Create New Email Accounts

Create New Email Accounts

Wormhole
Show in Webmail
Set as Default

Spam 'n Virus Blast It! (SVBI!) allows the creation of unlimited email accounts.

To create a new email account, simply enter any valid word or name into the Enter Account field. The "@yourdomainname.com" part is automatically added after that term to form your new email account.

Then click into any, all, or none of the following checkboxes...

1) Wormhole?
2) Show in Webmail
3) Set as Default

Wormhole

If you leave this unchecked, this email account is a "regular" email account.

Checking this option turns this email account into a "Wormhole" Account. What's so special about an account while it's a "wormhole"? Here's what...

The "from/reply-to" email address of any email that is sent to a Wormhole email account is automatically added to your whitelist. After a certain number of days (set by you, from 5-60 days or "Permanent"), it reverts to a "regular" email account.

Click here for general information about wormholes.

This is a powerful feature. It allows "new (even unknown!) friends and associates" to get onto your whitelist with "no muss, no fuss." Let's use an example to clarify...

Suppose you make a purchase from Amazon.com. You're aware that Amazon will send you a receipt, then a confirmation of shipping, etc. However, if you purchase using a regular email account, the Amazon autoresponder will send to that address.

Since Amazon's email address is not yet whitelisted with you, SVBI! will refuse the receipt and bounce it back with your challenge-response to whitelist.

Unfortunately, Amazon does not have a human there to take care of trivial things like handling the challenge-response. So you will not receive your receipt.

If you knew what address they used to mail customers, you could, of course, simply whitelist that address. But you don't know it. As a matter of fact, Amazon has a very elaborate post-sales email system...

their confirmation email comes immediately, but you don't know "[email protected]"
their shipping notice comes within a day to a few weeks, from a [email protected]
they may send a "shipment delayed" notice 6 weeks later from [email protected].

What to do? You can't whitelist Amazon's entire domain -- too many spammers forge spam from a "@amazon.com" to fool you into opening email. So that's no good.

To side-step this issue, create a Wormhole email account. A Wormhole is best used when you're expecting a response from an automated service, but don't know the exact address from which it will be sent.

SVBI! automatically whitelists the addresses of everyone who sends email to an open Wormhole account.

So to set up a Wormhole account (for this Amazon example)...

Check the Wormhole? checkbox.
Choose Open for 60 days from the "Choose duration" drop-down menu.
Enter an address that spammers will not guess but that you can readily identify and remember the purpose.

For example, you enter "amazon-fulfillment-wormhole" into the text box so that the entire wormhole account is "[email protected]." There's not much chance of spammers guessing that address.

And when you see this address as the "To address" of an inbound email or when you're reviewing the origins of your whitelist, you'll immediately remember the purpose of that wormhole account.

All set? Great! Click on the Create New Accounts button. Your new account will be ready to use in about an hour. Once it is...

You're ready to order from Amazon. You only have to do this once, remember -- once Amazon's fulfillment addresses are whitelisted, you're set for future orders, too. So let's order...

When you order, provide your wormhole account email address. All of Amazon's post-order emails will reach you and SVBI! will automatically whitelist their "from" addresses.

After 60 days, when the wormhole has closed, those whitelisted addresses will still be able to send mail that reaches you. But all other email to that ex-wormhole account will be refused by SVBI!.

Why leave it open for 60 days? Why not less?

Good question! In Amazon's case, it may take 6-8 weeks before you see one of those "delayed shipment" emails. So set the wormhole duration to 60 days -- that will cover all possible "from addresses" in post-order emails from Amazon.

Why set the wormhole to 60 days and not to "Permanent?"

Even better question! The answer lies in...

The First Wormhole Rule of Thumb

Leave the wormhole open for as few days as possible. For example, if you're subscribing to a newsletter from a smaller, unknown company, you'll get your "confirm opt-in" email within minutes and your first issue within a week or two.

So choose "Open for 15 days" in the "Choose duration" drop-down menu (under the Wormhole checkbox).

Since this newsletter subscription is a "riskier" situation, and since the subscription and receipt-of-first-issue process is short, close the wormhole earlier to decrease the chances that a spammer may get onto your whitelist through the wormhole while it remains open.

Permanent Wormholes

Permanent wormholes must be used very carefully and only in certain types of situations where you need to keep access open indefinitely. Since it remains open, you must be especially careful that it doesn't fall into spammers' hands.

Use a Permanent wormhole when you want to receive repeated emails from different sources for an indefinite period of time. For example...

if you accept PayPal payments (see the important note about PayPal, below)
on business cards -- anyone who emails the address on your card gets whitelisted!

And that brings us to...

The Second Wormhole Rule of Thumb

Create a new Permanent wormhole account for each new situation. If you use one wormhole account to cover everything, you'd have no way to trace how a spammer got your wormhole address. That would cause you some major inconvenience.

By using one account for each specific situation, you can figure out how spammers discovered you simply by reviewing the origins of your whitelist display.

Keep a wormhole open as short a time as possible. And protect Permanent wormholes.

That brings up another question...

When should you shut down a Permanent wormhole?

As soon as you start getting spam, shut it down. If you protect it well, that should take years. But when it does happen, shut it down and open one to replace it.

What about all those addresses that have been whitelisted through that wormhole?

They are automatically whitelisted for all your email accounts. So it's a good idea, at the time they whitelist through the wormhole, to let them know that they can/should reach you through a regular email account (include the most appropriate one in your sig file). Do this before you ever have to shut down a Permanent wormhole.

Just to be thorough, if you ever have to shut down a Permanent wormhole, you can review your whitelist to see which addresses were whitelisted via that Permanent wormhole account. Inform those people to reach you through a regular email account (provide whichever is most appropriate for that group). Also...

Remove the spammer's email address from your whitelist. Bottom line...

Damage fixed!

1) Never post a wormhole address online to any web page (not even one behind a password).

2) Use wormholes only offline (e.g., business cards), or to deal with trusted online third parties (e.g., ordering from Amazon).

3) Create a new wormhole for each situation (to give you damage-control and traceability).

4) Make it an address that spammers would not "dictionary attack"/guess at.

Important Note About PayPal & Wormholes

When PayPal pays you, it sends a confirming email ("Notification of payment received"). But it sends it from the address of your customer, who might not be in your whitelist (e.g., if your customer bought an e-good from a third-party service like ClickBank). So...

Create a Permanent wormhole for PayPal. You give PayPal that address. All email to that address becomes whitelisted automatically, including all customers who pay you through PayPal.

It's critical to create an address that spammers will not guess at, and to protect that address from "getting out," or you may have to delete that wormhole and start a new one for PayPal (inform all customers, as outlined above, if that happens).

Tip

You cannot add a wormhole to an existing email account. If you decide that you'd like a certain account to have a wormhole, delete that account and create it again, giving it the exact same name. Before you build it, add a check to the Wormhole? checkbox and choose the length of time.

Show in Webmail

Select this option if you would like the ability to send email from this email account when you're composing a new message in Webmail. This email account will then show in the "From" drop-down menu each time you create a new message to send.

Set as Default

Only one email account can be set as the "default" address in the "From" drop-down menu (i.e., this account is automatically chosen to appear) when you create a new message to send.

Use this section to set the email account that you use most often when creating new messages. You can change the "From" address to any of the other accounts that you choose (through the "Show In Webmail" option above) to display in that drop-down.

Please note the small "Click here to add more" link. Use it to add as many additional email accounts as you like before you click on the Create New Accounts button.

When you're all done, click the Create New Accounts button to add your new email accounts. Add as many as you like, but only as many as you need (the more you add, the more spammers may probe).