Question:

Answer:

The best way to avoid unwanted e-mail (often known as spam) is to protect the privacy of your e-mail address. This article offers a tactic for filtering unwanted messages using header information once your address has become known to those who send mass mailings. For more information about techniques for handling unwanted messages, see Receiving Unwanted E-mail Messages (http://www.answers.vt.edu/ask4help/email/vtkb1064.htm).

The Virginia Tech mail servers tag all incoming e-mail that they suspect to be unsolicited messages (also known as spam) with a special header string begining with "X-Junkmail" or "X-JunkMail". To filter messages with this header, create a new folder. Then, using the Message Filters tool, create a rule that puts all messages with "X-Junkmail" and "X-JunkMail" in the header into that folder. To do this:

1. Start Netscape.
2. From the Window menu, select Mail & Newsgroups.
3. From the File menu, select New, and then select Folder.
4. In the Name text box, type: Junk Mail
5. Click OK.
6. From the Tools menu, select Message Filters.
7. Click the New button.
8. In the Filter Name text box, type: X-Junkmail
9. Define the filter criteria. Under For Incoming Messages That, there are two option buttons, two drop-down lists, and one text box.
   1. Select the Match Any of the Following option.
   2. From the first drop-down list, select Customize.
   3. In the New Message Header text box, type: X-Junkmail
   4. Click the Add button.
   5. In the New Message Header text box, type: X-JunkMail
   6. Click the Add button.
   7. Click OK.
   8. From the first drop-down list, select X-Junkmail.
   9. From the second drop-down list, select Contains.
   10. In the text box, type: UCE
   11. Click the More button.
   12. In the new text box, type: RBL
   13. Click the More button.
   14. In the new text box, type: Blacklisted
10. Choose the action to perform.
    • In Netscape 7.1:
      1. Under Perform These Actions, place a check in the Move to Folder check box.
      2. From the first drop-down list, select your account, select Inbox, and then select Junk Mail.
    • In Netscape 7.0:
      1. Under Perform This Action: From the first drop-down list, select Move to Folder.
      2. From the second drop-down list, select your account, select Inbox, and then select Junk Mail.
11. Click OK.
12. Close all windows.