Some Tips for Handling Unwanted Electronic Mail

Joanne Costello

If you use email on a regular basis, your electronic doorstep has 
probably been littered with junk email - in the form of advertisements, 
chain letters, or other unwanted messages. For many, junk email has 
become a daily occurrence, much like its paper equivalent.

Spams are the most common form of junk email. These bulk mailings are 
sent from a spamming site to many recipients. The spam may be an ad from 
a local deli or an online service: any offering that could benefit from 
wide exposure. This type of email is generally characterized by the 
lack of usual bulk-mail controls: removal from mailing lists, access to 
humans at the site of origin, and so on.
 
While such mail is annoying and not in line with the purpose of MITnet, 
there is little that IS staff can do to prevent companies from 
advertising in this manner. Most attempts to intervene have been in 
vain. Either the mail has been returned with a "no such user" message or 
an automated response indicates that the message has been received. The 
bottom line is that as long as companies get some positive responses to 
their spams, they can choose to ignore all the negative ones.

What Can You Do?
If you receive a spam, you have a few courses of action. Many Internet 
service providers (ISPs) have anti-spamming rules, so reporting to the 
ISP directly may help. Generally, you do this by sending email to 
<postmaster@ISP address>, where the ISP address is the part of the 
sender's email address after the "@" sign.
 
Some ISPs don't try to ban spamming, but do enforce guidelines for bulk 
mail which include such things as removing users from mailing lists at 
their request and having a responsible individual associated with 
each account. Again, sending mail may help.
  
Another thing you can do is set up filters in your email program so 
that it rejects any future mail from the offending party. For example, 
in Eudora you can use the Filters command under the Windows menu to 
automatically put all mail from a specific sender into Eudora's Trash 
mailbox. For specifics, see Eudora's online help or contact the 
Computing  Help Desk at x3-1104.
 
Of course, you can always just delete the unwanted message.

Bulk Email at MIT
It is against the MITnet Rules of Use to send bulk email. It is not 
appropriate to use email as a way to broadcast information directly to 
a large number of people (e.g., an entire MIT class). This is true 
whether you include the recipient usernames individually or use a 
mailing list.

These guidelines are not based on etiquette alone: the mail system does 
not have the capacity to process a very large number of email messages 
at once. When a user sends out an announcement to a huge list of 
recipients, the mail servers get overloaded, disks fill up, and staff 
intervention is required. The result is a degradation of service for all 
users. Chain mail is especially abusive of the system.

In matters of bulk-mailing it may be wise to follow the advice of the 
FidoNet bulletin board networks:

*       Thou shalt not annoy.

*       Thou shalt not be easily annoyed.

Harassing Mail
If you receive email that is of a more disturbing or harassing nature 
than a spam, there are steps you can take. First, let the sender know 
that you do not wish to receive any more mail from him or her.
 
If you continue to receive mail, MIT offers several avenues to address 
the problem. One of these is to send email to <stopit@mit.edu> with a 
clear explanation of the situation. This list is monitored frequently 
by a few senior administrators in IS and communication with the 
perpetrators is quick.
 
For a complete listing of resources, see Dealing with Harassment at MIT, 
which was sent recently to all faculty, staff, and students. You can 
access this document on the Web at

http://web.mit.edu/communications/hg

If you did not receive a paper copy and would like one, call Joan 
Farrell in the Personnel Office at x3-4286.