2008 Woodie Awards
SPAM delivers headaches
Shannon Day
Issue date: 2/2/06 Section: News
- Page 1 of 1
SPAM in e-mail accounts is not a new or recent phenomenon, but some Central students face a myriad of SPAM messages in their Mulemail accounts.
Charles Terry, student, avoids using his Mulemail account as much as possible.
"There are several reasons why I try not to get into my e-mail account, but one is because of the SPAM," Terry said.
Terry readily admits he gives out his e-mail address to certain sites online.
F. Russell Helm, chief information officer, warned against openly giving out personal email accounts.
"There are two ways to protect your account against SPAM," Helm said. "One of the ways is if you are getting SPAM, do not reply to it. Lots of times students don't want the messages arriving in their accounts and reply to it asking to be taken off the list.
"That is the first mistake the student can make. Once you have replied to the SPAM, you have confirmed it is an address that you can be reached from, and you can expect more."
Helm said the second way to cut down on SPAM is to protect your account by only providing your email address when necessary.
Helm said periodically he receives complaints from students about SPAM in their accounts.
"It goes back to the issue of sending out your address, because more than not, most students aren't having these problems," Helm said.
"We're moving ahead to protect accounts by testing faculty and staff emails with a new program.
"The DSPAM is a program that we bought to run on a control basis to see if it is helping limit the SPAM in faculty and staff accounts. The trial has been running for a couple months, and we're monitoring the results."
The results of the test run will decide if the DSPAM program will be implemented for student accounts, but there are other issues.
"One problem is that the program will be costly," Helm said. "We're not sure exactly how many servers need to be purchased for the program to be transferred over to protect all the Mulemail accounts."
"Looking at what we think we need to make this work for students is between $25,000 and $50,000, but then where in the budget will that fall? One area we've ventured is increasing the student technology fees, but there are other routes to be explored as well."
Terry said he would like to have the improvements made to Mulemail, but nothing comes free.
"Would I like to have the new software? Sure. But if it is going to increase our fees - which I feel are too high already - then no. I will live with SPAM and any other problems I come across," Terry said.
Charles Terry, student, avoids using his Mulemail account as much as possible.
"There are several reasons why I try not to get into my e-mail account, but one is because of the SPAM," Terry said.
Terry readily admits he gives out his e-mail address to certain sites online.
F. Russell Helm, chief information officer, warned against openly giving out personal email accounts.
"There are two ways to protect your account against SPAM," Helm said. "One of the ways is if you are getting SPAM, do not reply to it. Lots of times students don't want the messages arriving in their accounts and reply to it asking to be taken off the list.
"That is the first mistake the student can make. Once you have replied to the SPAM, you have confirmed it is an address that you can be reached from, and you can expect more."
Helm said the second way to cut down on SPAM is to protect your account by only providing your email address when necessary.
Helm said periodically he receives complaints from students about SPAM in their accounts.
"It goes back to the issue of sending out your address, because more than not, most students aren't having these problems," Helm said.
"We're moving ahead to protect accounts by testing faculty and staff emails with a new program.
"The DSPAM is a program that we bought to run on a control basis to see if it is helping limit the SPAM in faculty and staff accounts. The trial has been running for a couple months, and we're monitoring the results."
The results of the test run will decide if the DSPAM program will be implemented for student accounts, but there are other issues.
"One problem is that the program will be costly," Helm said. "We're not sure exactly how many servers need to be purchased for the program to be transferred over to protect all the Mulemail accounts."
"Looking at what we think we need to make this work for students is between $25,000 and $50,000, but then where in the budget will that fall? One area we've ventured is increasing the student technology fees, but there are other routes to be explored as well."
Terry said he would like to have the improvements made to Mulemail, but nothing comes free.
"Would I like to have the new software? Sure. But if it is going to increase our fees - which I feel are too high already - then no. I will live with SPAM and any other problems I come across," Terry said.