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Totter © 2004
Totter is a utility for summarizing/searching a Mailwasher Trash file
MailWasher is a product of Firetrust, a commercial package that offers multiple strategies for the effective control of SPAM.


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Totter




*

Search
your
trash
with
Totter

*

Find
out
which
addresses
your
deleted
emails
were
sent
to

*

This program "tots" a MailWasher Trash file.

Totter is an option within BLScanPlus.

This page documents the Totter utility and it makes no difference whether you're using the Classic or Pro version of BLScanPlus unless otherwise specified.
                                 
Having deleted emails using Mailwasher, they are placed into a file called Trash.ROT135 in the Mailwasher application folder. This file is scrambled and is not readable. This has two problems;
  • There is often that little nagging doubt that emails may have been deleted that should not have been.
  • It is also interesting to know which address deleted emails were actually sent to.
Totter addresses both problems and sifts through the trash (this is known as "totting" in the UK, note also that a person that dumpster dives or "tots" is a "totter"). By using Totter, you can  check your trash and make sure that no emails from Uncle Joe or Acme Industries for instance did not get deleted by accident. You can also see which of your email addresses is taking the most hits.    




Totter


Inputs;
Totter requires the Trash.ROT135 file as the input file. It is recommended that this is copied into the BLScanPlus folder, but the full path to the Mailwasher folder can also be given. Totter can always read from your Mailwasher folder so that you never have to move any files about (using the Settings menu).
  • The user can optionally specify a list of email addresses, Totter will then determine (and list) the emails in the Trash that were sent to each email address supplied.
  • The user can optionally specify a list of search strings. Totter will step through the body of all of the emails in the Trash file and show matching lines for these strings. Note that search strings can contain punctuation and/or some leading/trailing spaces which will be included as part of the search string.
Addresses and/or search strings can be treated as case sensitive, i.e. Totter offers the option to match the case of the addresses and/or strings during the search.

When Totter has been run, you can see how much of your trash was sent to each one of your email addresses. You can also see whether any of your search terms were found. As a suggestion, I recommend searching for your first name, part of your address, your phone number etc. to see if anything in the trash might be worth restoring. If you're waiting to hear back from someone about something, maybe adding some search strings related to that issue would be a good idea.

The email addresses and search strings supplied will be stored for use next time around.

For the "Classic" version, these are stored in a file called TotterData.txt which resides in the program folder. If you choose not to use previously stored data, Totter will create a backup copy of your previous TotterData file in the BLScanBackup folder (called TotterData_*.txt, where * is a timestamp). The address and string data stored can be edited or discarded at any time.

For the "Pro" version, the addresses and strings are held in two different files which can be stored anywhere. The address and string data stored can be edited or discarded at any time.

Outputs;

Totter produces five output files;




CSV
Totted_*.csv Excel (csv format) file listing only the search strings that were found.




CSV
Totter_*.csv Excel (csv format) file listing the email headers within the file that match one or more of the email addresses supplied. This also lists the email headers within the file together with the lines that match one or more of the search strings supplied. The results are also summarised.




Text
Totted_*.txt A plain text version of the Totted output file.





Text
Totter_*.txt A plain text version of the Totter output file.






CSV
IpAddr_*.csv Excel (csv format) file listing the most likely originating IP address for each message. These IP addresses cannot be relied upon (due to spoofing techniques) but could be used to create filters that tag likely spam.





(where * is an optional timestamp).

Notes;
  • The location of your current Trash file can be found at the bottom of the MailWasher "Help About" dialog box.
  • Totter does not require the input file to be called any particular name, the input files will not be modified, replaced or deleted by Totter.
  • Assuming you have enabled the Recycle Bin option in Mailwasher, you can restore emails from the trash. So if you see something in the Totter results for which you need to take a closer, you can restore the relevant email. You can also decode the entire trash file using UnRotter.



Totter Current Version & Futures
 Totter
is
included
with
BLScanPlus

The version history is given below;
  • 1.0
    • First release
  • 1.1
    • Added csv output file

  • Integrated into both BLScanPlus Classic 2.0 and BLScanPlus Pro 3.0

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