For those of you with Imail accounts, the Imail spam filter currently deletes email messages that:

are sent from known spammers (whose names are on a "black list" of email addresses)

and contain common words found in the many spam messages (such as viagra).

Many spam messages are being deleted but many more are making their way through the filter. Without a foolproof way of identifying spam, automated spam filters run the risk of deleting important email messages.  Our filter has many other ways of identifying potential spam messages but none are foolproof and we want to avoid deleting legitimate messages.  Therefore, we are going to make some changes to the filter so that in addition to the messages being automatically deleted with the current conditions stated above, it will also "tag" other email messages it believes to be spam.  It will be up to the individual user to set up email processing rules with Imail, Netscape or Outlook to reroute suspected spam messages into a spam folder.  You could even choose to delete them; however, that is not recommended since, as we said, the filter is not 100 % effective at identifying spam (that means some good messages will be identified as spam and some bad messages will not).  If you think you still get too much spam, read on to learn about Imail processing rules.

We've already made the changes to the filter so the rest is up to you to take advantage of the filter's email examination and recommendation.  The filter adds a potential spam remark in the email message in the form of an "X-Header" which you will use to produce your email processing rules.  This can get somewhat complicated which is why we did not offer this option in the first place; however, the option now exists for those of you who would like to use it.

X-Header Explanations

An example and a table of all possible anti-spam X-Headers are shown below.

 

X-Header	Explanation
X-IMAIL-SPAM-ADDRBL (name_of_service, message_ID, IP address/reason)	The message matched an ADDR black list.
X-IMAIL-SPAM-DNSBL (name_of_service, message_ID, IP address/reason)	The message matched a DNS black list.
X-IMAIL-SPAM-HELOBL (name_of_service, message_ID, IP address/reason)	The message matched a HELO/EHLO black list.
X-IMAIL-SPAM-HELODOMAIN domain_name	The message failed the HELO/EHLO domain validation.
X-IMAIL-SPAM-INVALIDFROM  from_address	The message contained an invalid "FROM" address.
X-IMAIL-SPAM-IP4R  name_of_service	The message matched an IP4R(PTR) black list.
X-IMAIL-SPAM-STATISTIC  x%	The message has been identified as spam by the statistical filter. X is the probability that an e-mail is spam.
X-IMAIL-SPAM-REVDNS ip_address	The message failed a DNS lookup based on the IP address.
X-IMAIL-SPAM-RHSBL  (name_of_service, message_ ID, IP address/reason)	The message matched a RHS black list.
X-IMAIL-SPAM-PHRASE  %s	A phrase in the message matched the phrase list. (%s) represents the matched phrase.
X-IMAIL-SPAM-VALFROM (message ID)	The message failed the "MAIL FROM" address validation.
X-IMAIL-SPAM-VALREVDNS  (message ID)	The message failed the reverse DNS lookup validation.
X-IMAIL-SPAM-VALHELO	The message failed the HELO/EHLO domain validation.
X-IMAIL-SPAM-HTML-FEATURES  (<found features>)	The message contained the specified HTML tags.
X-IMAIL-SPAM-URL-DBL (<domain>)	The message contained HREF or IMG SRC tags with links to a domain name listed in the URL Domain Black List.

Bottom line:  We think it'll just be easier to delete the spam as it comes to your main mailbox; however, it's up to you how much effort you want to put into rule processing.

IMAIL PROCESSING RULES

The first thing to do is to make sure that you're looking at full email message headers. 
Logon to your Imail account.
Click on "Personal Account Options".
Click on "Edit My Preferences".
Click on "Full" in the "Display Message Headers" preference.
Click on the "Save" button to update your preferences.

The next thing to do is to create a Spam mailbox email folder.
Click on "Edit Mailbox" from the Imail Main Menu.
Enter "Spam" (or name of your choice) in the "Name:" field in the "Create a Mailbox" option.
Then click on the "Create" button in the "Create a Mailbox" option to create the mailbox.

Now you can start creating Processing Rules.
Click on "Personal Account Options".
Click on "Change Processing Rules".
Click the "Add" button to begin to define a new rule.
Click on "Header" in the "Field" selection and most likely the "contains" option below it.
Enter "IMAIL-SPAM" in the "Phrase" area (in caps).
Click on the "Add Condition" button (see below).

The rule you created "Header contains IMAIL-SPAM" should appear in the "Rule" section.
Enter the mailbox folder name "Spam" in the "Destination:" field.
Click on the "Finish" button (see below) to create the processing rule that will place every email message found with the characters "IMAIL-SPAM" in it's header into your folder called Spam.

It would be wise to periodically check your Spam folder for legitimate email messages.  If you find any, move them to your MAIN mailbox.  This sample rule will flag the most messages as spam with the least amount of effort; however, it will also create the most false positives.  You may fine tune your processing rules and/or add more of them that will be more selective when analyzing the spam filter results.