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[The IS Director of Office Computing Practice tells of new ways for faculty to deal with unwanted e-mail.]
As a member of the MIT faculty, you have probably found yourself overwhelmed by the volume of unsolicited and unwanted "junk" e-mail. The previously simple task of sorting through one's messages and identifying particular items requiring some action, has become increasingly difficult and often times perhaps frustrating.
Until now, the options available for handling this e-mail nuisance have had limited effectiveness. You could try to identify the messages you do not want to receive by filtering on key phrases such as "lowest mortgage rates" or "toner cartridges." Or, perhaps attempt to identify the messages you do wish to receive by filtering on the sender. But, with a large and dynamic student body, a diverse community of colleagues, collaborators around the globe, and the unbounded nature of the problem, it is a difficult challenge.
Until now, the most common and practical solution has unfortunately been to simply evaluate each message and delete those that were not wanted. Information Systems has recently added features to the MIT mail system to provide an alternative for those members of the MIT community who receive their e-mail directly from the Institute's central mail servers to help manage the ever increasing volume of "spam."
SpamAssassin to Help Provide Relief
Information Systems recently announced the deployment of the open source spam identification software SpamAssassin (http://spamassassin.org) on the MIT central mail servers. SpamAssassin performs rule-based text analysis of the headers and bodies of e-mail messages, producing a cumulative numeric score indicating the likelihood that a message may be spam. The higher the numeric score associated with a message, the more likely it is considered spam. A series of additional headers are now added to each delivered e-mail message containing the results of SpamAssassin's analysis. You may have already noticed these additional headers, which have the form
Further information will be found at http://mit.edu/is/help/nospam.
How Do I Use SpamAssassin to Filter Spam?
There are several options available based on how you receive your electronic mail. MIT's mail servers provide two options for accessing stored e-mail: the Post Office Protocol (POP) or Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP). Should you access your e-mail via the POP method, the e-mail software on your computer can be configured to take advantage of the additional headers. This is done by setting up a filter that moves messages with the X-Spam-Flag header set to "YES" to a different mailbox.
IMAP clients allow you to configure your mailbox so that the server delivers all messages flagged as spam to a sub-folder of your Inbox. Additionally you may further configure your server settings so that e-mail in the sub-folder is purged automatically of messages older than fourteen days at regular intervals. Messages in the sub-folder count in your 250MB mail quota. Since spam accumulates quickly you need to either configure your mailbox to automatically purge the messages or manually do this frequently to ensure that delivery of your e-mail is not interrupted by your mailbox being full.
The challenge of identifying spam is constantly changing and difficult. "Spammers" are real people whose goal is for their message to reach your eyes. They continue to adapt and develop alternative methods in the hopes of defeating the numerous identification and filtering tools that are available. The solution Information Systems has implemented requires that we commit to change and adaptation as the methods spammers use change. Spam identification is not an exact science. Thus, some legitimate messages will be flagged as spam and some unwanted messages will not be flagged. Information Systems recommends that if you choose to filter spam, you review regularly all the messages scored as spam the first six to eight weeks to ensure that any legitimate e-mail is not mistakenly filtered as spam.
One of the most common types of messages mistakenly identified as spam are subscription newsletters such as airline special fares announcements and security announcements. To help better identify the legitimate messages you can customize your "Allow" list in your spam settings to not mark messages from a particular sender address as spam. You may also configure your spam scoring threshold, the score above which messages are flagged as spam, and any of your other personal spam settings.
The Contents are Untouched
Be assured that the contents of your e-mail are not being filtered, changed, or blocked. All mail sent to you at MIT will be delivered without modification as it always has been. Should you choose not to take advantage of these new features, the only change you will experience is the addition of the X-Spam headers to e-mail messages you receive. The decision is left to you, and you may elect to use these new features either by making a filter within your e-mail client or the creation of a specific IMAP mailbox. Please remember the IMAP solution requires you to periodically delete the messages within the mailbox, or configure your personal spam settings so it is purged automatically.
Further Information and Assistance
Information Systems Spam Screening Website is your best source for information on handling spam. Information is available pertaining to:
The Computing Help Desk is available to help implement the solution that is right for you. They can be reached via either phone at x3-1103 or e-mail at computing-help@mit.edu.
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