SPAM (Unsolicited Commercial Email)

As you will all be aware SPAM email messages are a continuing problem for all email users. The University is currently investigating methods of filtering out these messages before they reach your inbox so you don't have to deal with them. This is quite a complicated process and it will be a while yet before it is production. A status update should be presented to the IT Forum on Monday which I'll pass on.

In the meantime there are a few things you can do to cut down on the number of unwanted messages you receive. This will be dealt with in two parts: 1) keeping off SPAM lists so you don't receive as much SPAM and 2) filtering the unwanted messages you do receive.

1) Keeping off SPAM list.

Direct email marketers (SPAMMERS) have lists of email addresses that they have acquired from various sources (web pages, customer details sold to them by companies, legitimate email lists with public memberships just to name a few). They know the addresses they acquire may not be valid (accounts closed, etc) so they are quite interested in knowing which ones correspond to active email accounts and they use a variety of methods to try and determine this.

• unsubscribe option - The SPAM message may contain a link which offers to remove you from the mailing list. Do NOT use this as all it will do is let them know your email address is real and that someone has read the message they sent. Similarly do not reply to SPAM messages asking to be removed (or telling them what you think of them or their product) as this can also confirm your existence (though is normally futile, see below).
  
  
• images and links in the message - Sometimes a more subtle method is used. Many SPAM messages are in HTML (web page) format and can contain images. These images may not be sent with the message but are instead downloaded from a web server when the email message is displayed. It is possible for this to have been configured is such a way that the request that the web server receives to send an image to be displayed in the email message contains a reference to your email address. This means that the simple act of reading an HTML message is letting the SPAMMERS know that your email address is active and you are reading their messages. This can also hold true when clicking on web links in an email message.
  
  If you suspect that a message might be SPAM do not open it if you are using webmail (Mirapoint) as it will automatically download any images referenced by the email. If a message is SPAM do not click on any web links it contains.
  
  
• vacation messages (automatic replies) - Most SPAM emails contain a fictitious FROM address. This is done so they can't be flooded with angry responses and to hide where they are coming from. For those that do send from a real account they can use any responses they do receive as recipient address verification. This leads to a dilemma with vacation messages. If you set a vacation message it will automatically respond to every bit of SPAM sent to you. Most of those will bounce (adding non-delivery messages to your inbox) but those that don't will confirm your address to the SPAMMERS. Of course if you don't set a vacation message then people who send you legitimate email will not know that you wont be around to respond to them.
  

2) Filtering the unwanted messages you receive.

The SPAM solution that ITS is developing will be a server side one. That is the email server will do the work and the messages won't get to your inbox. Until that happens you can do client side filtering which is where your email client uses criteria you setup to filter messages. The specifics on how this is done varies from client to client and our faculty uses three: OS X Mail, Entourage and Eudora.

OS X Mail

The easiest of the lot. It has a quit reasonable Junk mail (SPAM) filtering built in.

Mail -> Preferences -> Junk Mail -> Enable Junk Mail filtering.

It has two modes of operation Training & Automatic.

In Training mode, when you get a message that is SPAM you can click on the Junk button in the mail window to let the program know that it is SPAM. Similarly if the program has tagged a message as Junk when its not you can click on the Not Junk button to tell it so. Over time the program builds up information on what is and isn't junk based on your actions. Mail tagged as Junk is colour coded for easy identification. When you are happy with the accuracy of the tagging of Junk mail you can move to Automatic mode.

In Automatic mode the messages that are tagged as Junk are moved into a Junk mail folder automatically thus reducing clutter in your inbox. You can view these messages at your leisure to insure that they are indeed Junk. If you find that the accuracy of tagging of Junk mail is decreasing you can put the program back into training mode so that it can update its identification criteria based on your use of the Junk/Not Junk buttons.

Entourage

Move to OS X Mail.

Eudora

Move to OS X Mail.

Virus notifications

currently the main method of virus propagation is via an infected computer automatically sending out infected emails to everyone in the address book. The Uni's email virus filter detects these messages, removes the virus and places an attachment on the email (MailMonitor_report.txt) describing what has been done. While not SPAM these messages help to clog your inbox so if you want to you can filter them to another mailbox for review at your leisure. These messages should not be deleted out of hand as it is possible that it is a real message that someone intended to send you, unaware that the attachment was infected. This is best handled in Mirapoint and so doen't depend on which email client you are using.

• open your web browser and go to mirapoint.uow.edu.au
• login with your email name and password
• click on the Options link
• click on the Message Filters link
• go to the Add New Filter box and check the top radio button
• set pop-up menu to 'If all of these conditions are met
• set first criteria pop-up menu to 'attachment file name:'
• set next pop-up menu on the same line to 'matches'
• enter MailMonitor_report.txt into the text box
• go to the Filter Actions box and select the Move to radio button
• from the pop-up menu select your junk mail folder.
• click on the OK button.
• log out of webmail

The filter is now in place and any message with the MailMonitor_report.txt attachment will be moved to the folder you specified.

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Matthew Fifield
Network and Technical Support
Faculty of Education Ph: +61-2-4221-5360