Protecting Mailboxes From Spam

ABOUT SPAM: Once you start using e-mail, you are likely to start receiving lots of messages that, as you may think, have gotten to your mailbox by mistake because you do not know the sender, and you personally did not subscribe to that newsletter or requested the product or service that these messages advertise. These unwanted e-mail messages are called unsolicited commercial e-mail, however, most people prefer calling them mass mailing, bulk mail, junk mail or "spam".

ABOUT PHISHING: Aside from advertising, you can receive e-mail messages that falsely claim to be from legitimate enterprises, such as banks or Internet auctions, even the IRS. These messages can say, for example, that your account information needs to be updated, and to do that, you need to click the link they provide in the message. The link takes you to a fake Web site, which had been set up by fraudsters to steal your sensitive information, such as login names, passwords, credit card and bank account numbers. This is a type of scam called phishing.

To avoid receiving such undesirable correspondence, do not publish your new personal e-mail address on Internet message boards and forums because spammers gather e-mail addresses from the Internet. Thus, your e-mail address may get on their lists and you will receive lots of spam. If you need to publish your e-mail address, create a disposable e-mail address - e-mail alias - for your mailbox, and publish it instead. For this we recommend using something like a hotmail or gmail account. All messages sent to the e-mail alias will come into your mailbox. Once you start getting spam, remove that alias and create another one. If you have a mailbox at another domain or mail server, you may want to set up a disposable e-mail forwarder.

We advise that you do not read spam e-mails when you receive them, just delete them at once. Even if you have read them, do not respond to them and do not click those "click here to unsubscribe" URLs: spammers will then know that your e-mail address is valid and you will get even more spam. Spam is there because people buy the products or services advertised in spam. So, if you do not like spam, do not support spammers and do not buy from them.

Note that the following instruction WILL NOT PREVENT ALL SPAM FROM GETTING THROUGH THE FILTER! But we are confident that our spam filtering products are the best available, and allow the greatest flexibilty in customizing your spam filter settings.

TO SWITCH ON THE SPAM FILTERING for your mailbox on the Valley TechNologies e-mail server:

1. IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT YOU PRINT THIS PAGE SO YOU HAVE IT HANDY WHILE YOU ARE ADJUSTING YOUR SETTINGS.
   
   
2. Go to login.valley-technologies.com, login with your full e-mail address and e-mail password. If you have forgotten this password, please submit a Help Desk Ticket to have it reset.
   
3. Click Spam Filter.
   
4. Select Enable spam filtering checkbox.
   

   -- DISCLAIMER --

5. NOTE THAT NO E-MAIL WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY DELETED UNTIL YOU CHECK THE BOX TO AUTOMATICALLY DELETE MESSAGES IDENTIFIED AS SPAM. DON"T DO THIS UNTIL YOU ARE CERTAIN THAT NO VALID E-MAILS ARE BEING TAGGED AS SPAM. IF YOU DO, YOU ARE LIKELY TO MISS IMPORTANT COMMUNICATIONS!

   

   A "score" of 3.5 is recommended as a good starting point to qualify the spam. You can raise the level to allow more e-mails through the filter if items are being tagged as spam that should not. You can lower the level if an unacceptable level of spam messages are still getting through.  Adding the "_SCORE_" text to the spam subject will assist you in finding the optimum score for spam messages.
   
   IT IS NOT ADVISABLE TO CHECK THE BOX TO "DELETE SPAM MAIL WHEN IT COMES TO MAILBOX" UNTIL AFTER YOU ARE CERTAIN THAT THE "SCORE" IS SET TO IT'S OPTIMUM LEVEL.
   
   Click OK to save the settings. Then go back into the "Spam Filter" settings.
   
   
6. Next, to improve spam detection, click the Training tab in the Tools group.
   
   NOTE: You may need to adjust your "Advanced" settings for your e-mail to leave e-mails on the server for a day or two so you can have them on the server in order to "train" the filter.
   
   
7. All e-mail messages you have in your mailbox are presented on the screen. Each message is accompanied by an icon in the left column, which tells if a message is recognized as
   spam: - ,
   non-spam - , or
   not recognized at all - .
   
   If you have already trained your spam filter on a message and the results were recorded in the spam filter's database, an icon like this is shown in the right column.
   
   
8. Train the spam filter.

   In most cases, you can tell if a message is spam by looking at its subject line and sender's name. If they do not give you any clue, try looking inside the message using your local e-mail program or Webmail interface.

   • To mark a message as spam, select the corresponding check box and click 'It's Spam!' at the top of the page.
     
     

   • To mark a message as not spam, select the corresponding check box and click 'It's Not Spam'.
     
     
   • To remove any information on a given message from the spam filter database, select the corresponding check box and click 'Forget It'.

Once finished with training, you can remove spam e-mails from your mailbox using your local e-mail program or Webmail interface.

If you have accidentally made your spam filter learn a great number of spam e-mails as non-spam or vice versa, your spam filter will likely produce incorrect results. In this case, clear the spam filter's database and then repeat training.

TO CLEAR THE SPAM FILTER DATA BASE:

1. From the Training tab in the Tools group,

2. Click the Clear button.

To switch off spam filtering for a mailbox, just clear the Enable spam filtering check box, and click OK.