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Anti-Spam Software for Mom?
daemondev asks: "As a software engineer and FreeBSD user, I've had no problem setting up and using the early anti-spam solutions like Spam-Assassin, TMDA and PopFile. I'm reasonably happy with where I am today, but it certainly could still be better! On the other hand, these solutions are not at all appropriate for my mom, who now has a huge spam problem (she really doesn't need all of that Viagra). I'm looking for something that works "out of the box" and doesn't require a lot of in depth knowledge about email and text filters, and which ideally doesn't need to be updated and replaced continuously. She uses Outlook 2000 on Windows ME. Has anyone found a good package that they would trust to stop spam but that's easy enough for their mom to use?"
Cloudmakr produces SpamNet. It works great for me. I get between 300-400 spam per day and it removes about 95% of those. you can find the product on http://www.cloudmark.com/products/spamnet/
The Mozilla mail client (thunderbird).
After training it for about a week, I don't think I've had one false positive, and *very* few missed.
Plus the added benefit of it being less of a security risk for her as well.
I upgraded to the Bayesian version of SpamAssassin as part of my regular maintenance. I didn't train it at all. It works great. If false positives are such a problem why not lower the bar on what gets into your inbox? I just save all my spam to a Spam folder and check it every once in a while (using IMAP). This works great for me and I can catch the occasional false positive. I've had maybe one or two in the last year and neither of them was particularly important emails. They were short notes that got flagged.
This in combination with the Mozilla mail client's Bayesian filter, which is easy to train, works wonderful. It would be cool to have Mozilla's Bayesian filter share its input with SpamAssassin.
I use Popfile It's a Bayesean filter that is configured with an HTML interface. Very easy to use, and fairly accurate.
The pen is mightier than the sword...
That way you simply administer anti-spam tools for her and yourself in a single step.
This may have the added bonus of a common family domain, and of course it extends to siblings, etc.
Before you do it, be sure you want to take on the responsibility of mail system management for your family. Frankly, since it's your mail too, it's likely less work than remotely administering several installations of client-side anti-spam tools.
Your best bet is to ditch the old email address and get a new one, then teach her the fundamental tenets of spam avoidance...
1) NEVER give out your email address to someone you don't know. (This includes posting on forums and sites that "require" you to register with a valid email address.)
2) Even if you think you are giving your address to a trusted source, read that Privacy Policy. Look for something like: "we do not share user data with our associates". If the policy is hard to find or isn't there, don't trust them.
3) NEVER click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email.
4) For those cases where you need to sign up with a non-trusted source to get information, setup an account purely for retrieving passwords and registration confirmation.
Ignorance, as is the case with pretty much everything, is the biggest problem that is easy to solve. Don't think just because she's "Mom" she can't learn these tips. My parents and grandparents both had a really bad spam problem, and by just showing them how to avoid getting spam in the first place goes far in reducing the over-all problem. (Especially when you can get them to spread the word to their friends and co-workers.)
Both Outlook Express and the full Outlook have a "Rules" system that let you automatically move emails around based on various criteria.
Simply set her up some rules that match on the various types of email she wants to get. In my mom's case we have a family mailing list, which I set a rule to match the subject line for. She also gets automated emails from a cooking site, and from her ISP, so I set up rules for that.
The key is each rule should simply match a type of mail she wants to keep, and have the "Stop processing rules" option checked. As soon as one of the criteria is matched, the rules stop and the mail stays in her inbox. The rule need not have any actual "action" on it, its purpose is to match and stop.
The last two rules are critical. The next to last rule should be a "Match on FROM address", and you should select EVERYONE in her address book. (And of course, set the "stop processing more rules" bit). You may have to update this rule as she adds to her address book.
The very last rule is the key. This one is only going to be processed if NONE of the others match. You simply have this rule match everything, and dump everything into a folder named "Junk Mail".
That's it. No extra software required. When I go visit her, she usually has a ton of stuff in Junk Mail, just give it a quick look to make sure there is nothing your rules are missing, and dump it for her.
P.S. If that's not geeky enough for you, I also recommend Cloudmark.