IT Central Support & Services

Spam at The University of Montana

What is spam?

Unsolicited e-mail is often referred to as spam. Generally, most spam is commercial junk advertising. However, unwanted religious, racial, political, or even research-oriented messages are also considered acts of spamming. It is not only an annoyance but also a waste of valuable time and computer resources. Businesses and universities use various methods to cope with and reduce the amount of spam that is delivered to individual mailboxes.

How is UM addressing the problem?

At UM, we have taken anti-spam and virus protection measures to protect our e-mail system. These measures help filter out incoming messages that may be spam or virus related. In addition, if we suspect that a message may be spam (using a scoring system), the subject line of the header is tagged with a [spam] warning message before being forwarded on. If a message ranks above a certain threshold, the message is completely eliminated. The following statistics represent the effectiveness of the University's anti-spam and virus protection measures. Note that these statistics are daily percentages of how incoming spam messages are processed.

Why does spam continue to increase?

There are several reasons why spam continues to increase:

• Spammers are becoming more sophisticated in their techniques.
• The financial success of spamming and development of software to make it easier to gather addresses and send mass mailings have attracted more people to the activity.
• CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) legislation has legitimized spam by providing spammers with a set of rules for engaging in the activity.

What can users do?

A user's best response to increased spam continues to be the delete key, patience, and careful sharing of their e-mail address to keep it off spammers lists. There are several levels of response, depending on how much time a user wants to spend and how important they believe the issue is:

• Delete the unwanted messages;
• Many e-mail software programs include junk e-mail filters that allow users to set-up rules for catching and filtering suspected spam to a special junk e-mail folder;
• Take steps to prevent subscription to mailing lists that circulate spam;
• Have separate e-mail accounts for friends and work;
• Never respond to it;
• Be aware of how spammers obtain e-mail addresses:
• Posting an e-mail address on a website or in a usenet news group;
• Sending someone an electronic greeting card;
• Participating in online shopping. (Some companies sell or share their e-mail lists.)
• Never respond to spammer messages claiming your removal from their mailing list. (Sending a reply confirms that they have a correct e-mail address);
• Try to eliminate spam at the source by filing a complaint with the appropriate organization.
• University of Montana Outlook and Outlook Web Access (OWA) users may view the following web documents for steps on how to filter email:

  Email Filtering in MS Outlook

  Email Filtering in Outlook Web Access (OWA)

For additional information, please contact your departmental IT administrator, or IT Central located at Social Science 120 or via phone at 243-HELP (x4357).