it to their mail server.
Junk e-mail is more insidious than regular junk mail for several reasons:
- Since the cost of sending e-mail is next to nothing, it is very attractive to
unscrupulous (or unknowing) parties wanting to make a quick buck.
- Ultimately, the cost of junk e-mail is borne by YOU, the recipient, in the time it takes
for you to download it, as well increased costs for hardware and bandwidth for
ISPs to handle it. It is analogous to receiving regular junk mail sent postage due.
- Because of the low cost, there is little incentive for junk mailers to carefully target
their audience, resulting in an even higher amount of junk coming that you in which you
have no interest.
Most ISPs, such as Datasync, prohibit their subscribers from sending mass
unsolicited e-mail. Unfortunately, the free trial accounts which are common these days
leave spammers with little financial disincentive if their account is closed.
The amount of junk mail littering the Internet these days has risen
to obscene levels. The Datasync Mail Filters can block a significant percentage
of the junk so you never have to see it. The Mail Filter is composed of
several different rulesets, each of which looks for telltale signs in
an email message which identify it as likely spam. You may select each
ruleset separately.
You may configure a Block-List of addresses to make your
mailbox off limits to anyone you choose (except Datasync administrative
accounts). While this is not effective for spam-blocking, it has its uses.
We also have a blind-carbon-copy filter which is very effective.
By using this, any message not addressed to you in the To: or Cc: header will be
filtered. Most junk mail is sent this way. This option is not recommended
if you subscribe to many mailing lists or have many e-mail addresses, as it requires
configuration so as to not block this legitimate mail. Be sure to read the
instructions carefully before choosing this option.
When mail comes in for you that triggers the filter, it is silently pitched into a
filtered-mail file on the mail server. This is so that if you accidentally
filter out something by mistake, the mail may be recovered. You may view your
filtered-mail folder via our Web Mail facility (see below). This is especially
recommended if you use the blind-carbon-copy filter. The filtered-mail folders are
cleaned out periodically. You do not need to delete the junk yourself.
If you would like to have your mail filtered at the server, start by entering your
login and password in the form below.
User Authentication
View Filtered Mail
Use this form to use Web Mail to see your filtered-mail.
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