Customer Reviews

Degunking Your Email, Spam, and Viruses

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Before reaching the title page inside the book, the first few pages quickly cover the 12-step degunking program with a list followed by 15-minute, 30-minute, one-hour, and three-hour to half-day steps for degunking email and viruses with time limitations. This section finishes off with top 20 tasks for clearing the email cobwebs. Excellent start.

If you're overwhelmed at the thought of following a 12-step program and spending more than a day going through each step, the time limitations section should ease your mind. It's a good way to begin, baby steps. Don't stop there, however. Make it part of a long-term program and pick up some of the habits it covers.

I already use many of the tips, but that's no surprise as obsessed with organization as I am. Though I have implemented many of the suggestions, the book provides value because it offers a process for cleaning up as well as tips I hadn't considered. It took me years to come up with many of the tips covered. So don't wait years to figure it out yourself when you can get it right now with one resource, this book.

Sure, it covers the usual, "have a firewall running" and "ensure your anti-virus program is running and up to date." However, you'd be surprised how many people don't have either in place. This book would be incomplete without these recommendations.

Though a majority use Outlook or Outlook Express for managing email, Duntemann discusses other clients including The Bat!, Thunderbird, Pegasus, and Eudora. Like many things in life, everyone has different needs when it comes to email. The author discusses four email profiles and mentions them throughout the book so whichever you are, follow the advice for that profile.

Like the other books in Paraglyph's Degunking series, this one is easy to read and addresses the advantages and disadvantages of various tools. Anyone who gets the book and follows its steps will experience a leaner, cleaner email box and possibly a faster-running computer. Most users of all levels should benefit from this book. The only group that might not invest in it are those who know everything inside out about spam, viruses, malware, and adware and how to deal with them.

Spam and computer viruses are taking some of the pleasure and productivity out of using computers. Not many people have e-mail accounts that are free of spam. Every moment you are connected to the Internet, you run the risk of being infected with spyware or adware. Everyone who is sent files by e-mail is at risk for getting a computer virus.

"Debunking Your Email, Spam, and Viruses" is a very friendly book with all kinds of strategies for keeping your computer from getting infected. I bought this book chiefly because I was curious how I could keep spam from flooding my e-mail account, but only half of this book's 16 chapters are devoted to spam. You will also get information about viruses, adware and spyware, and firewalls. There is also an amusing chapter about Internet scams -- "phishing" is the term -- and how to avoid them.

This is not your run-of-the-mill computer book. It is extremely well written and well organized. The writing is clear, friendly, and humorous at times. I wish more computer book publishers would take a cue from the Paraglyph Press, publishers of the book. The design is professional and a far cry from the slammed-together books you usually get in the computer field.

My only quarrel with this book is the author's enthusiasm for Bayesian spam filtering. The author devotes a chapter to Bayesian filtering, which I think is not near as effective has he thinks it is. Other than that, "Debunking Your Email, Spam, and Viruses" sets a standard for computer books that I hope more computer books meet in the future.

Degunking Your Email, Spam, and Viruses, by Jeff Duntemann, is a manual for people who need to spend time with their computer degunking it or want to take time to block gunk. Yes, the topic is gunk! "In the context of this book," Duntemann explains, "'gunk' means any and all unwanted items that come in to your PC by way of the Internet." The main focus is on managing email to delete and avoid gunk that arrives via email. Apple users please note: Duntemann addresses the PC world. This is not an Apple specific book; in fact, MAC in this book refers to Media Access Control.

Duntemann's Degunking is an instructional text for computer novices and experienced computer users, but not for computer experts. Chapter 1 answers the question "Why is your computer suffering from email and virus gunk?" Duntemann discusses in the next five chapters the creation of an email degunking strategy, using the right email client (he recommends using a Web mail service rather than email software), developing good email habits, reading and degunking your email from anywhere, cleaning and organizing your mailbase (your correspondence). Four chapters cover spam - how to avoid it, how to filter it, and how to deep clean spam. Another four chapters cover viruses, trojans, worms, adware, and spyware, all of which he lumps together under the label "malware." One chapter discusses "Nigerian rhapsodies, hoaxes, and other smelly phish." The final chapter outlines step by step what to do if your computer has been attacked by any malware.

Since Duntemann's book addresses PC users rather than Apple users, I recommend skipping this one if you have an Apple computer. It is not a bad book, just not appropriate for Apple users. Paraglyph Press also published Degunking Your Mac, by Joli Ballew (2004). Jane Thomas reviewed that book for the Alaskan Apple Users Group in July 2004, and the review remains available online at http://www.akappleug.org/rev/316.html/. Like Duntemann's book, Ballew's provides a 12-Step Degunking Program, though one specific for Apple computers. Thomas concludes in her review:

"Some Mac users might already do such a good job of keeping the clutter on their Mac under control that they don't need this book. But many of us, including me, sure can benefit from the easy-to-read, step-by-step degunking program described in Degunking your Mac. For most of us, this useful book is well worth $24.99. As mentioned in the Introduction, I think this book will stay close to my Mac and will be referred to frequently. I give Degunking Your Mac a rating of 5 mooses. It's terrific!"

I'm extremely impressed with this book. Instead of provided quick fixes for spam the author instead provides long term strategies to help you manage your email, fight spam and defeat viruses. In reality, there are no quick fixes. And people looking for them, both in the software world, and in this book, will be disappointed.

The book spends most of it's 320 pages on mail, both managing it and fighting spam. Managing mail is extremely important. Many of us live on mail but don't spend the time organizing it and creating a workflow to manage it. This book gives you those organizing skills by presenting the sage advice that took many of us years to learn.

The spam fighting material is also excellent. He starts by laying down basic spam fighting procedures (obscuring your address, having throwaway addresses, etc.) then adds on various products and services that will help you.

The virus section is relatively small in comparison to the spam coverage, but that fits it's relation to the problem. You can stop and defeat viruses, but email and spam is something that you have to handle on a daily basis.

For those looking for a quick fix set of solutions, this is not your book, but you don't have the right approach to the problem in the first place. For those willing to learn skills that will allow you to manage email successfully this is a fine place to start.

This is the third book on email, spam and viruses and such that I've read in the last couple of weeks, and it is the best. One of the other two, Black Hat: Misfits, Criminals, and Spammers in the Internet Age (2004) by John Biggs, covers much of the same material as covered here but not in as much depth, while the other, Spam Kings (2005) by Brian McWilliams, is more a narrative about the personalities in the spam world than a how-to. (Nonetheless both books are good.)

Duntemann's book has a kind of "Dummies..." or "Idiots..." feel to it with lots of sidebars and photos of computer screens and tips and hints and numbered lists, and even some "Gunkbuster's Notebook" pages; but Duntemann's treatment is more comprehensive than usually found in an introductory book. He goes into considerable detail not only on how to "degunk" your email, but explains how email filters work and how spam, viruses and worms propagate, and what you can do about them. He also looks at various scams and the scary subject of identity theft and advises on how to not fall victim. This book will work for beginners and the experienced alike.

It will be noted that Duntemann doesn't directly address the problems that plague users of the big Internet Service Providers like Yahoo! and AOL, mainly because some of the very measures he recommends are currently being used by the big providers. One of my email addresses is at Yahoo! (Duntemann recommends that you have at least two email addresses) and it gets a lot of spam. But I don't see any of it because Yahoo! has a spam filter that puts it in my bulk folder which I almost never open. I didn't think much of this until I learned how email filters work. I used to think that somehow the ISP identified spam by the number of identical emails sent to its customers (and they may do that); but after reading Duntemann's explanation I now realize that filters usually work on key words and other bits of evidence in the actual email. Certain words like "free" and "mortgage" and especially "unsubscribe" (a near-certain indicator of spam since spammers hope you'll click on that to prove that your email address is a live one) trigger the filters. Another technique, Duntemann explains is so-called Bayesian filtering which uses a "statistical analysis of message length and the distribution of words present in a message" to arrive at a probability of the message being spam.

But this made me wonder if--and Duntemann warns about this possibility--if some legitimate emails were being caught as spam. So I checked my Yahoo! bulk filter and didn't find any. My guess is that the latest filtering tools used by the big ISPs like Yahoo! and AOL are even more sophisticated than those that Duntemann describes in this book.

Duntemann also warns against spam control methods that don't work. Surprisingly, one of these, in his opinion, is making spam illegal. I've always liked that idea, but after reading Duntemann's argument, I'm convinced that it doesn't work, can't be enforced, and only the good guys would comply with such a law. Duntemann points out that the "much ballyhooed [but gutted] CAN-SPAM Act," passed by Congress that went into effect January 1, 2004, "had no effect that can be measured."

There is also a chapter on how to "Avoid Becoming a Spam Magnet!" Naturally the first rule (and this should be the Golden Rule of the Internet) is "Don't patronize spammers." But also don't respond to "surveys" or "dating service" spams "which," as Duntemann explains, "only exist to verify your email address and will lead to even more spam." And whatever you do, DON'T EVER "unsubscribe" to a spammer's mailing list. Spammers love it when you do because that makes your email address valuable to them, either for their own spamming or to sell to other spammers. (Yes, I repeated that. Actually I should also repeat "Don't patronize spammers!" with an exclamation mark. After all, junior's not going to get any bigger no matter what pills you take, and there's no such thing as a reliable "Spanish fly," etc., etc.)

Throughout the book Duntemann gives email addresses and the names of software that can help you in your fight against spam, worms, viruses, and scams. He recommends using "disposable email addresses when dealing with all but the biggest and most reputable online commerce sites."

By the way, I always thought that the reason Microsoft's Outlook Express, its Internet Explorer, and in general Microsoft products were more subject to hacking than other software was that Microsoft's code wasn't as good as say Linux's or that of some other email providers. But if I am reading Duntemann correctly, the real reason is that Microsoft is the biggest target. Why write a virus that can only affect a fraction of the computers on the Net when you can write one that will attack the near-monopoly?

Bottom line: Internet Gunk 101 in a book. Definitely worth the plastic.

This book offers numerous different ways to get your email IN and out boxes under control, as well as explaining how to keep the "nasty email" (spam, viruses, etc) OUT. I like the book's suggestions of setting up different folders for your email messages and then setting aside a certain time every so often to "clean it out." While I tend to be diligent about keeping my IN and OUT boxes to a minimum, not all of us are able to do that (or can afford to). And it's those readers this book is primarily addressed to. There are also chapters that detail how keep the amount of junk email you get down to a minimum, along with various methods to try. While explaining how various spam filters work (or don't work, depending on which one you use and how frequently it is used), there's also an informal "glossary of terms" about spam filters in one of the chapters.

The book also takes great pains to discuss viruses, worms, and other forms of "malware," which also includes adware and spyware. In other words, any program that affects your PC's performance in a less than positive way can be considered malware. The book also talks about "phishing," a practice where an official looking email arrives in your box, appearing to come from a financial institution or even the dreaded "Nigerian hoax" emails. It also discusses the "hoax emails," and how they too are like spam in that they "clog up" your email IN box.

I learned quite a few new ideas from reading this book and I'm sure anyone who reads this book will too.

I'm a big Jeff Duntemann fan, and I already knew about him because I bought Degunking Windows, which was a lifesaver. So when I saw that Jeff had written Degunking Email, I knew I had to get it too. My PC has been running glacially slow, and someone suggested adware or spyware as the culprit. Chapter 13 covers just that. I followed Jeff's advice and everything's back to normal - running just fine, thank you. I discovered a couple dozen spyware threats that (obviously) were slowing me down.

Jeff covers the whole gamut of email problems in this book: from spam to viruses to internet hoaxes to security. He even talks about the idiotic things we do to sabotage ourselves as we're surfing the net. For anyone who has email problems - and I think that's just about everyone these days - buy this book.

Duntemann is a co-founder of Paraglyph Press, the publisher of this how-to computer book. His previous publications include Degunking Windows (Paraglyph) and Assembly Language Step-by-Step (Wiley), and he has been writing technical books for the geeks and the plebes for many years. I was immediately drawn to the accessible, common language used in the book. Although, I did find it difficult that he tends to use some non-standard terms several times before actually defining them (ie mailbase).

The first six chapters of the book focus on organizational strategies and software to help manage the flow of email to and from the user. Dunteman describes four profiles of an email user: Public Professional, Private Professional, Student Enthusiast, and Casual Communicator. Most of his recommendations for software and organization focused more on the Private Professional or home user, although the organizational tips could be applied to all four profiles.

The next four chapters examine spam prevention and elimination. He discusses ways to avoid becoming a spam magnet in the first place (guard your email address) and options for blocking incoming spam (filters) and some spam control methods that aren't effective. He is critical of services like SpamCop that offer blackhole filtering because they tend to create more false positives in the attempt to eliminate spam. I have used SpamCop's web mail service for three years, and only occasionally has this been a problem for me. Compared to the amount of spam I was getting from "free" web mail services, I consider it worth the $30 a year. However, I use it only for my personal email, and in that arena, I lean towards the Student Enthusiast profile. A Public or Private Professional might not be as tolerant to false positives from their spam filters.

The rest of the book defines viruses, Trojan horses, and worms, and how to prevent getting them, as well as what to do if your computer becomes infected. This section is geared more towards home users and small businesses, since most large companies have firewalls and antivirus measures in place. The chapter on worms made me wish that I had read this book before I turned on my new laptop last spring. My previous computer was a Pentium II Linux machine connecting to the web via dialup. As far as I know, it was never infected. Within hours of dialing up on this Athlon XP-M machine, my computer had four or five worms crawling around inside. I quickly obtained an antivirus utility and set up the Windows XP firewall. Duntemann recommends using a two-way firewall, rather than relying on the Windows firewall, which I intend to do as soon as possible.

The last section of the book includes a chapter on spyware and adware, generally referred to as malware. Duntemann recommends two common software programs that scan your computer for malware and eliminates it. He also lays out web surfing strategies that will help prevent malware from being installed on your computer. I took great pleasure in reading the many recommendations to switch from using Internet Explorer to some other browser scattered throughout the book. Duntemann gives more coverage of Mozilla Firefox than other browsers, which is likely to be helpful in increasing the visibility of that robust little open source browser since this book is directed towards the less-than-savvy Internet user.

This book is not for advanced email users and web surfers, and it makes no pretension of being so. However, I was able to glean a few tips and tricks from it, so it may be worthwhile for the geeks to give it a once-over. New email users and those overwhelmed by the size of their inboxes will find this to be a great tool for maximizing the email experience.

If you have used email for more than a couple of months you realize the problem of spam, viruses, adware, and other aggravations. Resolving that problem, at least to the extent possible given your user environment is the purpose of this book. The approach is simple - create a gunk-free email strategy, degunk your email, degunk your spam, degunk viruses, worms, and spyware, and then keep it from happening again.

While not a technical treatise for the power user this is an excellent resource for the average Internet user who wants to know what is happening with their email, slow system performance, and other annoyances. This book explains in simple layman's terms what is happening, how to clean it up, and how to greatly reduce the rate at which it happens again. Degunking Your Email, Spam, and Viruses is highly recommended for the every-day user who wants to regain control of their in-box.

Duntemann gives a nice summary of the main antispam methods currently available in the marketplace. He points out the basic ideas behind each. Along with the advantages and disadvantages.

For example, in 2003, Challenge-Response garnered wide publicity, as a spam killer. Alas, this turned out not to be so. He reveals that the manual response needed turns off some people, who sent you the initiating messages. Or, some who do try to answer the puzzle might goof. This is bad if the senders are potential or actual customers of yours. Plus, the CR methods typically check the sender address against a whitelist that you might have. Well, spammers might forge this field to pretend to be from a common and important website, like eBay or Amazon.

He gives the biggest praise for Bayesians, implemented at the user's machine. He quotes high success rates when he tried it. But, as he points out, he gets a lot of mail, which makes it easier to train the Bayesian. Plus, he has the technical ability and inclination to continually retrain the Bayesian. In part, as research for this book. But the average user lacks his technical background or the will to do the retraining. A huge practical draawback to Bayesians.