Anti-Spam Overview

Our institution has become victim to the onslaught of non-University related, unsolicited and sometimes offensive e-mail commonly called Spam. It is estimated that well over 50% of the approximately 200,000 e-mail messages received daily through our e-mail gateway are Spam.

Spam is detrimental to the efficient operation of the university in many ways. Its most costly impact is lost productivity. Users waste time separating Spam messages from University related messages. Valid University e-mail messages may get lost amongst the Spam messages. Users may be prevented from receiving valid work messages because their mail quota are exceeded by the storage of Spam. Network analysts and campus ITCs must spend time monitoring e-mail gateways and servers, processing bounced messages, and answering questions regarding Spam.

The Baseline Access Training and Support (BATS) committee approved the concept of establishing an anti-Spam workgroup to develop a recommendation to combat Spam. The anti-Spam workgroup:

• reviewed the problem
• recommended a campus standard solution
• developed an anti Spam support Web site
• created FAQ's

The workgroup is comprised of 6 team members: Meri McGraw, Foundation; Jim Hayes, Library; Ryan Arndt, Natural Sciences and Mathematics; Jeff Bingel, College of Business Administration; John Sandhoff, University Computing and Communications Services; and Scott McGown, University Computing and Communications Services, Chair.

University Computing and Communication Services is charged with the implementation of the anti-Spam recommendation.

Last Updated: February 21, 2006