Spam and Anti-spam

Spam is unwanted junk e-mail, usually sent in bulk, that is deceptive, annoying and/or offensive. Fortunately, anti-spam measures are available at both the university level, to identify and filter spam before it lands in users' mailboxes, and at the user level, to eliminate the spam that gets through.

Here is what Ohio State is doing to filter spam and the options it provides so that individual users can eliminate even more junk mail.

• Ohio State runs a preliminary scan of e-mail on the central system to eradicate dangerous viruses, mail bombs, and some junk mail for osu.edu addresses.
• In addition to the preliminary scan, Ohio State also provides an anti-spam defense on the central e-mail system that members of the university community may adjust to their preferred filtering level.
• The central anti-spam defense with a simplified interface is automatically turned on for the following groups: undergraduate, graduate, and professional students and users of the Lifetime E-mail Forwarding Service (LEFS), which is offered by University Development and the Alumni Association.
• Faculty and staff may voluntarily activate the central anti-spam defense.
• The new, simplified interface enables users of the central anti-spam defense to adjust the level of e-mail filtering from the default setting of medium to either high or low filtering.
• All new users of anti-spam service see the simplified interface. Those who activated the anti-spam defense prior to the addition of this enhancement continue to see the original interface, but may opt for the simplified interface by resetting the Preferences in the anti-spam software.
• More information, including the importance of using anti-spam, making filtering adjustments, and adjusting preferences, is available in the 8help Knowledge Base article.
• New users of the anti-spam defense are encouraged to read the 8help Knowledge Base article before logging on to the service at antispam.osu.edu with their OSU Internet Username and password.

Spam Filtering

Those who want more spam filtering options can take these additional steps.

• Use the built-in junk mail filtering in your e-mail program. These options include discarding all mail not sent directly to your address and using formulas to assign a percentage rating to determine whether a message is spam.
• Use your e-mail program's filters (also known as rules) to perform some basic checks if it doesn't have automatic junk mail filtering. For example, you can set it up to move all mail not sent directly to your e-mail address into another folder. You can have it move e-mail from specific sender addresses, or messages with offensive words or phrases, directly into the trash or into a junk mail folder for sorting at a later time. The 8help Knowledge Base article on filtering provides instructions on setting up filters in common e-mail software.
• Use a third-party spam filtering add-in program with your regular e-mail program. Some work like plug-ins and coordinate with your e-mail program, while others run as separate programs to filter spam from your mailbox before accessing your messages normally. To learn more about these programs, search on spam filtering in the 8help knowledge base or search on the web.
• Be alert to the possibility of your e-mail address being harvested on the Internet. Whenever you're online, you run the risk of having your e-mail address "harvested" by opportunists who use specialized software to collect e-mail addresses, which they use for their own purposes or sell to other spammers. Your e-mail address may be picked up whenever you post to mailing lists, chat rooms, or newsgroups, add your e-mail address to a database directory, or register for products online.

• To avoid becoming part of spammer lists, observe the following:
  • Be careful how you post to mailing lists, chat rooms, or newsgroups. Posting (not subscribing) makes your address vulnerable and available for harvesting. If you don't mind possibly receiving spam mail, post anyway. But if you do mind, use personal e-mail to correspond directly with the person to whom you are responding. For chat rooms or newsgroups, you can also correspond directly with one of the frequent posters, or with the moderator, if there is one.
  • To obstruct automated harvesting tools, disguise e-mail addresses in plain text by replacing the characters with human-readable equivalents, e.g., showing “myname@domain.com” as “myname at domain dot com.”
  • Don't add your e-mail address to public databases and directories, such as electronic white pages, if you don't know how the information will be used.
  • Beware of sites that let you register to request not to get spam; some of them actually exist to collect e-mail addresses for spam purposes.
  • When you receive spam, never respond to spammers directly or reply to e-mail addresses listed in a spam e-mail, because you'll be giving them a valid address to add to their list.
  • Be careful in giving out your e-mail address when signing up for products or online services; frequently these services add you to their own mailing lists and sometimes they will pass on or sell collected e-mail addresses to spammers.
  • Avoid putting your e-mail address on public pages, or in member profiles for Internet services.

Reporting Spam

To report spam, you have to identify the originating site in the headers. You can usually assume that the "From" address in spam e-mail is fake; most spammers are good at disguising their return address and adding additional bogus addresses in the header to make it hard to figure out unless you're a system administrator. Your e-mail software should have a command to display full headers.

If you don't know how to show the full Internet headers in your e-mail program, refer to the 8help article on full headers to get instructions for your e-mail program and try to determine where the message actually came from.

Forward the entire message with the complete header information along with your complaint to the postmaster at the originating system. The address is in the form: postmaster@full-domain-name. Find more help about complaining to a spammer's provider on the spam.abuse.net site.

Refer to Ohio State's Policy on Responsible Use of University Computing Resources and the associated FAQ to better understand the university's position on spam.

OSU e-mail users are urged to contact OIT to help assess the appropriateness of any unsolicited bulk e-mail they want to send. To request assistance, send e-mail to 8help or call 688-HELP.