If you have had your email address for any length of time, you are probably already receiving unwanted emails from "spammers". This problem is made worse if you have your email listed on a website. The experts all agree on one thing: Do NOT respond to these spams! Why not? Because it just lets them know they have a "live one" and can sell your email to even more spammers.

What can we do about this annoying (and sometimes dangerous) problem? Simple: Use Spam Assassin!

Spam Assassin is a mail filter installed on our mail servers used to identify spam. It checks for spam using a large number of pre-set rules that check the header, body, and sender of all email messages sent to your domain mailbox. When an email fails enough of these rules, it will be flagged as potential spam and sent on to your inbox as an email attachment. You will usually be able to determine if the email is junk or not by reading the Spam Assassin information included with the original email - all without having to open the attachment. Spam Assassin isn't perfect, but it is a big step in the right direction.

For those of you who using our webmail program (http://webmail.yourdomain.tld), you'll notice a recent update that can filter out the spam messages to a special folder called 'Junk Mail' in your folder list.

The server will typically mark messages with a score of 5 as potential spam, unless you contact support and specify differently. Even though the messages are marked at 5 before you receive them, the score you filter them out of your inbox is easily changed via the preferences section in the webmail application.

If you check your email from home via an application such as 'Outlook', we've made up some sample pages to help walk you through creating rules for filtering the messages out of your inbox.

• 
  Outlook Express
• 
  Outlook 2000/XP