Blocking email

You can block an email using spam filters. There are many definitions of spam, but one of the most useful ones is the following:

"Spam: unsolicited email, usually of a commercial nature."

Spam is the electronic version of junk mail, and has been around since the Internet was created. Spam filters are a way of filtering your email to remove unwanted mail based on a variety of criteria. You can block any sort of email, not just mail of a commercial nature. Blocked mail is deleted automatically - it does not even bounce back to the sender. These filters are quite flexible - some examples are provided after the instruction on how to add a spam filter below. All filters are cumulative.

Useful spam links:

• Six simple things you can do to prevent spam

• Alternate definition of spam

• Usenet definition of spam

Also refer to Spam Assassin for another approach to dealing with spam.

To add a spam filter:

1. Click on the Block an E-mail link in the Mail Menu area.

2. Click on the Add Filter link.
   
   

3. Click on the required header field in the first drop-down list. These are the various fields in any email message.
   
   

4. Click on the required filter action in the second drop-down list. This action will act on the text entered in the third field.

   • equals - match the text exactly (whole words only). "Credit" will block "Credit".

   • matches regex - matches the text based on regular expression (regex) rules. Regular expressions are a powerful but complex area. You do not need to use regular expression filters for most circumstances. Refer to these two good introductory tutorials - Using Regular Expressions and Learning to Use Regular Expressions - for more information.

   • contains - match the specified text in any circumstance. "porn" will block "porn" and "pornography".

   • begins with - match the specified text when it is the beginning of a word. "porn" will block "porn" and "pornography" but not "teenporn".

5. Enter the filter text in the third field. This text is case sensitive.

6. Click on the button.

Example:

To block all email from "john@paradise.net", enter: From, equals, john@paradise.net

To block all email from paradise.net, enter: From, contains, paradise.net

To block all references to pornography, enter: Any Header, contains, porn