The Message Center

The Message Center is your personal area where potential junk and virus-infected email is held. The Message Center is also a starting point for you configure the settings of other email applications.

You should review the detained messages and choose to delete or deliver them. You can also safely read the contents of a virus-infected email without the risk of harming your system -- and then delete or deliver the infected email.

All email messages are kept in the Message Center or Trash for 14 days after original receipt of the message. As a reminder, you'll receive a regular message directing you to the Message Center to review detained email. If a potentially dangerous virus-infected message is detected, you are immediately notified via email. It is recommended that you check your Message Center often at first so your filters "learn" to be more effective and accurate.

Junk Email Assistant

The Junk Email Assistant will filter unsolicited commercial email once you activate the service, by selecting ON from the Junk Email configuration page. To improve the effectiveness of your filtering, you should further adjust the settings with the Filter Categories, Filter Sensitivity, Approved Senders, and Blocked Senders.

To increase the accuracy of your junk email filters, you should add the email addresses of your friends, family, and work associates to your Approved Senders list. This allows all familiar senders to bypass the filters. Second, you can adjust the Filter Sensitivity and Filter Categories to meet the level of protection that suits you best. And for the annoying mailing lists and senders, Blocked Senders list is also available to block all messages from those senders.

You will receive a regular summary of quarantined messages. You should visit the Message Center often to help the service adapt to your needs. There is a possibility that "legitimate" messages may be mistakenly detained in the Message Center. If you "Deliver" the message, you will be given the opportunity to add the sender to your Approved Senders list, increasing the accuracy of your filters by allowing email from that sender through.

Junk Email - Category Filters

Junk Email Category Filters will increase the sensitivity of your junk email filters to potentially objectionable content, such as "Get Rich Quick" or "Sexually Explicit" messages.

The category filters are not strictly content filters and no person reads the email. The Junk Email Assistant intelligently recognizes characteristics that are typical to junk email of this these category types.

• Sexually Explicit - Email that advertises X-rated websites, sexual activity, and other adult themes generally not appropriate for individuals under the age of 18.
• Get Rich Quick - Schemes such as multi-level marketing, unsolicited job offers, and other opportunities that request financial participation. Although this content may be acceptable to minors, it may be confusing or misleading.
• Racially Insensitive - Offensive messages based on gender, nationality, race, creed, and religion. This type of email may be emotionally sensitive as well.
• Special Offers - Messages, which aren't necessarily financially oriented, but does promote a call to action, such as pyramid scheme and similar unsolicited offers.

Junk Email - Approved Senders

Add email addresses to the Approved Senders list if you want email from those senders to bypass the Junk Email Assistant, regardless of what filters may be active.

You can add or delete senders to the list manually as you would block senders. Addresses can also be added to the Approved Senders list automatically when you deliver email from your Message Center and it asks whether you want to add that name to the Approved Senders list. Select the addresses that you want to add and click continue.

Mailing Lists and email-based newsletters can also be approved to bypass the filters. Email headers for Mailing Lists are not all formatted like your personal email and require some extra attention to pre-approve. First, go to the Junk Email settings, and click on Approved Senders, then click on the "Mailing Lists" link. Look at a copy of the mailing list that you want to add - if their email address is located in the TO: field, and then add it to the Approved Mailing List. If the Mailing List's email address is located in the FROM: field, add the email address to the Approved Senders List.

Please note that mailing list addresses are often long and can change slightly from issue to issue. To ensure the newsletter isn't quarantined, you may want to add only the domain of the mailing list. For example, add "mailinglist.com" and ALL email messages from that domain will bypass the filters.

Junk Email - Blocked Senders

Add email addresses to the Blocked Senders list if you repeatedly receive objectionable email from the same individuals or organizations. This list might include a spammer, someone who keeps sending you chain letters, or a subscription that you can't unsubscribe from. By adding a sender to the Blocked Senders list, all messages from that sender will be directed to the Message Center.

If you decide that a message from a blocked sender should be delivered to your inbox, simply select Deliver, and it will be sent to your inbox. You may modify this list at any time by returning to this setting.

Junk Email - FAQ

What makes the Junk Email Assistant filters different from the spam filters found in my email application?
The mail filters found in email products have a number of limitations and often assume a "one size fits all" solution. You are often expected to develop your own filter rules from the limited tools provided. Further, you must still download email before the mail client can filter it, possibly wasting time and bandwidth while waiting to read mail, such as spam, that you would not want anyway.

With the Junk Email Assistant filters, all email processing is done behind the scenes before it arrives in the inbox. This saves time and bandwidth by not forcing you to download superfluous email, such as unsolicited offers. Moreover, improvements are done without modifications to an your email services or email client. The Junk Email Assistant performance is superior, identifying up to 95% of your junk email.

How do I know junk email is being filtered and not my regular (legitimate) email?
An advanced filtering technique is used built on heuristic rules, lists of approved and blocked senders, and databases of known junk email to maintain the effectiveness of the rules system. Despite these advanced measures, some good email may get caught since the concept of junk email is subjective (one man's trash is another man's treasure). To remedy this, we let you set a lenient-to-aggressive tolerance for filtering suspicious email: lenient filtering potentially lets more junk email through, but also minimizes the risk of legitimate email from getting mistakenly directed to the Message Center; conversely, aggressive filtering catches more suspicious email at the risk of mistakenly diverting normal email to the Message Center. You're notified with regular summary reports of your Message Center activities. With the right configuration, less than 1% of valid email is falsely identified as suspicious.

Does someone read personal emails?
No. All email processing is done through automated filters. Further, it is unlikely that a particular email stays around long enough since a single message is processed within milliseconds and does not write valid messages to disk. In the event a "suspicious" email is discovered, it will be directed to your private Message Center pending your review.

How do I get notified when email is quarantined as suspicious junk email?
A regular report is sent via email of newly quarantined email. However, you can log in to the Message Center at any time to monitor and review detained messages.

What if I want to receive junk email?
Click on the Junk Email link at the top of the Message Center, and click on OFF. Before you do this, you should try to set your Filter Sensitivity to Lenient to see if that amount of protection satisfies your needs.

How often is email deleted from the Message Center?
Email messages are kept in the Message Center for 14 days following the receipt of the message--this includes any messages that have been moved to your "Trash Folder". After 14 days from first receipt, any message will be deleted. Aeneas will send an email activity report on a regular basis to remind you to check your Message Center. You can also access the Message Center at any time.

What if I receive spam, what should I do with it?
If junk email reaches your desktop and appears in your email inbox, you can simply delete the message or forward it to spamfilter@aeneas.net. This allows us to use the email for future enhancements. You can also visit the Message Center and add the sender's address to your "Blocked Senders" list if it appears to be a repeat offender, preventing that sender from reaching the inbox again. It might also be useful to try increasing the sensitivity level in the configuration or turn on specific filter categories.

What if legitimate email is quarantined in the Message Center?
Unfortunately, some legitimate email may be erroneously directed to your Message Center. This is due to the subjective nature of email messages and what could possibly be considered junk email. If a significant amount of valid email is being misdirected to the Message Center, a list of approved senders can be built, thereby minimizing the possibility of detaining a valid email in the future.

From the Message Center, click "deliver" for any legitimate email and you will be asked if all messages from this sender should be delivered--that sender is then added to the "Approved Sender" list. Next time, messages from that sender will not be detained unless the Virus Assistant is active and detects a virus from that sender. You may also manually build your approved senders list by visiting your junk email settings.

Does the Junk Mail Assistant watch for obscene language and other questionable content?
The Junk Email Assistant is tuned for identifying unsolicited commercial email (UCE), otherwise known as spam or junk email. This is somewhat different than filtering specifically for content, like most email filtering. For example, a friend sends a joke containing obscenities. This originates from a known source, whereas a message of unknown origin containing obscenities that refers to a pornography site WOULD likely be directed to the Message Center. Of course, you have the ability to explicitly block any address--in case you want to restrict email from a known source.

Does the Junk Mail Assistant watch for email only written in English?
Yes, at this time English is the only language supported.

Virus Assistant

Virus scanning is simple - turn virus filtering ON or OFF. It is highly recommended that you leave virus scanning on - it does not impact your email performance and more importantly, McAfee's leading in-line virus protection service can protect you from malicious and potentially harmful viruses.

If a virus is detected, your message will be safely detained in the Message Center and you will be immediately notified via email. The virus infected message is safely viewable without fear of transmitting the virus to your operating system or installed software. You can then deliver it "as is" or delete it entirely.

We stay up-to-date with virus outbreaks by leveraging McAfee's AVERT (Anti-Virus Emergency Response Team) to update the virus patterns in real time. McAfee also provides desktop virus software for comprehensive protection software.

Disclaimer
The virus protection assistant is constantly kept up to date through McAfee's worldwide virus tracking centers. As malicious viruses break out and mutate, McAfee's AVERT (Anti-Virus Emergency Response Team) updates the virus recognition software with the latest virus definitions, allowing us to identify them and render them harmless. Although this service will protect you from virtually all incoming email-borne viruses, it is important to know that this service, and others like it, cannot guarantee that your system will never be infected. The best anti-virus solution is a layered approach that protects SMTP, HTTP, and desktop resources.

Virus Scan Assistant FAQ

Is Virus Assistant up-to-date on its virus definitions?
Yes. Virus Assistant updates virus definitions continuously. Not only will virus scanning of malicious email viruses prove extremely valuable to you, but it also saves valuable time by scanning messages behind the scenes. You are only notified when a virus is found in a message. Virus Assistant utilizes McAfee?s AVERT (Anti-Virus Emergency Response Team) to stay current with virus definitions. AVERT is a worldwide virus-monitoring network that continuously looks for new viruses and subtle changes in old ones so that virus definitions stay current.

Who is McAfee?
McAfee provides industry-leading protection against today's most dangerous viruses and tomorrow's threats. McAfee and Aeneas made this possible by inserting virus-scanning technology into your mail flow. This relieves you from maintaining individually installed virus detection and the hassle of maintaining current virus definitions.

How am I notified that virus-infected email has been detected?
You are notified immediately via email when an infected virus is detected in an email message. From the Message Center, you can safely review the infected email text.

Is McAfee desktop software available for my PC as well?
Yes, you can purchase desktop virus protection software from McAfee. Visit McAfee at www.mcafee.com for more info.

Log In Help

Can't remember your password?
Your password was issued to you when you created your Aeneas account. This is the same password that you use to logon to the Internet. If you continue to have problems please contact Aeneas at 1-800-470-7288.

Other Useful Tips...

Delete and Deliver Messages:
Once you log in to your Message Center to review suspicious messages, you should DELIVER legitimate email and DELETE the junk email. The filters will increase in accuracy by doing this.

Check Back Often:
Check your Message Center on a regular basis and delete junk email and deliver legitimate email. The service can be configured to remember your legitimate email senders, and will allow those senders to bypass filters.