Fighting spam for dummies - John R Levine

If you have e-mail, you have spam-that annoying electronicjunk mail that jams your inbox, sometimes makes you blush, andtakes a lot of the fun out of your online experience. Spam wastesthousands of hours and costs you, the recipient of the stuff youdon't want, thousands of dollars in increased costs that yourInternet service provider eventually passes along to you. In fact,a European survey in 2001 revealed that spam costs about $9.4billion each year!

Spammers spam because they're not paying for it,you are. The good news is, you can fight back, andFighting Spam For Dummies tells you how. Find out

• Where spam comes from
• How to set up spam filters
• How folders help filter out spam
• What additional programs can help
• Where-and how-to report spam
• How best to lobby for spam control

You'll get the plai n-English explanation for activatingany additional protection offered by your ISP, and discover how tomake the best use of any spam filter that came with your e-mailprogram. Fighting Spam For Dummies will arm you withinformation about

• Making your address harder for spammers to grab
• Why simply hitting "delete" isn't enough
• Tracking down the source of the spam
• What you can learn from e-mail headers
• How spam filters work-and why they aren'tfoolproof
• Setting up the maximum level of filtration for your e-mailprogram and ISP
• What information your ISP needs when you report spam
• How-and how not-to complain
• Adding protection with POPFile
• Ways to protect your clients if you're a networkadministrator

The ultimate solution to spam has yet to be found, but theseInternet-savvy authors give you the tools to help level the playingfield. They also offer some solid suggestions for anti-spam lawsand how you can join the war on spam.