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Email User's Guide:
SOPHOS Pure Message Anti-Spam Utility

Table of Contents:

  1. Introduction to Pure Message and Use Overview
  2. Signing In to Pure Message
  3. Setting Your Mail Filtering Preferences
  4. Viewing Blocked Messages
  5. Viewing Deleted Messages
  6. Adding Email Senders to Your Approved Senders List
  7. Adding Email Senders to Your Blocked Senders List
  8. Help With Pure Message
  9. Logging Out of Pure Message
Click on any image to get a full size version.

1: Introduction to Pure Message

Pure Message is a state-of-the-art email filtering program recently deployed by the University of Mississippi that will filter all incoming and outgoing emails traveling on email servers located in the University's Data Center. The purpose of Pure Message is to drastically reduce, if not eliminate, nuisance 'spam' email and dangerous viruses.

As an email user, you will be able to configure your Pure Message email filtering preferences to reflect your own needs and tastes. You may, at your convenience, add any email sender to a list of blocked senders, add senders to a list of approved senders, or you may turn off all Pure Message email filtering functions altogether. It's up to you, the user, to determine your level of filtering.

To set these levels and preferences, you must first sign in to your new Pure Message user account. This is a simple process detailed here (see "Signing in to Pure Message"). Once signed in, you will use the Navigation Menu to access the various features of Pure Message. Many users will no doubt find the default Pure Message values are already suited to their needs; in this case, you need do nothing at all.

Before we actually sign in to Pure Message, here is a brief overview of how the system works here at the University of Mississippi:

* Pure Message software filters all emails. Pure Message subjects each email to several hundred spam tests, and based on these tests a numeric score is assigned to each email. A score of zero indicates the email is NOT spam; a score of 100 shows a certainty that the email IS spam.

* Emails with a spam score of 49 or less are delivered to the users as usual, and the users need take no action whatsoever to receive these non-spam emails.

* Emails with a score of 50 or greater are blocked (or 'quarantined') by Pure Message.

* Blocked emails are held for 7 days in the Pure Message quarantine. At any time during these seven days the email user may sign in to Pure Message, review his or her list of quarantined messages, and have the option to read, delete, or deliver each message, should they so desire. Users may also opt to add the sender of quarantined items to their Approved Sender list, which would insure that, in the future, all emails sent by that sender are delivered immediately without holds or quarantine.

* Quarantined emails deleted within the last seven days may also be reviewed while the user is signed in to Pure Message.



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2: Signing In To Pure Message

To sign in to your Pure Message account (which has already been created for you), point your web browser to:

http://spam.olemiss.edu

You will see the initial signon screen, which looks like the screen shown below. Note that there are boxes in which you will need to enter your Ole Miss WebID and your Ole Miss WebID password. If you do not know your Ole Miss WebID or WebID password, please contact the Helpdesk (phone 915-5222) for assistance.



The screen below shows proper entry of an Ole Miss WebID and password. To complete the login process, merely click on the "Login" button below the password box.


Once you have logged in to your Pure Message account, you will see a screen similar to the screen below. Note that if you have Blocked Messages in your account, they will be listed.

At this point, you are signed in to your Pure Message account and may set your filtering options or manipulate Blocked or Deleted messages using the instructions provided in the other sections of this document.

 

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3: Setting Your Mail Filtering Preferences

After you are signed in to Pure Message, you will see login screen much like the one shown below.

Using the Navigation Menu in the upper left hand corner of your screen, move your cursor onto the "Options" bar, and click once. The Options window will then open, as shown in the screen-shot below:



The default setting for all email users is such that Pure Message will automatically filter your email for spam and viruses. If this is acceptable to you, you need do nothing to configure your preferences; Pure Message will filter automatically.

Should you wish to disable all Pure Message filtering to your email account, simply place a check in the Mail Filtering Processes box next to the text "Disable all spam and offensive content blocking for my messages," as shown in the screen below:


Then click on the SAVE button to the bottom right of the box, and your email will no longer be filtered for spam by Pure Message.

If you have removed spam filtering and wish to resume spam filtering at a later date, follow this same procedure, but remove the click in the box next to the text "Disable all spam and offensive content blocking for my messages" and then click on SAVE to resume filtering.

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4: Viewing Blocked Messages

Pure Message places all email tagged as spam in a quarantine area, where it is blocked from being delivered to your email inbox. This spam quarantine area retains spam for seven days from the date of receipt. It is not necessary that you review these blocked messages; Pure Message will delete them automatically once the hold interval elapses. But many users occasionally review their blocked messages to make sure no legitimate emails are being blocked.

To see your blocked messages, simply sign in to Pure Message as shown in Section 1, and then click once on "Blocked Messages" in the Navigation Menu on the upper left hand corner of your screen.

If you have Blocked Messages, you will see a screen similar to the screen shown below:



Note that each blocked email is listed, and that to the left of each email is an empty check-box. You may read any Blocked Message by simply double-clicking on the subject line; the text of the Blocked Message will then appear in a box on your screen. Also note the buttons at the top and bottom edges of the Blocked Messages box. These buttons allow you to either Deliver any selected message or messages, Delete any selected message or messages, Deliver and Approve Sender for any selected message or messages, or simply delete all the messages in the Blocked Messages area.

Should you wish to take any action with a Blocked Email, you first need to select that email by placing a check in the box to its left. See below for an example -- we shall select the email with the subject line "Confirmation ID #399" by placing a check mark in the box:


Let us assume that, for some reason, we wished to actually see this email, and we want to see all emails sent in the future by this sender. In other words, we want to execute the "Deliver and Approve" option.

To do this, simply leave the check-mark in the box, and then click once on the button marked Deliver and Approve Sender. After performing this operation, you will see a screen like the one below:



Note that Pure Message now gives you the option to accept ONLY email from this particular sender (the first option), or to accept email from ALL senders at the given domain name. The choice is up to you, though the default is the more restrictive single-user option.

Once you click on the "Approve" button at the bottom of the box containing your two choices, the action will be taken by Pure Message for all subsequent emails and you will be returned automatically to the Block Messages screen.

The procedures for Deleting and Delivering emails are the same as the ones above. Simply place a check mark in the appropriate box and then click on the action button of your choice. Pure Message will then execute your choices.

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5: Viewing Deleted Messages

Should you ever wish to review messages you have deleted using the steps given in Section 4, Viewing Blocked Messages, you need only sign in to Pure Message, go to the Navigation Menu on the upper left of your screen, and click once on the line which states "Viewing Deleted Messages." You will then see a screen much like the one shown below:



You may read any of the Deleted Emails simply by double-clicking on the subject line of the email. After you double-click, a window will appear, containing the text of the deleted email. An example is shown below:


Pure Message allows you to undelete any message by simply placing a check mark in the box to the left of the email listing, and then by clicking on either of the "Undelete Message" buttons located above and below the Deleted Messages box.

In the example screen below, we shall undelete the first email listed. First, we shall place a click mark in the appropriate box, as shown below:



Then, click on either of the Undelete Message buttons on the Undeleted Messages box. The message will immediately be removed from the Deleted Messages area, and will be returned to the Blocked Messages box. From Blocked Messages, you may opt to deliver the email, and approve the sender.

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6: Adding Email Senders to Your Approved Senders List

To add any email sender to your list of approved senders, simply log in to Pure Message, locate the Navigation Menu on the upper left side of your screen, and click once on "Approved Senders." You will then see a screen similar to the one below:



If you have already entered Approved Senders, a list of them will be shown. If you have no Approved Senders, your screen will look like the one above.

To add an email sender to your Approved Senders list, simply enter the sender's email address in the box. Read the box carefully; it contains instructions on how to approve ALL senders from any particular domain, which could save you from making multiple entries if you regularly receive email from numerous people who share the same domain name in their email address.

In this example, we will add a single email user address to our list of approved email addresses. As stated, simply enter the desired email address in the box, and Pure Message will always deliver any email directly to you from that address, even if it fails the spam tests.

Enter the email as shown below:


Then click on "Add Sender" at the bottom of the box. After a moment, you will see a screen like this:



As you can see, the email address just entered is now on our list of Approved Senders, and email from this address will never be blocked or quarantined.

If you wish to remove this email address at any point in the future, simply place a check mark in the box to the left of it and then click on "Delete Sender." This will REMOVE that email sender from your list of Approved Senders.

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7: Adding Email Senders to Your Blocked Senders List

To add any email sender to your list of blocked senders, simply log in to Pure Message, locate the Navigation Menu on the upper left side of your screen, and click once on "Blocked Senders." You will then see a screen similar to the one below:



If you have already entered Blocked Senders, a list of them will be shown. If you have no Blocked Senders, your screen will look like the one above.

To add an email sender to your Blocked Senders list, simply enter the sender's email address in the box. Read the box carefully; it contains instructions on how to block ALL senders from any particular domain, which could save you from making multiple entries if you regularly receive spam from numerous senders who share the same domain name in their email addresses.

In this example, we will add a single email user address to our list of blocked email addresses. As stated, simply enter the desired email address in the box, and Pure Message will always block any email sent from that address, even if it passes the spam tests.

Enter the email as shown below:


Then click on "Block Sender" at the bottom of the box. After a moment, you will see a screen like this:



As you can see, the email address just entered is now on our list of Blocked Senders, and email from this address will always be blocked.

If you wish to remove this email address at any point in the future, simply place a check mark in the box to the left of it and then click on "Delete Sender." This will remove that email sender from your list of Blocked Senders.

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8: Help With Pure Message

Pure Message provides a help facility for its users: To activate this, simply click once on "Help" on the Navigation Menu, and scroll up or down to locate the portion of the Help files that relates to your question. This help file contains information on using Pure Message with Outlook 2000.

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9: Logging Out

To log out of Pure Message, simply click once on Log Out. It is the last option listed in the Navigation Menu on the left-hand side of your screen. Click on "Log Out," and your session will end.

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Last Modified: Wednesday, 07-Jun-2006 13:07:28 CDT
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