Options for dealing with Spam
Table of Contents
Introduction
A “spam” e-mail is generally defined as an unsolicited commercial mailing, usually to many people. Also, it's generally from someone you don't know or do business with, at least not that you can identify. Although there is no one set way to completely get rid of spam, we can take steps to reduce it. Spammers will often send out e-mails to random destinations, not even knowing if the e-mails are valid. Whatever you do, do NOT reply to a spam e-mail. This only lets the spammer know he's hit a valid e-mail address (yours) and you will just get more spam. Also, do NOT sign up at one of those sites that offer to “remove” you from spam lists. Again, all this does is let spammers know of a valid e-mail address.
CWU does subscribe to a spam-blocking service and we are working on alternate ways of dealing with spam (see Special Notes section below). From the graph below we can see that spam is on the rise but our filtering system blocks out a large percentage of it.
External mail (in blue above) is email that originated offsite and was destined for an @cwu.edu account.
Internal mail (in maroon above) is email that originated onsite, left CWU, and returned to an @cwu.edu account.
Rejected mail (in yellow above) is email that was rejected and “tossed” at this early stage, for a variety of reasons:
- Source was a known Spam-House and on an email blacklist.
- Legally rejected due to court-order or other situation.
- External user attempting to “emulate” as a CWU user/account.
All Accepted mail then goes through a virus and spam screening process. Thanks to the virus scanning at the server and end-user level, there were NO virus infections in FY06. For spam screening, CWU uses a program called PreciseMail that tests each message for things like the following (from an actual spam message):
- Subject is just “Hi”, which is spam-common
- Body HTML has useless font tags
- Asks you to visit their site
- Message appears to try to sell you software
- Message tries to sell you software
Each of these has a point level and at the end the points are added up for the total spam score. The following graph illustrates the spam filtering process.
Blocked Spam: Email appears to be spam, and scores >22.5 on the PreciseMail Spam Filter. Hold for 2 weeks and discard!
Passed Spam: Email may be spam, and scores >3.5 but <22.5 on the PreciseMail Spam Filter. Flag as <SPAM> and deliver to user.
Non-Spam: Email does not appear to be spam as it scores >3.5 on the Spam Filter. Allow delivery to user with no restrictions or flags.
Blocked by Rule: Example (If sender name = “Long John Silver”, block) REJECT!
Allowed by Rule: Example (If from “domain=ewu.edu”, allow to pass) ACCEPT!
Items blocked by Rules are done so at the end-user level. To set one up on your account, see the Rules tool below.
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End-User Spam Tools
Junk Mail Handling - GroupWise 6.5 and 7 on the PC and GroupWise 7 on the Mac have a tool called “Junk Mail Handling” that you can use to filter out some of your spam. For more information on using this tool, check out: http://www.cwu.edu/~itstraining/TechTips/JunkMail.html.
Filtering [SPAM] email - Before email gets to your inbox, it goes through a series of "tests" (see above) to see if it can be considered spam. If it is considered to be spam, it gets labeled with [SPAM] in the subject line and gets sent on to you to decide if it is indeed spam or a legitimate e-mail like a subscription service that you belong to. You can put a rule on your account to send all of these [SPAM] items to your trash or even to another folder (like Junk Mail) for you to look through later on.
Don't forget the easiest tool to use for getting rid of spam - the delete key! If you have more than one, press the Shift key and click to select a block of adjacent e-mails or press the Ctrl key and click for nonadjacent e-mails then just move them to the Trash.
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Special Notes
While it is possible to set up your account with both Junk Mail Handling and a Rule, it is not necessary and can become confusing. For one thing, the Rule will take precedence so even if you get an e-mail from someone and add them to your Trust list, if that message has been marked [SPAM] and you also have the rule, that message will still go to the Trash (or wherever you specified when setting up the Rule).
The Delete key can be used in conjunction with either tool.
As we mentioned above, it's not a good idea to respond to spam e-mails as that only lets the spammer know he/she has a valid address and will then send you more spam. If you are going on vacation and plan on putting a vacation rule on your account that will automatically reply to incoming messages saying that you are away, you'll want to make sure you aren't having that message go out to spammers. Instructions for setting up a vacation rule with that modification are here:
http://www.cwu.edu/~itstraining/GWHelpPages/gwrulespc.html#SampleAutoReply
Although the instructions are written for PC users, the process is the same for Mac users. You cannot make this modification using GroupWise on the web.
SPAM is becoming an increasing problem. In March of 2007, there were just over 4 million e-mails received at Central with about 2.8 million automatically discarded as known spam. In March of 2008 there was just under 29 million e-mails received with over 24 million being rejected. That is an increase of 867%!
Your ITS department has been researching ways to combat the spam problem. We will soon be implementing a new process that will allow the end-user more control over how to deal with spam. For a demo on this new process, please see http://www.process.com/precisemail/demo/pmas_uidemo.html
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Page last updated 05/06/08. Send questions or comments to ITS Training.
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