d business contacts ahead of time so they never receive the initial auto response. If you subscribe to newsletters or receive monthly statements from your bank you can add their return addresses into your whitelist so you never miss a message. If anyone else happens to email you, all they have to do is reply to the auto response and they are added to your whitelist. At any given time you are able to view a list of emails awaiting verification (known as a “queue”). You can manually allow emails through to your Inbox or wait until they are verified.

Now the big question – what happens to all the spam? Since spammers are not going to verify they received your auto response, all spam email will be caught in your queue of emails awaiting verification and never proceed to your inbox. This means the only emails you are go

Why do so many people think I need to take Viagra? I guess it’s for the same reason others believe I want to re-finance my home, invest in a new stock and sell my business.

Like you, I routinely receive more junk emails than legitimate ones. Do I look stupid or do they really think I want the latest virus by opening any attachment which accompanies an unsolicited email? Aren’t there laws against spamming and why don’t they work? Perhaps these are questions for other articles. What you need to know now is that I have found a way to keep unwanted emails from ever seeing your inbox.

For the past year I have been using a program called “Boxtrapper”. Until this time I had been relying on various spam filters that used keywords or other factors to determine if an email was spam. The success rate for this type of filtering varied as spammers eventually found ways around the “formula” being used by the filter. For example, the word “Valium” may be flagged as a spam indicator while the misspelled version, “Va Lium”, would get by unnoticed. This is just one of many examples of how spammers manipulate words to beat filtering. The biggest problem is when spammers “spoof” the header information in an email so it’s nearly impossible to trace who sent the message. I have even seen instances of people receiving spam emails that appear to have come from themselves!

When you try to beat the spammers on this level you quickly find yourself running in circles and sadly realizing this is an ineffective way to guard against every spam email. A friend suggested I try “Boxtrapper” because it had eliminated ALL spam from his inbox. Since I have many email accounts, I decided to try it on my personal address and test its effectiveness. Immediately I could see the difference.

The reason “Boxtrapper” is so effective is because of it’s “opt-in” design. Basically, no email can reach you unless the sender has confirmed they are legitimate. Once they have been confirmed, their email address is added to a “whitelist”. I’m sure you’ve heard the term “blacklist”, which is used to filter out names. In this case a whitelist is maintained to show who is allowed to email you.

To better understand how “Boxtrapper” works, I will explain what happens when a legitimate email from a friend comes your way. First, when a friend sends you an email, he will automatically receive an email reply (known as an “auto response”). This email will tell him to simply hit his “Reply” button and resend in order to be added to your list of accepted senders. You can fully customize the auto response message so it reads exactly how you prefer.

For example, this is how my auto response reads:

------------------------------------------------------------

Hello,

Since I get way too much spam, I have enabled a feature on my email account which requires verification that you are the real sender.

To complete this verification, simply reply to this message and leave the subject line intact.

Once you are added to my "whitelist" of accepted senders I will receive your message and you will not have to complete another verification.

--------------------------------------------------------------

You can also enter the email addresses of all your friends, family, and business contacts ahead of time so they never receive the initial auto response. If you subscribe to newsletters or receive monthly statements from your bank you can add their return addresses into your whitelist so you never miss a message. If anyone else happens to email you, all they have to do is reply to the auto response and they are added to your whitelist. At any given time you are able to view a list of emails awaiting verification (known as a “queue”). You can manually allow emails through to your Inbox or wait until they are verified.

Now the big question – what happens to all the spam? Since spammers are not going to verify they received your auto response, all spam email will be caught in your queue of emails awaiting verification and never proceed to your inbox. This means the only emails you are goi

filtering varied as spammers eventually found ways around the “formula” being used by the filter. For example, the word “Valium” may be flagged as a spam indicator while the misspelled version, “Va Lium”, would get by unnoticed. This is just one of many examples of how spammers manipulate words to beat filtering. The biggest problem is when spammers “spoof” the header information in an email so it’s nearly impossible to trace who sent the message. I have even seen instances of people receiving spam emails that appear to have come from themselves!

When you try to beat the spammers on this level you quickly find yourself running in circles and sadly realizing this is an ineffective way to guard against every spam email. A friend suggested I try “Boxtrapper” because it had eliminated ALL spam from his inbox. Since I have many email accounts, I decided to try it on my personal address and test its effectiveness. Immediately I could see the difference.

The reason “Boxtrapper” is so effective is because of it’s “opt-in” design. Basically, no email can reach you unless the sender has confirmed they are legitimate. Once they have been confirmed, their email address is added to a “whitelist”. I’m sure you’ve heard the term “blacklist”, which is used to filter out names. In this case a whitelist is maintained to show who is allowed to email you.

To better understand how “Boxtrapper” works, I will explain what happens when a legitimate email from a friend comes your way. First, when a friend sends you an email, he will automatically receive an email reply (known as an “auto response”). This email will tell him to simply hit his “Reply” button and resend in order to be added to your list of accepted senders. You can fully customize the auto response message so it reads exactly how you prefer.

For example, this is how my auto response reads:

------------------------------------------------------------

Hello,

Since I get way too much spam, I have enabled a feature on my email account which requires verification that you are the real sender.

To complete this verification, simply reply to this message and leave the subject line intact.

Once you are added to my "whitelist" of accepted senders I will receive your message and you will not have to complete another verification.

--------------------------------------------------------------

You can also enter the email addresses of all your friends, family, and business contacts ahead of time so they never receive the initial auto response. If you subscribe to newsletters or receive monthly statements from your bank you can add their return addresses into your whitelist so you never miss a message. If anyone else happens to email you, all they have to do is reply to the auto response and they are added to your whitelist. At any given time you are able to view a list of emails awaiting verification (known as a “queue”). You can manually allow emails through to your Inbox or wait until they are verified.

Now the big question – what happens to all the spam? Since spammers are not going to verify they received your auto response, all spam email will be caught in your queue of emails awaiting verification and never proceed to your inbox. This means the only emails you are go

ave many email accounts, I decided to try it on my personal address and test its effectiveness. Immediately I could see the difference.

The reason “Boxtrapper” is so effective is because of it’s “opt-in” design. Basically, no email can reach you unless the sender has confirmed they are legitimate. Once they have been confirmed, their email address is added to a “whitelist”. I’m sure you’ve heard the term “blacklist”, which is used to filter out names. In this case a whitelist is maintained to show who is allowed to email you.

To better understand how “Boxtrapper” works, I will explain what happens when a legitimate email from a friend comes your way. First, when a friend sends you an email, he will automatically receive an email reply (known as an “auto response”). This email will tell him to simply hit his “Reply” button and resend in order to be added to your list of accepted senders. You can fully customize the auto response message so it reads exactly how you prefer.

For example, this is how my auto response reads:

------------------------------------------------------------

Hello,

Since I get way too much spam, I have enabled a feature on my email account which requires verification that you are the real sender.

To complete this verification, simply reply to this message and leave the subject line intact.

Once you are added to my "whitelist" of accepted senders I will receive your message and you will not have to complete another verification.

--------------------------------------------------------------

You can also enter the email addresses of all your friends, family, and business contacts ahead of time so they never receive the initial auto response. If you subscribe to newsletters or receive monthly statements from your bank you can add their return addresses into your whitelist so you never miss a message. If anyone else happens to email you, all they have to do is reply to the auto response and they are added to your whitelist. At any given time you are able to view a list of emails awaiting verification (known as a “queue”). You can manually allow emails through to your Inbox or wait until they are verified.

Now the big question – what happens to all the spam? Since spammers are not going to verify they received your auto response, all spam email will be caught in your queue of emails awaiting verification and never proceed to your inbox. This means the only emails you are go

eply” button and resend in order to be added to your list of accepted senders. You can fully customize the auto response message so it reads exactly how you prefer.

For example, this is how my auto response reads:

------------------------------------------------------------

Hello,

Since I get way too much spam, I have enabled a feature on my email account which requires verification that you are the real sender.

To complete this verification, simply reply to this message and leave the subject line intact.

Once you are added to my "whitelist" of accepted senders I will receive your message and you will not have to complete another verification.

--------------------------------------------------------------

You can also enter the email addresses of all your friends, family, and business contacts ahead of time so they never receive the initial auto response. If you subscribe to newsletters or receive monthly statements from your bank you can add their return addresses into your whitelist so you never miss a message. If anyone else happens to email you, all they have to do is reply to the auto response and they are added to your whitelist. At any given time you are able to view a list of emails awaiting verification (known as a “queue”). You can manually allow emails through to your Inbox or wait until they are verified.

Now the big question – what happens to all the spam? Since spammers are not going to verify they received your auto response, all spam email will be caught in your queue of emails awaiting verification and never proceed to your inbox. This means the only emails you are go

d business contacts ahead of time so they never receive the initial auto response. If you subscribe to newsletters or receive monthly statements from your bank you can add their return addresses into your whitelist so you never miss a message. If anyone else happens to email you, all they have to do is reply to the auto response and they are added to your whitelist. At any given time you are able to view a list of emails awaiting verification (known as a “queue”). You can manually allow emails through to your Inbox or wait until they are verified.

Now the big question – what happens to all the spam? Since spammers are not going to verify they received your auto response, all spam email will be caught in your queue of emails awaiting verification and never proceed to your inbox. This means the only emails you are going to receive are those by approved senders. You will soon find that most emails awaiting verification are unsolicited, junk emails.

Since enabling “Boxtrapper” on one of my personal email addresses it has completely eliminated all incoming spam. I know many who use this feature and they are extremely pleased with not having to waste time sorting through and deleting unsolicited emails. While most spam filters use complex formulas to find out if an email is garbage, “Boxtrapper” is able to quickly determine if the sender is real. So, how can you start making this feature work for you?

Because “Boxtrapper” is not sold in stores or a program you can readily download and install on your computer, it’s one of the best kept secrets on the web. This feature is normally bundled with other email services provided by either your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or website host (most likely, the latter). By the way, I don’t have any stock in “Boxtrapper”. For some reason, they never sent me an email asking me to invest.

Copyright 2005 Anthony Vita