How Do I Auto-Delete Viagra Spam?

[Clipper90028]

I am running Windows Vista which comes with 'Windows Mail'.

I keep getting spam email selling Viagra and related products.

The emails are placed into a 'Junk mail' folder and I have to constantly clean them out.

I am trying to find a way to 'delete them from the server', so that they never reach my Email.

The Windows Mail program comes with a spam Filter which offers a variety of options to handle spam, including the option 'Delete from Server'.

However, it does not work with the 'Viagra' email spam.

First, this 'Viagra' spam has No Subject Line (the Subject Line is blank).

Windows Mail spam Filter requires that at least one character must be placed within the rules, so this 'Option' does not work.

I have tried to defeat this by creating a rule that states - Subject Line Does Not Contain; a, e, i, o, u, y, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0, (indivual characters), but this does not defeat an email that has no subject line.

Also a rule that states - subject Line contains 'No subject' and/or (No Subject)' also does not work.

Beyond that, these emails contain a form of 'encripted' words within the 'Body' of the emails, such as;

VI3AG RA| FEM1A LE| CIA7L IS| , etc.

and the structures of these words keep changing within each of the emails.

This makes it very difficult to make 'Rules' that will defeat this kind of spam.

I have also tried a few commercial 'spam Blokers/filters', etc. and None of them are able to defeat this junk.

I have asked many folks about this and either got no answer or answers that did not work.

Someone has even replied that it Can Not be done because the creators of this spam are smart enough to 'outwit' Everyone.

This is very hard for me to believe - But, after asking, literally 100's of people, No One has been able to provide an effective, workable solution. (including Commercial spam blocking/Filtering products/programs)

Does anyone here know how to Defeat this Junk?

With appreciation,

Charles

[Farelf]

Hi Charles,

Moved from SpamCop Email System & Accounts since you're not discussing the SC email system. Hopefully this is a more likely area to attract appropriate response. I note there are utilities around like the shareware Junk Mail Remover but this doesn't do exactly what you're after, it is not free and it may not work from the junk mail folder.

There are many ways to keep your inbox (more or less) free of spam apart from the way you're looking at. In the event there are no solutions in that direction, keep an open mind about any of the other suggestions users 'here' may have.

[Clipper90028]

Moved from SpamCop Email System & Accounts since you're not discussing the SC email system. Hopefully this is a more likely area to attract appropriate response. I note there are utilities around like the shareware Junk Mail Remover but this doesn't do exactly what you're after, it is not free and it may not work from the junk mail folder.

There are many ways to keep your inbox (more or less) free of spam apart from the way you're looking at. In the event there are no solutions in that direction, keep an open mind about any of the other suggestions users 'here' may have.

Thank you,

I am holding out some hope.

maybe I'll be able to have this solved without having to spend another $200 on inept 'spam Software'

[Wazoo]

Someone has even replied that it Can Not be done because the creators of this spam are smart enough to 'outwit' Everyone.

This is very hard for me to believe

As found in the SpamCop FAQ 'here' .... Software Development Life Cycle principles for spam

Surely you cannot believe that none of the spammers haven't gotten around to checking out Windows, Vista, Windows Mail, etc.?????

Pointing out that you have used a lot of words to describe a scenario 'about' words .... yet most discussions about handling, blocking, filtering e-mail generally tends to look at the IP Address that the e-mail traversed to get to your e-mail client. You mention multiple 'for a cost' products and tools yet appear not to say anything about any of the popular freeware/donation tools or products. SpamPal is an often recommended tool, for instance.

[turetzsr]

<snip>

Pointing out that you have used a lot of words to describe a scenario 'about' words .... yet most discussions about handling, blocking, filtering e-mail generally tends to look at the IP Address that the e-mail traversed to get to your e-mail client. You mention multiple 'for a cost' products and tools yet appear not to say anything about any of the popular freeware/donation tools or products. SpamPal is an often recommended tool, for instance.

...There are also tools (perhaps SpamPal is one of them? I'm not familiar with SpamPal) that perform content filtering, the most popular of which seem to be those that use a form of Bayesian filtering.

...Most of the discussion you will see deals with filtering by users but I imagine there are Bayesian filters that can be done by servers. The problem with that would be false positives -- you might not see legitimate e-mail that gets accidentally trapped by the filter if it's done on the server.

[rconner]

As others have noted, most of us here find it more effective to filter out spam based on which address it is sent from, rather than what text it contains.

That said, you will probably find that a filter based on Bayesian principles will do a better job of detecting spam content than would a long list of strings and rules and regular expressions. Rather than try to figure out all the possible things that might be in spam, the Bayesian filter concentrates on what sets spam apart from non-spam mail. And, no, I have no advice for you on where to get a Bayesian filter. My Mac has one built in to Apple Mail, I suspect that Thunderbird also uses a Bayesian filter (but I am not sure).

-- rick

[petzl]

This is very hard for me to believe - But, after asking, literally 100's of people, No One has been able to provide an effective, workable solution. (including Commercial spam blocking/Filtering products/programs)

Does anyone here know how to Defeat this Junk?

Get a freeware progarm called MailWasher this checks your email and semi-automatically sends it to SpamCop for reporting (your best defense is attack).

DO NOT ACTIVE BOUNCE EMAIL! supposed feature!

[lisati]

DO NOT ACTIVE BOUNCE EMAIL! supposed feature!

A loud "AGREED", which goes for similar "features" on other software that use alleged address of the sender stored in the headers. Until someone comes up with a way of reliably assessing the trustworthiness of said headers without potentially causing problems for innocent bystanders, it's safer to assume that it's a clue that's never suitable for firing off bounces, nastygrams and other such responses.