A01 chaf6542 06 se fm indd

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Educate staff not to reply to spam. The worst thing an individual can do on receiving 

spam is to reply to it to complain or to attempt to unsubscribe. This merely confirms to 

the spammer that the address is valid and they are likely to send more junk email and sell 

your address on to other spammers.

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Use filters. Filtering software can identify spam from key words and phrases such as 

‘For Free’, ‘Sex’ or ‘Viagra’. 

Email filters

 are provided for users of  web-  based email. 

Microsoft Outlook Express has its own filter. Filtering software such as Mailwasher 

(

www.mailwasher.net

) or Mcaffee Spamkiller (

www.mcaffee.com

) can also be installed. 

Unfortunately, many spammers know how to avoid the keywords in the filters. The prob-

lem with filters and other services is that there can be ‘false positives’ or valid emails that 

are classified as junk. Additionally, spammers find ways to work around filters by putting 

‘gobbeldy gook’ in the footer of their messages that is not recognised by the filters or using 

variants of words such as V1agra, or  Via-  gra. Review of these may still be necessary. This 

technique is represented by Figure 11.30(b).