Failure of Rules Processing -- 2
 

Following up on my earlier post on this subject, it appears that the Rules
processing operation may get confused when a Rule refers to people and there
is more than one name in both the Rule and the address list.



Here is what I think I am seeing (in the examples below, A, B, C, D, E, X, Y
and Z represent properly structured email addresses):

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

Scenario 1:

If I create a Rule which says:



Apply this rule after the message arrives

Where the To line contains 'A' or 'B' or 'C' or 'D' or 'E'

Delete it

and Stop processing more rules



and I get an EMAIL which has ONLY ONE of the addresses A, B, C, D or E in
the TO: line,
the rule works and the email is moved to the Deleted Items folder.

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

Scenario 2:

If I use the same Rule as in scenario 1, but the incoming EMAIL contains
MORE THAN ONE of the addresses A-E,
the rule fails.
(NOTE: I have not yet done a systematic and exhaustive test to see if the
failure is due solely to having more than one of A-E in the address list, or
if perhaps there is only a failure if there is also an address X, Y, or Z in
the TO: field which is NOT also contained in the rule.)

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

Scenario 3:

If I modify the same RULE so that it contains ONLY ONE of the addresses A-E,
and I get an email with any one or more of the addresses A-E,
the rule works.

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



In other words, Rules processing seems to fail if there are multiple
addresses in both the rule and the email. In my view of the world, there is
no reason why Scenario 2 should not delete an email if ANY of the TO:
addresses in the email matches ANY of the addresses in the rule.



While Rules processing does allow both AND and OR logic to be used in a
Rule, one cannot mix AND and OR logic in a single Rule. In the case where
an email has more than one address (such as A-E and X-Z) being tested
against a rule and the test is to match the email address on an OR basis
against the address list in the rule, a failure of any one address in the
email address list to match any of the addresses in the rules should not
cause the rule to fail, as this is essentially saying that the rules
processing is translated (per the above example) as:



IF email-address-A
matches any of rule-addresses
AND
email-address-B
matches any of rule-addresses
AND
email-address-C
matches any of rule-addresses
AND
email-address-D
matches any of rule-addresses
AND
email-address-E
matches any of rule-addresses
AND
email-address-X
matches any of rule-addresses
AND
email-address-Y
matches any of rule-addresses
AND
email-address-Z
matches any of rule-addresses
THEN execute rule



Since most spam that I see has lots of entries in the TO: address list, it
is far easier from a rules management standpoint to have a single rule which
refers to a large single list of email addresses than it is to have hundreds
of rules each of which refers to only one address.



I am using Excel to manage my rules address list, copying all of the TO:
entries in each new large batch of unfiltered spam into Excel and using the
Filter function to cut the list down to one copy of each entry, sorting the
list, then pasting the list back into a single OE6 rule (after inserting the
proper ' or ' linkages between list elements).

Failure of Rules Processing -- 2
 

"Norman Litell" wrote in message
k.net...
Following up on my earlier post on this subject, it appears that the Rules
processing operation may get confused when a Rule refers to people and
there
is more than one name in both the Rule and the address list.


In the first rule, after entering the vowels click Options and select Does
Not.

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM
http://www.fjsmjs.com
Please reply in newsgroup. Do NOT send email.

Failure of Rules Processing -- 2
 

Sorry, but I don't understand your response. Let me try once again - for
the third time -- to clarify my situation...

1. I get lots of spam.
2. From what I can see going through each of these spam messages, MOST OF
this spam includes a limited set of addressees in either the TO: or CC: part
of the email.
3. I have never received a relevant email which included any one of this
set of spam-associated email addressees in either the TO: or CC: address
list.
4. I therefore want to Delete any and all emails which include at least one
of these spam-associated addressees in either the TO: or CC: list of
addressees.

That is what I am attempting to accomplish with my proposed rules.

My point and problem is this:
-- IF I have a list of known "bad" (i.e., spam-associated) addressees that
might appear in either the TO: or CC: line of an email..
-- the easiest thing for me is to continually build a list of the "bad "
addressees, and create ONE rule which says that, any time a message contains
at least one of these addressees in either/or the TO: or CC: lines...
DELETE the @#%&$&%@#$ message.!!!

THAT is what I want to do -- and that is what OE6 does not seem to have a
simple -- and workable -- solution for.


"Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM" wrote in message
...
"Norman Litell" wrote in message
k.net...
Following up on my earlier post on this subject, it appears that the
Rules
processing operation may get confused when a Rule refers to people and
there
is more than one name in both the Rule and the address list.

????????????????
In the first rule, after entering the vowels click Options and select Does
Not.
????????????????

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM
http://www.fjsmjs.com
Please reply in newsgroup. Do NOT send email.

Failure of Rules Processing -- 2
 

"Norman Litell" wrote

1. I get lots of spam.
2. From what I can see going through each of these spam messages, MOST OF
this spam includes a limited set of addressees in either the TO: or CC:
part
of the email.
3. I have never received a relevant email which included any one of this
set of spam-associated email addressees in either the TO: or CC: address
list.
4. I therefore want to Delete any and all emails which include at least
one
of these spam-associated addressees in either the TO: or CC: list of
addressees.

I just created a mail rule that says:

/begin rule
Where CC line contains
@spamcop.net
@... [more domains]

Delete it and stop processing more rules.
/end rule

It seems to work.

--
Bob
http://www.kanyak.com

Failure of Rules Processing -- 2
 

Bob,

I haven’t tried what you suggested, as it misses the basic point of my
problem.



Most of my spam contains a specific and limited set of email addresses in
either the TO: or CC: fields of the message. Nearly all of these are of the
form .



I clearly cannot block all email from standard email domains such as
earthlink, yahoo, hotmail, etc…, so your domain-level example does not
address my problem.



To repeat my issue and example once again:



1.. Please look at my post of 8/3/06 at 5:50pm to see an example of the
rule which has approx 50 email addresses in it.


2.. If I get an email with as the ONE and ONLY
addressee, the rule works and the email is deleted.
Similarly, if I get an email with as the ONE
and ONLY addressee, the rule works and the email is deleted.


3.. If I get an email with BOTH AND
as addressees (again, both names are in my single
multi-address rule), the rule fails.


The only way I can see to make the rules system work for example 3 is to
have two separate rules, each of which has only one entry – either ronk124
or Yered. That leads to a situation where I would need to create hundreds
of rules instead of just one or two large rules which ‘or’ the bad
addresses.



Norman





"Opinicus" wrote in message
...
"Norman Litell" wrote

1. I get lots of spam.
2. From what I can see going through each of these spam messages, MOST
OF
this spam includes a limited set of addressees in either the TO: or CC:
part
of the email.
3. I have never received a relevant email which included any one of
this
set of spam-associated email addressees in either the TO: or CC: address
list.
4. I therefore want to Delete any and all emails which include at least
one
of these spam-associated addressees in either the TO: or CC: list of
addressees.

I just created a mail rule that says:

/begin rule
Where CC line contains
@spamcop.net
@... [more domains]

Delete it and stop processing more rules.
/end rule

It seems to work.

--
Bob
http://www.kanyak.com

Failure of Rules Processing -- 2
 

Norman:

Why have you not tried my suggestion of blocking everyone with an address
From Earthlink, EXCEPT the people you want to allow? I will give it to you
again.

You need two message rules and the first one must be above the second. They
should be the first rules after all your Delete it from server rules.

Rule 1:

Box 1: Where the from line contains people
Box 2: Stop processing more rules
Box 3: Click on Contains people and Add the addresses you want to receive
one-at-a time.

Rule 2: (right below rule 1).

Where the from line contains people
Delete it and Stop processing more rules (or Delete it from the server)
Click on Contains People and Add the domain: @earthlink.net

Messages to yourself and anyone else that you wish to allow that uses
earthlink will go to the Inbox. All others will be deleted.
--
Bruce Hagen
MS MVP - Outlook Express
~IB-CA~

"Norman Litell" wrote in message
ink.net...
Bob,

I haven't tried what you suggested, as it misses the basic point of my
problem.



Most of my spam contains a specific and limited set of email addresses in
either the TO: or CC: fields of the message. Nearly all of these are of
the
form .



I clearly cannot block all email from standard email domains such as
earthlink, yahoo, hotmail, etc., so your domain-level example does not
address my problem.



To repeat my issue and example once again:



1.. Please look at my post of 8/3/06 at 5:50pm to see an example of the
rule which has approx 50 email addresses in it.


2.. If I get an email with as the ONE and
ONLY
addressee, the rule works and the email is deleted.
Similarly, if I get an email with as the ONE
and ONLY addressee, the rule works and the email is deleted.


3.. If I get an email with BOTH AND
as addressees (again, both names are in my single
multi-address rule), the rule fails.


The only way I can see to make the rules system work for example 3 is to
have two separate rules, each of which has only one entry - either ronk124
or Yered. That leads to a situation where I would need to create hundreds
of rules instead of just one or two large rules which 'or' the bad
addresses.



Norman





"Opinicus" wrote in message
...
"Norman Litell" wrote

1. I get lots of spam.
2. From what I can see going through each of these spam messages, MOST
OF
this spam includes a limited set of addressees in either the TO: or CC:
part
of the email.
3. I have never received a relevant email which included any one of
this
set of spam-associated email addressees in either the TO: or CC:
address
list.
4. I therefore want to Delete any and all emails which include at
least
one
of these spam-associated addressees in either the TO: or CC: list of
addressees.

I just created a mail rule that says:

/begin rule
Where CC line contains
@spamcop.net
@... [more domains]

Delete it and stop processing more rules.
/end rule

It seems to work.

--
Bob
http://www.kanyak.com

Failure of Rules Processing -- 2
 

Bruce,
I am afraid that what we have here is a failure to communicate. While I
appreciate your input, I fail to see the relevance of your suggestion to my
problem; so let me try once more to clarify the issue as I see it.

Spam comes FROM lots of random email addresses, and in my experience, few of
them are from Earthlink. Whenever I get a new spam message, I add the
sender (or the domain) to my Blocked Senders list. However, it is seldom
that I find the same FROM address in multiple spam messages so populating
the Blocked Sender list this way is likely a "nice" but almost irrelevant
process. For the same reason, using message rules instead of the Blocked
Sender list on the FROM side of the problem seems like a futile effort.

However, what I do find is that I get lots of spam which consistently has
the following basic characteristics:
-- Each message has a different FROM address.
-- Each message is sent to a large list of addressees, either via the TO:
line or the CC: line.
-- There are a number of email address from a variety of domains which
consistently appear in the addressee list.

Since I am observing the same addressees in the TO: and CC: fields, it seems
to make sense to delete any message that has this characteristic -- that is,
at least one of the addressees is in my rule's address list. And indeed, my
rule works part of the time -- this is, when the message is addressed to
ONLY ONE addressee, and that addressee is in my list. (How I get this
message is unclear -- perhaps via a BCC: entry -- but that seems to be
irrelevant since I cannot create a rule relating to a BCC:).

My problem is that the rule fails when the message has more than one
addressee. THIS IS NOT LOGICAL IN MY MIND, AND SEEMS TO ME TO BE A FAILURE
OF THE RULES PROCESSING MECHANISM. That is what I was trying to get at in
this post, and what I tried to explain in detail in the first message in
this post.

Norman


"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
Norman:

Why have you not tried my suggestion of blocking everyone with an address
From Earthlink, EXCEPT the people you want to allow? I will give it to you
again.

You need two message rules and the first one must be above the second.
They
should be the first rules after all your Delete it from server rules.

Rule 1:

Box 1: Where the from line contains people
Box 2: Stop processing more rules
Box 3: Click on Contains people and Add the addresses you want to receive
one-at-a time.

Rule 2: (right below rule 1).

Where the from line contains people
Delete it and Stop processing more rules (or Delete it from the server)
Click on Contains People and Add the domain: @earthlink.net

Messages to yourself and anyone else that you wish to allow that uses
earthlink will go to the Inbox. All others will be deleted.
--
Bruce Hagen
MS MVP - Outlook Express
~IB-CA~

"Norman Litell" wrote in message
ink.net...
Bob,

I haven't tried what you suggested, as it misses the basic point of my
problem.



Most of my spam contains a specific and limited set of email addresses
in
either the TO: or CC: fields of the message. Nearly all of these are of
the
form .



I clearly cannot block all email from standard email domains such as
earthlink, yahoo, hotmail, etc., so your domain-level example does not
address my problem.



To repeat my issue and example once again:



1.. Please look at my post of 8/3/06 at 5:50pm to see an example of the
rule which has approx 50 email addresses in it.


2.. If I get an email with as the ONE and
ONLY
addressee, the rule works and the email is deleted.
Similarly, if I get an email with as the ONE
and ONLY addressee, the rule works and the email is deleted.


3.. If I get an email with BOTH AND
as addressees (again, both names are in my single
multi-address rule), the rule fails.


The only way I can see to make the rules system work for example 3 is to
have two separate rules, each of which has only one entry - either
ronk124
or Yered. That leads to a situation where I would need to create
hundreds
of rules instead of just one or two large rules which 'or' the bad
addresses.



Norman





"Opinicus" wrote in message
...
"Norman Litell" wrote

1. I get lots of spam.
2. From what I can see going through each of these spam messages,
MOST
OF
this spam includes a limited set of addressees in either the TO: or
CC:
part
of the email.
3. I have never received a relevant email which included any one of
this
set of spam-associated email addressees in either the TO: or CC:
address
list.
4. I therefore want to Delete any and all emails which include at
least
one
of these spam-associated addressees in either the TO: or CC: list of
addressees.

I just created a mail rule that says:

/begin rule
Where CC line contains
@spamcop.net
@... [more domains]

Delete it and stop processing more rules.
/end rule

It seems to work.

--
Bob
http://www.kanyak.com

Failure of Rules Processing -- 2
 

Sorry about the misunderstanding. Your list of spam were all from Earthlink.
That's why I got confused.

You can filter against BCC if it is appropriate for you. Some ideas.

Where the To or CC line contains
Delete it from server
Click on Contains and enter your address
Click Options and change to Does Not Contain

Use that along with this rule:

Where the To or CC line contains people
Delete it from server
Click Contains and Add *one at a time* all letters and numbers that are not
in your address.

The first rule will block BCC. The second rule only allows mail address to
you only, (a few will slip through). I don't know if this is feasible for
you or not.

Take a look at these links. If nothing is relevant, than an Anti-Spam
program would be your only choice.

How to set up OE Message Rules:
http://www.oeupdates.com/outlook-exp...lock-spam.html

http://www.timeatlas.com/mos/Email/O...tlook_Express/

http://www.jackieswebworks.com/outlo...ss%20notes.htm

Some Message Rule Ideas:
http://www.mindspring.com/~majik/messagerules.htm

Some tips:
http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/tips/rules.htm

Message Rules not working?:
http://www.tomsterdam.com/insideoe/faqs/why.htm#rules
--
Bruce Hagen
MS MVP - Outlook Express
~IB-CA~

"Norman Litell" wrote in message
k.net...
Bruce,
I am afraid that what we have here is a failure to communicate. While I
appreciate your input, I fail to see the relevance of your suggestion to
my
problem; so let me try once more to clarify the issue as I see it.

Spam comes FROM lots of random email addresses, and in my experience, few
of
them are from Earthlink. Whenever I get a new spam message, I add the
sender (or the domain) to my Blocked Senders list. However, it is seldom
that I find the same FROM address in multiple spam messages so populating
the Blocked Sender list this way is likely a "nice" but almost irrelevant
process. For the same reason, using message rules instead of the Blocked
Sender list on the FROM side of the problem seems like a futile effort.

However, what I do find is that I get lots of spam which consistently has
the following basic characteristics:
-- Each message has a different FROM address.
-- Each message is sent to a large list of addressees, either via the TO:
line or the CC: line.
-- There are a number of email address from a variety of domains which
consistently appear in the addressee list.

Since I am observing the same addressees in the TO: and CC: fields, it
seems
to make sense to delete any message that has this characteristic -- that
is,
at least one of the addressees is in my rule's address list. And indeed,
my
rule works part of the time -- this is, when the message is addressed to
ONLY ONE addressee, and that addressee is in my list. (How I get this
message is unclear -- perhaps via a BCC: entry -- but that seems to be
irrelevant since I cannot create a rule relating to a BCC:).

My problem is that the rule fails when the message has more than one
addressee. THIS IS NOT LOGICAL IN MY MIND, AND SEEMS TO ME TO BE A
FAILURE
OF THE RULES PROCESSING MECHANISM. That is what I was trying to get at in
this post, and what I tried to explain in detail in the first message in
this post.

Norman


"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
Norman:

Why have you not tried my suggestion of blocking everyone with an address
From Earthlink, EXCEPT the people you want to allow? I will give it to
you
again.

You need two message rules and the first one must be above the second.
They
should be the first rules after all your Delete it from server rules.

Rule 1:

Box 1: Where the from line contains people
Box 2: Stop processing more rules
Box 3: Click on Contains people and Add the addresses you want to receive
one-at-a time.

Rule 2: (right below rule 1).

Where the from line contains people
Delete it and Stop processing more rules (or Delete it from the server)
Click on Contains People and Add the domain: @earthlink.net

Messages to yourself and anyone else that you wish to allow that uses
earthlink will go to the Inbox. All others will be deleted.
--
Bruce Hagen
MS MVP - Outlook Express
~IB-CA~

"Norman Litell" wrote in message
ink.net...
Bob,

I haven't tried what you suggested, as it misses the basic point of my
problem.



Most of my spam contains a specific and limited set of email addresses
in
either the TO: or CC: fields of the message. Nearly all of these are
of
the
form .



I clearly cannot block all email from standard email domains such as
earthlink, yahoo, hotmail, etc., so your domain-level example does not
address my problem.



To repeat my issue and example once again:



1.. Please look at my post of 8/3/06 at 5:50pm to see an example of
the
rule which has approx 50 email addresses in it.


2.. If I get an email with as the ONE and
ONLY
addressee, the rule works and the email is deleted.
Similarly, if I get an email with as the
ONE
and ONLY addressee, the rule works and the email is deleted.


3.. If I get an email with BOTH AND
as addressees (again, both names are in my
single
multi-address rule), the rule fails.


The only way I can see to make the rules system work for example 3 is
to
have two separate rules, each of which has only one entry - either
ronk124
or Yered. That leads to a situation where I would need to create
hundreds
of rules instead of just one or two large rules which 'or' the bad
addresses.



Norman





"Opinicus" wrote in message
...
"Norman Litell" wrote

1. I get lots of spam.
2. From what I can see going through each of these spam messages,
MOST
OF
this spam includes a limited set of addressees in either the TO: or
CC:
part
of the email.
3. I have never received a relevant email which included any one of
this
set of spam-associated email addressees in either the TO: or CC:
address
list.
4. I therefore want to Delete any and all emails which include at
least
one
of these spam-associated addressees in either the TO: or CC: list of
addressees.

I just created a mail rule that says:

/begin rule
Where CC line contains
@spamcop.net
@... [more domains]

Delete it and stop processing more rules.
/end rule

It seems to work.

--
Bob
http://www.kanyak.com

Failure of Rules Processing -- 2
 

"Norman Litell" wrote in message
k.net...
Following up on my earlier post on this subject, it appears that the Rules
processing operation may get confused ..............................

Heavy clipping for clarity :-)


Hello Norman

I have not read you original thread, so excuse me if I am asking what has
been asked already.
The main gist of your problem seems to be for setting message rules to block
email spam.
Just two questions -
1. What type/form is this spam - text or .gif(coloured type and
background - bit like a picture)
2. Have you contacted your ISP - can they block these spams and save to you
mail box.
Rgds
Antioch

Failure of Rules Processing -- 2
 

I tried an example of what I think you mean, and it worked fine for me.
Could you provide a specific example that fails? Fake the addresses if
you wish, but explain what's in the rule and in the To and CC headers.

Please also mention the Windows and OE version you're using, including
service packs. The behavior of the various combinations can be quite
different.

If what you're seeing is in fact an error in the software, you can be sure
that nothing will be done about it at this point.


Norman Litell wrote:
Bruce,
I am afraid that what we have here is a failure to communicate. While I
appreciate your input, I fail to see the relevance of your suggestion to my
problem; so let me try once more to clarify the issue as I see it.

Spam comes FROM lots of random email addresses, and in my experience, few of
them are from Earthlink. Whenever I get a new spam message, I add the
sender (or the domain) to my Blocked Senders list. However, it is seldom
that I find the same FROM address in multiple spam messages so populating
the Blocked Sender list this way is likely a "nice" but almost irrelevant
process. For the same reason, using message rules instead of the Blocked
Sender list on the FROM side of the problem seems like a futile effort.

However, what I do find is that I get lots of spam which consistently has
the following basic characteristics:
-- Each message has a different FROM address.
-- Each message is sent to a large list of addressees, either via the TO:
line or the CC: line.
-- There are a number of email address from a variety of domains which
consistently appear in the addressee list.

Since I am observing the same addressees in the TO: and CC: fields, it seems
to make sense to delete any message that has this characteristic -- that is,
at least one of the addressees is in my rule's address list. And indeed, my
rule works part of the time -- this is, when the message is addressed to
ONLY ONE addressee, and that addressee is in my list. (How I get this
message is unclear -- perhaps via a BCC: entry -- but that seems to be
irrelevant since I cannot create a rule relating to a BCC:).

My problem is that the rule fails when the message has more than one
addressee. THIS IS NOT LOGICAL IN MY MIND, AND SEEMS TO ME TO BE A FAILURE
OF THE RULES PROCESSING MECHANISM. That is what I was trying to get at in
this post, and what I tried to explain in detail in the first message in
this post.

Norman


"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
Norman:

Why have you not tried my suggestion of blocking everyone with an address
From Earthlink, EXCEPT the people you want to allow? I will give it to you
again.

You need two message rules and the first one must be above the second.
They
should be the first rules after all your Delete it from server rules.

Rule 1:

Box 1: Where the from line contains people
Box 2: Stop processing more rules
Box 3: Click on Contains people and Add the addresses you want to receive
one-at-a time.

Rule 2: (right below rule 1).

Where the from line contains people
Delete it and Stop processing more rules (or Delete it from the server)
Click on Contains People and Add the domain: @earthlink.net

Messages to yourself and anyone else that you wish to allow that uses
earthlink will go to the Inbox. All others will be deleted.
--
Bruce Hagen
MS MVP - Outlook Express
~IB-CA~

"Norman Litell" wrote in message
ink.net...
Bob,

I haven't tried what you suggested, as it misses the basic point of my
problem.



Most of my spam contains a specific and limited set of email addresses
in
either the TO: or CC: fields of the message. Nearly all of these are of
the
form .



I clearly cannot block all email from standard email domains such as
earthlink, yahoo, hotmail, etc., so your domain-level example does not
address my problem.



To repeat my issue and example once again:



1.. Please look at my post of 8/3/06 at 5:50pm to see an example of the
rule which has approx 50 email addresses in it.


2.. If I get an email with as the ONE and
ONLY
addressee, the rule works and the email is deleted.
Similarly, if I get an email with as the ONE
and ONLY addressee, the rule works and the email is deleted.


3.. If I get an email with BOTH AND
as addressees (again, both names are in my single
multi-address rule), the rule fails.


The only way I can see to make the rules system work for example 3 is to
have two separate rules, each of which has only one entry - either
ronk124
or Yered. That leads to a situation where I would need to create
hundreds
of rules instead of just one or two large rules which 'or' the bad
addresses.



Norman





"Opinicus" wrote in message
...
"Norman Litell" wrote

1. I get lots of spam.
2. From what I can see going through each of these spam messages,
MOST
OF
this spam includes a limited set of addressees in either the TO: or
CC:
part
of the email.
3. I have never received a relevant email which included any one of
this
set of spam-associated email addressees in either the TO: or CC:
address
list.
4. I therefore want to Delete any and all emails which include at
least
one
of these spam-associated addressees in either the TO: or CC: list of
addressees.

I just created a mail rule that says:

/begin rule
Where CC line contains
@spamcop.net
@... [more domains]

Delete it and stop processing more rules.
/end rule

It seems to work.

--
Bob
http://www.kanyak.com








--
Gary L. Smith
Columbus, Ohio