What can I do about "junk mail" or SPAM?
You have probably seen an increase in the amount of "junk
mail" which shows up in your email box, or on your favorite
newsgroups. The activities of a small number of people are becoming
a bigger problem for the Internet. Sending unsolicited email is
not allowed on NCSU's network. The computer use policy states:
III. Personal Use
I. The use does not involve sending or soliciting chain letters,
nor does it involve sending unsolicited bulk mail messages (e.g.,
“junk mail,” or “spam,” or “MLM.”)
IV. Use of Computing Facilities for Commercial, Advertising,
and Broadcast Purposes
D. University computer account holders may not "broadcast" email
messages without prior approval from a University official with
the rank of chancellor, provost, vice chancellor for finance and
business, or their designees. "Broadcast" means transmission of
a message to a significant number of computer accounts on a University
server or servers; the intent is to prevent mass mailings from
tying up employee time and computer resources.
How can I reduce the amount of Spam I get?
In order to reduce the amount of junk mail you get, try following
these tips:
- Never Respond to SPAM
Most spammer include an "unsubscribe" address to allow
you to be taken off their list. In reality, this is just a ploy
to check whether the email address that is being spammed is a
live one or not. If you respond, they will sell your address to
every spammer out there, hence increasing the amount of spam you
get.
- Don't post your email address on your web site
While having your email address on your web site is a great idea,
most spammers employ "bots" to harvest email addresses
from web pages. These "bots" are software programs that
search web pages for text strings in the form of something@something.something.
When an address is found it adds it to its database of email addresses.
- Have a "Public" email address
Get yourself a free "web-based" email account from a
provider such as Hotmail
or Yahoo. Use this email
address when subscribing to any web sites etc. This will allow
you to keep your "private" account such as your Unity
account free of unwanted mail. Also use this address for posting
to newsgroups. Another trick used when posting to newsgroups is
to add a modifier to the address to fool "bots". A message
can be added to the body asking people to remove this from the
address before replying to you. For example joe@isp.com will change
to joe@_removethis_isp.com. You can also substitute full words for
the symbols in your email address like joe_at_isp_dot_com.
- What does NC State provide to help you manage spam?
- Manages "block" lists for the campus mail relays to stop viruses, mail loops, bad hosts and spam directed at our entire user installation.
- Periodically scans the network for machines accepting mail and performs third party (open) relay checks.
- NC State offers PureMessage, a mail filtering agent that attempts to identify spam using text analysis and Internet-based blacklists. To learn more about PureMessage and how to construct your own email filters, see: http://www.ncsu.edu/it/essentials/email_messaging/pure_message/index.html.
What is Spam? - from NC State's Computing Essentials site
Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial email
Fight Spam on the Internet
CIAC Internet hoaxes
The Anti-Spam Homepage
The Spamhaus Project
Spam Cop
Information in part provided by The
Spam Recylcling Center.
|
