4. Protecting Yourself from Junk Email
Unwanted junk email (spam) is annoying and disruptive, forcing us
to wade through huge amounts of useless or offensive messages just to
find the ones we need. To help reduce this problem, Windows Live Mail
includes a built-in filter that automatically screens email to identify
and separate the junk email from legitimate email. Unlike other filters
that require you to “train” the filter to identify junk email correctly,
Windows Live Mail automatically identifies many types of junk email from
the first use, often without the need for feedback from you. It does
this by shifting the required “training” to the Microsoft servers and
using a version of filtering called Bayesian spam filtering.
Bayesian spam filtering is the process of using Bayesian
statistical methods to classify documents into categories. Particular
words have particular probabilities of occurring in spam email and in
legitimate email. For instance, most email users will frequently
encounter the word Viagra in spam email but will
seldom see it in other email. Typically, the filter doesn’t know these
probabilities in advance and must first be trained so that it can build
them up. To train the filter, you generally must indicate manually
whether a new email is spam. For all words in each email you’ve
identified as junk, the filter adjusts the probabilities that each word
will appear in spam or legitimate email in its database. For instance,
Bayesian spam filters typically will have learned a very high spam
probability for the words Viagra and
refinance, but a very low spam probability for
words seen only in legitimate email, such as the names of friends and
family members.
Fortunately, you do not have to have a degree in mathematics or
programming skills to use this feature or to change the filtering to be
more effective. Windows Live Mail comes ready with an initial database
that you can use to distinguish between spam and legitimate email. You
can choose to adjust the sensitivity of the filter to block more email
or to block less email, depending on your needs. You can also
specifically designate senders as either safe or blocked.
By default, Windows Live Mail moves any email identified as junk
to the Junk E-mail folder. This ensures that you don’t have to wade
through junk email but can review the messages before deleting them as
necessary. Checking your Junk E-mail folder periodically for regular
email that has been incorrectly filtered is important to optimize junk
email filtering. If an email is marked as junk but isn’t junk,
right-click it, point to Junk E-mail, and then select Mark As Not
Junk.
You can set the filter level for junk email as well as safe
senders and blocked senders by following these steps:
In Windows Live Mail, click the Menus button on the toolbar,
and then click Safety Options.
In the Safety Options dialog box, shown in Figure 6, you can set the filter
level for junk email on the Options tab. Choose one of the following
filter levels:
- No Automatic Filtering
Turns off automatic filtering. Only email addresses on
your Blocked Senders list are filtered.
- Low
Ensures that only email with the highest probability of
being junk is filtered.
- High
Uses rigid screening to detect the highest number of
junk email possible, but may also incorrectly flag regular
email as junk.
- Safe List Only
Filters all email except for recipients specifically
designed as Safe Senders.
You can permanently delete suspected junk email rather than
moving it to the Junk E-mail folder by selecting the “Permanently
delete suspected junk e-mail instead of moving it to the Junk E-mail
folder” checkbox. If you do this, keep in mind that legitimate email
could also be deleted automatically.
Messages from email addresses designated as safe senders will
never be treated as junk email. Use the following options on the
Safe Senders tab to manage your Safe Senders list:
- Add
Allows you to add a safe sender. Click Add, type the
email address or Internet domain to add to the Safe Senders
list, and then click OK.
- Edit
Allows you to edit an existing safe sender entry. Click
the entry you want to edit and then click Edit. As necessary,
edit the email address or Internet domain and then click
OK.
- Remove
Allows you to remove a safe sender entry. Click the
entry you want to remove and then click Remove.
Messages from email addresses designated as blocked senders
are always treated as junk email. Use the following options on the
Blocked Senders tab to manage your Blocked Senders list:
- Add
Allows you to add a blocked sender. Click Add, type the
email address or Internet domain to add to the Blocked Senders
list, and then click OK.
- Edit
Allows you to edit an existing blocked sender entry.
Click the entry you want to edit and then click Edit. As
necessary, edit the email address or Internet domain and then
click OK.
- Remove
Allows you to remove a blocked sender entry. Click the
entry you want to remove and then click Remove.
Click OK to save your settings.
5. Protecting Yourself from Phishing Links
Phishing is a type of fraud designed to steal your
identity. In phishing scams, scam artists try to get you to disclose
valuable personal data such as credit card numbers, passwords, account
data, or other information. They usually do this by convincing you to
provide the information under false pretenses. Phishing emails claim to
be from a trusted party, such as a financial institution or online
service, but they aren’t. By including links to fraudulent websites,
these email messages can trick you into providing your personal
information to sites you wouldn’t normally use. Windows Live Mail has a
phishing filter that analyzes email to help detect these fraudulent
links and help protect you from these online scams. Although links in
suspected phishing emails are blocked automatically, phishing emails are
not moved automatically to the Junk E-mail folder.
You can configure phishing filtering by completing the following
steps:
In Windows Live Mail, click the Menus button on the toolbar,
and then click Safety Options.
In the Safety Options dialog box, select the Phishing tab, as
shown in Figure 7.
To block links in phishing emails so that they cannot be
clicked, select the “Protect my Inbox from messages with potential
Phishing links” checkbox.
To move suspected phishing emails to the Junk E-mail folder,
select the “Move phishing E-mail to the Junk e-mail folder”
checkbox.
Click OK to save your settings.
6. Changing Windows Live Mail Security Settings
By default, to protect you from viruses, Windows Live Mail
treats all email as though it is from a restricted site. AThis setting
ensures that Windows Live Mail uses the maximum safeguards and disables
all types of potentially unsafe content. To prevent certain types of
phishing and marketing scams as well as nefarious programs, Windows Live
Mail also blocks images and other types of external content in HTML
email automatically. In most cases, this is the best configuration to
safeguard your computer and your data. With these settings, very few
viruses can slip through. Plus, if you are sure an email is from a safe
sender, you can right-click an image or other type of blocked external
content in a message and then select Download to display the blocked
contents.
You can use the Security tab in the Windows Live Mail Options
dialog box to change settings for virus protection and secure email. To
access and configure the Security tab options, follow these
steps:
In Windows Live Mail, click the Menus button on the toolbar,
and then click Options.
In the Options dialog box, click the Security tab, as shown in
Figure 8.
For virus protection, select either the less secure Internet
zone or the highly secure Restricted sites zone as the Internet
Explorer security zone to use.
By default, Windows Live Mail warns you whenever another
program tries to send email as you. This option is designed to
protect other people from a virus that has infected your computer
and is trying to spread itself through email. Clear the “Warn me
when other applications try to send mail as me” option if you don’t
want to be warned when other applications try to send email as you.
Otherwise, leave this option selected to help protect other people
from viruses that spread themselves through email.
By default, any suspect attachments in messages are blocked so
that they can’t be saved or opened. Clear the “Do not allow
attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus”
checkbox if you want to allow all attachments to be saved and
opened. Otherwise, leave this option selected to help protect your
computer and your data.
By default, images and other external content are blocked to
help protect your computer. Clear the “Block images and other
external content in HTML e-mail” checkbox if you always want images
and other external content to be displayed. Otherwise, leave this
option selected to help protect your computer and your data.
Click OK to save your settings.
NOTE
Secure Mail is the last set of security options on the
Security tab. To use Secure Mail as it is offered here, you will have
to acquire a digital certificate that you will need to import and
configure. The digital certificate has settings that determine how you
can use it. Some certificates are used just for SSL encryption, others
for IPSec or network encryption, and some can be used for both of
these purposes, and more. If you already have a digital certificate
that is enabled for email encryption and/or digital signing, you can
choose whether you want all emails to be encrypted and/or digitally
signed automatically using the “Encrypt” and “Digitally sign”
checkboxes. If you don’t already have a digital certificate, Windows
Live Mail gives you a few places you can enroll for one. Just click
the Get Digital ID button and follow the prompts.
