`SPAM (Junk Email)`

``Junk'' email -- also called spam, usually understood to mean unsolicited, automated messages -- are a growing scourge with no perfect solution in sight. Currently the best defense may be a ``Bayesian filter'' as described by Paul Graham in A Plan for Spam, which detects spam on the basis of its contents. (See information about spamprobe and spamtrack, below.) Since email is now an official method of communication on this campus, so we must cope with spam!

The Big Picture

There are places to get information and take action as ``internet citizens'':

ITS email

The main campus mail servers -- webmail, buffmail, ucsub, ucsu, rtt -- filter incoming email with ``SpamAssassin''. Suspected spam has the words "POTENTIAL SPAM:" inserted into the Subject line.

At the APPM level

If your mailhome is on the APPM system -- that is, if your mailhome is the APPM mail server babbage -- you can use spamtrack to filter your incoming email. Spamtrack utilizes the Bayesian analysis engine ``spamprobe'' on the Newton Lab Sun workstations which can be used to build a database of word/phrase frequencies of spam vs nonspam, and score a given file/email using the database and a Bayesian algorithm. Suspected spam is tagged the same way as SpamAssassin does, with "POTENTIAL SPAM:" inserted into the Subject line. Optionally, it can also be routed directly to a "spambox" file of your choosing. Do not use spamtrack without reading the documentation first.

General Precautions

If possible, stay off a spammer's list, because it's hard to get off the list once you're on!
Don't bother threatening the spammer, even if you're angry. They don't care, and usually they don't get return messages.
Spammers often seem to give a method for removing your address from their list, but this is usually bogus. However, legitimate companies who do care how you feel about email also offer a method by which you can stop getting their email. You have to use your best judgement; if the email has been sent by a legitimate company that you know -- especially one you have communicated with in the past -- then it might be better to try their proffered method than to slap them into our spam filter.