MailWasher Fixes Your Problem with Spam

There are estimates that perhaps 80% to 90% of all e-mail is spam. We don't see that much, of course, because some of it can be clearly identified and eliminated so that it doesn't completely overwhelm ISP's mail servers. Even so, though, a lot of it gets through. When the number of spams that made it through my defenses increased a lot recently, I tried increasing the strength of the filters that I maintain on my server. In one case I received 10 to 20 messages per day from a convicted fraudster who wanted to sell gold. A few regular expressions removed his spam, but writing regular expressions every few days isn't a good way to fight spam. There must be a better way, I thought.

It was at that time that I started looking for other ways and when I was just about to give up, I ran across MailWasher. I used the free version for about an hour and decided that it was time to pay the registration fee. It's rare for me to make a decision that quickly, and now -- two weeks later -- I've concluded that this was a good decision.

You can start with the free version of MailWasher, which will work without restriction for 10 days. During that time, you can set up the program to check any number of e-mail accounts. After 10 days, it will revert to the free version and support only a single e-mail account.

For many people, one is enough, but if you appreciate the functionality and if you have multiple computers, upgrading to the Pro version is a good idea.

During the installation process, MailWasher will examine your e-mail programs and import settings and lists of contacts from them. Although I don't use Outlook, MailWasher found my old Outlook accounts and imported them in addition to my Thunderbird accounts.

The installation process then asks new users to specify the e-mail application that they normally use.

This is done so that MailWasher can turn off automatic e-mail checks (to avoid having spam arrive on your computer) and also turn off the option to leave messages on the server (most people will already have this turned off).

Here's one of the views that you'll see after you've loaded MailWasher. Suspected spam is marked in red and messages that are believed to be OK are in green.

You can read the full text of any message before downloading it to your computer.

Here's a view of my messages.

Even though some of the messages are shown as green (OK), I can read them on the server and then delete them without downloading. This is a particularly useful feature, as I discussed with the developer of the application, Nick Bolton.

If you browser doesn't support Flash, you can listen to the interview here.

After clicking the Wash Mail button, I'm left with just the good messages to download.

In some cases, I delete most of the good messages, too, after I read them on the server using MailWasher. Then I download only messages that I need to reply to or want to save.

MailWasher has an impressive number of settings and options.

New users should probably not modify the settings until they've used MailWasher for at least a few days. After the trial period, you'll know more about how the program works and you'll be able to make reasonable decisions about how to change the default settings.

Unlike Europeans, most North Americans are mono-lingual. (Exceptions would be in French-speaking Quebec and areas of the US southwest where Spanish is often spoken.) Generally, though, those in the US and Canada don't speak Arabic, Baltic languages, Chinese, Hebrew, Greek, languages based on the Cyrillic alphabet (Ну, может не я.), Turkish, or Vietnamese.* You can have MailWasher mark any message written in one of those languages as spam.

If a corresponant's e-mail program is set to use one of those languages but the person writes to you in English, some messages may be incorrectly identified as spam. Adding the person to your list of friends will resolve that small problem.

MailWasher also maintains a detailed log, which means that you can review it if you encounter a connection problem.

In addition, when you delete a message, MailWasher keeps a copy of it for a few days so that if you accidentally delete a message that you want to keep, you can get it back.

*This is not a particularly good generalization. First, North America includes Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Second, the larger and more cosmopolitan cities (New York, Toronto, Los Angeles) have substantial numbers of people who are bilingual. But the fact remains that the vast majority of native citizens of the United States speak only English.

Want to eliminate spam? Give MailWasher a try!

There's no magic bullet when it comes to eliminating spam, but MailWasher comes as close as anything I've seen. You can review all of your inbound messages on the server without having to download them. This alone makes it possible to eliminate malware in addition to spam. Try MailWasher for a few days and you'll probably conclude, as I did, that this is one of the best options you'll find to clean up your mailbox. You'll find more information on the MailWasher website.

The Ghost(ery) in the Machine

Some people are afraid of cookies. That's never been my approach. Cookies are generally not dangerous, not even those "terrible" tracking cookies you hear so much about. Yes, your activities on the Web can be tracked. Yes, this information can be used by people who want to serve advertisements to your computer. To that, I say "So what?" If I must see advertisements, and because of the way the Internet is constructed, I must, then I'd prefer to see ads that might be of some interest to me. And that's what tracking cookies allow.

But that doesn't mean I give everyone carte blanche to store cookies on my computer. Nor does it mean that I don't care what systems are tracking me. That's why I use Ghostery and, with Halloween just past, perhaps it's appropriate to talk about Ghostery. It's a handy plug-in that works will all major browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, and even Internet Explorer). It's also a standalone application for Apple's IOS devices.

Ghostery examines every Web page the browser loads and lets you know about the presence of scripts, images, and other components that can be used to track your activity on the Internet. It can display a list of companies when their code is present on the page.

For example, when you load the TechByter Worldwide site, Google Analytics and StatCounter scripts run. On some pages, you'll see ShareThis code that allows readers to share articles on various social media sites.

Instead of telling you what you should block, Ghostery provides information about what it finds. It's then up to you to determine whether the convenience provided by the component is sufficiently worthwhile to maintain it.

The program gives you to option to allow or disallow any of these, either globally or for a specific site. And if you find something that you don't recognize, you can view Ghostery's dictionary of cookies and trackers. If you decide to block a specific component, Ghostery will prevent the tracker from contacting its originator or writing a cookie to your computer. If there's a site that you trust implicitly, you can white-list it so that any trackers on that site will automatically be allowed.

After installing Ghostery, you'll find a new icon on the browser's top toolbar. Click the icon to gain access to the settings panels or to view a short instructional video that describes how to use Ghostery.

It's Free and You Can't Pay

Some browser plug ins have free and paid versions; many solicit donations. Ghostery is free and plans are to keep it that way. According to the developers, "We don’t currently take donations for Ghostery. This isn’t because we hate money; it’s because we already have a successful business model. If you want to support us, please opt in to GhostRank."

So that raises the question of what GhostRank is. Selecting the option allows Ghostery to track the trackers. Anonymous information from the trackers is sent back to Ghostery. The company accumulates the data and creates reports. It's these reports the provide the company's income.

The specific information that GhostRank sends back to developers includes the name of the tracker, whether or not you're blocking it, the domain that the tracker reports to, how long it takes the page for the tracker to load, the tracker's position on the page, the version of Ghostery you have installed, and log information, such as your IP address. The folks at Ghostery are adamant about not storing the IP address.

So while GhostRank allows Ghostery to share information with online marketing companies, the shared information does not include any personally identifiable information. As parent company Evidon, Inc., explains, "We also publish our own research and provide data to privacy researchers, analysts, and journalists. Additionally, organizations like the Better Business Bureau use GhostRank data in the enforcement of privacy standards like the DAA AdChoices program."

If you wonder who's watching, Ghostery will help you find out

Ghostery is quick and easy to install because it's a plug-in. Just visit your browser's plug-in site, select Ghostery, and the installation will be automatic. Ghostery updates itself when the developers provide new capabilities. If you're nervous about applications reporting information to advertisers, the irony here is that Ghostery makes its money by reporting information to advertisers, but not information about you or your browsing habits.
Additional details are available on the Ghostery website.

Short Circuits

Remember the Adobe Hacker Attack?

It was somewhat larger than anybody thought. Adobe thought that information belonging to about 3 million users had been stolen. As it turns out, the actual count was more than 38 million. But perhaps even worse, thieves have apparently made off with a substantial amount of Adobe's source code.

Earlier this month, Adobe said that code for Acrobat, ColdFusion, and ColdFusion Builder had been stolen. Now it seems that the thieves also made off with code for Photoshop. I recall visiting Adobe's Seattle campus several years ago and being told how, when servers containing the source code were being moved from one location to another, the primary servers were sent in one truck and the backup servers were loaded onto another truck that took a different route.

The user names that the crooks got are stored as plain text, but passwords are encrypted. The encryption isn't a show-stopper for thieves, though. It slows them down, but eventually the password can be extracted. And considering that a single password is worth $10, and often more, the crooks have a reason to keep working.

The Drip of NSA Revelations Continues

The never-ending list of reports about the National Security Agency (NSA, also known as "No Such Agency" because of its secrecy) continues not to end. The latest allegation says that the NSA, working with the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in England, tapped the fiber optic cables between Google's and Yahoo's servers in Europe and headquarters in the US.

The account that ran this week in the Washington Post quoted both Yahoo and Google executives denying all knowledge of the snooping.

The NSA continues to maintain that it focuses on foreign intelligence collection and does not intentionally spy on US citizens, but the agency did not deny the allegations.

An operation such as Google, which stores e-mail messages and photos in highly secure facilities would be a jackpot for an operation such as the NSA and security experts say that the insertion of what's called a "splitter" device on a fiber optic cable could allow the agency to watch all traffic flowing between servers.

The FAA Makes it Official: Electronic Devices are OK

As soon as airlines evaluate their equipment, passengers will be able to use certain devices at any time on an airplane. Devices such as computers and large tablets will still have to be stowed during takeoff and landing, but you'll be able to continue using smaller devices.

The changes are expected to go into effect on or before January 1, 2014. There's no change for cell phones, though. These cannot be used when the airplane is in the air and, depending on the airline, at other times, too.

The change is likely to apply to tablets (particularly the smaller ones), MP3 players, and smart phones if they are switched to "airplane mode", meaning no cellular connections but Wi-Fi will still be possible if the device is so equipped.

Delta and JetBlue quickly announced that they will submit their plans to the FAA for validation. Details of the changes are on the FAA's website. An advisory committee recommended the changes in September.

Passengers will be told to turn off electronic devices when the flight attendants give their needlessly verbose pre-flight safety briefings that explain how a seatbelt buckle works, but it's likely that passengers will continue to ignore the explanations. Airlines will be able to determine whether passengers will be required to stow smaller devices during takeoff and landing.