How it works Code and Response White and black lists

Personal Email Filter for

Operation

From the point of view of individual users personal filter is rather drastic, but most effective solution to the spam problem. It uses two address lists, white and black. When a message comes from an address found: When a message comes from an unknown person who wants to inform/ask you about something, he/she gets an automatic reply from you, that tells him/her to send an empty message to a special address. Reception of any message at the special address results automatically in addition of the message sender's address to your white list. Then, any subsequent messages from that address are accepted and delivered to your mail box.

Both, the special address and the automatic reply text (response to unknown senders), are to be formed on page Code and Response (link on the top or bottom line).

If, however, a message comes from some spam generating software rather than from a live person, its sender's address is most likely faked - non-existent, or one of free email services, eg. hotmail, bigfoot, yahoo, valid only for a short time, with its mail box usually overfilled (not accepting any replies). It means your automatic reply to spam senders will not be read by anybody, to say nothing about following the advice it contains. Therefore, no spam sender's address has any practical chance of getting onto your white list. Such addresses will remain unknown, and messages coming from them will not pollute your mail box.

It may happen that spam comes as though from your address - a clever spamming software substitutes your address for its own. To block such spam, put your address on the black list. If, for any reason, you would like to send yourself a message, remove your address from the black list before sending the message, and put it back on the list afterwards.

Addresses that should be on the white list

MAILER-DAEMON is a special address from which various error notifications (unknown recipient, unknown domain, delivery problems, etc.) may come. There is no need, however, to put it on the white list. Personal Email Filter deals with messages from MAILER-DAEMON according to the following rule. If they concern problems with delivery of the response to unknown senders, they are discarded - there is no point in worrying about the response not being delivered to non-existent or faked addresses. Otherwise, they are accepted.

On page White and black lists (link on the top or bottom line) you will see both of your lists initially empty. You should add to the list addresses of those whose messages are welcome. If you have an address book in your mailing software, you can easily transfer its content to the white list (see instructions on the White and black lists page - upload). Also, make sure addresses of all mailing list you have subscribed to are included. Otherwise you would not get any messages sent to the list. Moreover, each message coming from the list would make your 'Response to unknown senders' go to the message author, if not to the whole list. That surely would not be received too kindly by the author or other subscribers.

There are mailing lists organized in such a way that the sender's address is that of the message author. You do not, however, have to put addresses of all subscribers on your white list. In the message header you can find a line beginning with Reply-To: or Return-Path: or Sender: or List-Post:. It contains the address you should put on your white list to accept messages from any subscriber. Depending on your mailing software such lines may be found in the normal or full header of the message. If you need advice how to retrieve the full header, click here.

The use of Personal Email Filter requires you to develop a certain habit - before sending a message to an address which is not on your white list, put the address on the list. Otherwise, a possible reply from that address would be rejected, and the addressee would get your automatic 'Response to unknown senders', undoubtedly to his/her surprise.

Start and stop of filtering

At the top and bottom of White and black lists page you will find an indicator of whether filtering is enabled or disabled, and a link to toggle it. Initially, it is disabled. Changes to your code, response, white and black lists may be made any time irrespective of whether filtering is enabled or disabled. If it is enabled, their effect is immediate.

How it works Code and Response White and black lists

Personal Email Filter software by AntSpa. Installed and maintained by Bruce O'Lala.