Ultra Strength Email Filter You may have noticed that every conceivable description of email is being received these days, and much of it is completely unsuitable for anyone, especially your children. This article describes a method of configuring an email account so that personal friends and acquaintances can send you email, but all other emails are automatically blocked. You may find this method ideal for young children, but you may find it a bit too restrictive for business purposes. The theory of operation Here's how it works: Set up your email program to check all incoming email for the presence of a password or pass-phrase that you have selected. Any emails that don't contain the password are automatically blocked.
Example: Let's say that any email that you will permit to reach your child must contain the word "window77" somewhere in the message body. (You set up a "message rule" in your email program to look for this word.) Every time an email is received at your computer, the email program checks to see if it contains "window77". If it does, it passes through. If it doesn't, it's automatically blocked. With this rule in effect, now your child simply sends an email to his/her friends, letting them know that any email must contain "window77" (or any other word or phrase, of course). Because young children usually don't have too many friends that they email, this is not much of a task (and of course, you can write a single email, and put all of their friends' addresses in the "to" field.) So, in this example, an email to your child must contain "window77" somewhere in the body of the email. A typical email might therefore look like this: Hi Frankie. Just letting you know that I'll be at your house on Friday night. See you then. Tommy window77 The email program sees the window77, and therefore it gets through. Now, an email from some disreputable so-called "company" who couldn't care less what your child sees or reads, doesn't know about your window77 rule, and so their email won't contain the word, and thus it automatically gets blocked. Don't forget, the password can occur anywhere in the email. It doesn't have to be at the end. It can start with it, or you can put it in the middle. It just has to be somewhere in the message body. Groups of friends can get together and all decide on the same password. It will still block out all the other commercial and inappropriate emails. Also, you can decide that the password must go in the subject line instead of the message body. That's fine. A typical subject might read "RE: the party on Friday night - window77". In fact, some email systems don't have message filters, but they do have subject filters, so you may have to do it this way anyway. Hotmail is one such system. In addition to the password... Of course, the first and easiest filtering that can be done is to set up a message rule that blocks any email that isn't specifically addressed to you. A lot of unsolicited (i.e. "spam") email is delivered to you or your children and it does not have your email address in the to: or cc: fields. This almost always means that it is not a personal email, and it can be safely blocked. Please note, though, that spammers have figured this out too, of course, and are now switching to email software that is able to address each email personally. One of the best ways to counterattack is with intelligent email filtering software that is able to make deletion decisions based upon message content. There are many products out there - enter "spam filtering" in an Internet search engine (such as google.com or AltaVista.com) and you'll see many choices. Step-By-Step Email Filtering Procedure Here's how to set it all up, step by step. The procedure differs depending on the email program, so I'll demonstrate the two most common: Hotmail, and Outlook Express HOTMAIL: 1. Log in to the Hotmail system at http://www.hotmail.com. Of course you'll need to log in using the user name of the account on which you want to set up the rules. 2. Click the Options link. The Options page will open. 3. Click the Custom Filters link. The Customs Filters page will open. 4. Click Create New. The filter page will open. 5. Click Advanced Filters. The Advanced Filter page will open. 6. On this page, after the word If, make sure the drop down box says Subject. 7. The next field (to the right), select: Does not contain. 8. The next field (to the right) should contain your secret password. The password you choose should be fairly easy to remember, but not likely to show up randomly in spam emails. So, greenapple would work well, but apple might not. 9. Tick the radio button (set it to on) next to the option Delete these messages. 10. Click OK to exit the page. This takes you back to the filters page. 11. Place a tick mark in the box next to your new filter. This activates the new filter. 12. Click the Inbox tab, and you're back to your main email window. Now, any new emails not containing your password will be automatically deleted. Please note: The Hotmail site changes its interface from time to time. You may need to modify the procedure to take this into account. OUTLOOK EXPRESS: 1. Run Outlook Express. 2. Click Tools, then Message Rules, then Mail... 3. Make sure the Message Rules tab is displayed, then click the New button on the right hand side. 4. Place a tick mark in the choice, Where the Subject line contains specific words. 5. In the third window down, click the blue text, Contains specific words. 6. In the top field of the window that opens, type your secret password. The password you choose should be fairly easy to remember, but not likely to show up randomly in spam emails. So, greenapple would work well, but apple might not. 7. Click Add, then click Options. 8. Put the dot next to Message does not contain the words below, then click OK. 9. You're now back at the main rule window. In the second field down, scroll down and place a check mark in "Delete it from server" 10. In the fourth field down, give your new rule a name, for example, Anti-Spam. 11. Click OK. That's it. You may want to test your filter by sending yourself two emails, one containing your passphrase, and one not. Another thing. Your subject must contain the password, but it can contain anything else too. So don't misunderstand and think that the whole subject is your password. The word just has to be there. So this is permissible: Need your help with homework -- -- greenapple. Even this is okay: dhhfsgreenappleshdfkjhsdfksfhs. As long as your password is in there somewhere, you'll be fine.
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