Frequently Asked Questions about Spam
How can I get my correspondents "whitelisted"?
If you can identify a sender’s email address that you believe you are
not receiving mail from, we can look through the logs and see whether they're
suitable for inclusion on the 'whitelist'.
Send email to postmaster@ucsd.edu indicating the sender’s email address
and an approximate date and time the message was attempted. If they received
an error message, it would be helpful for that to be sent to us with the full
headers displayed to aid in the search.
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Can I change my e-mail address?
In practice, we've found that, because of the aforementioned
techniques, changing your e-mail address gives you about a two-week
respite from spam. If you combine changing your address with
removing your address from the online Blink e-mail directory,
have very few correspondents, are on no mailing lists, do not sign up
for any Web sites or post to any bulletin boards, and have a
generally low level of e-mail, this tactic may have a better effect,
but it is no panacea. Because doing this costs real staff time
and can lead to confusion among your business correspondents,
we recommend you try other methods to curtail spam before making
this request of postmaster@ucsd.edu. Be ready to document your spam
level and what approaches you've already tried before making such a
request.
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Why aren't your spam filters aren't catching my spam?
We use a commercial spam detection package called SpamAssassin.
SpamAssassin releases updates to its filter tunings as it discovers
new ways to automatically determine that a piece of e-mail is spam.
Though human eyes can (usually) quickly tell when a message is
spam in nature, it's more difficult for machines, and spammers
continue to develop ingenious ways to outwit them.
It turns out that spam filters that you tune yourself -- for example,
Bayesian filters, such as the ones provided in Thunderbird or OS X Mail for you
to use, marking your incoming mail as "junk" and "not junk" --
provide some improvement, but they are most effective when used on
an individual level, since what is spam for you may be solicited
information from a particular company for someone else. You may
wish to try one of these types of filters.
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Can you block all mail from some source?
In most cases where spam appears to originate from a particular site
or address, that site/address is faked -- that is, the mail really
comes from somewhere else. This is analagous to writing a fake
return address on a piece of paper mail -- the postal service won't
notice it as long as the delivery address is correct, and even if
they do notice it, they can't figure out who you really are.
However, there are some clues in the (often-hidden) headers of the
spam, just like there are some clues in the postmark of a paper-mail
letter. Perhaps you've read these headers, and noticed that your
spam (whatever the return address) seems to frequently come from a
single originating mail relay. Can't we just block that relay?
We can where the purpose of this relay is only or primarily to
transmit spam; for example, optingnow.com and optprofessionals.com
have been blocked, as they primarily produce unsolicited
commercial e-mail. Where the relay is simply an "open relay"
(doesn't restrict its own use, which can make it a target for
spammers) in the world, blocking such a relay prevents important
mail from reaching researchers and business folks on campus and
hence is generally not acceptable. Using a 'blacklist' to block
mail from certain sites known to forward spam has the same effect;
it prevents legitimate, critical mail from reaching campus users.
Thus far, these solutions have not proved to be workable for the
campus
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I am receiving abusive e-mail. What can I do about it?
If the mail comes from a UCSD user and is in violation of the
Electronic Communications Policy,
the UCSD Email Policy, or the
ACS Acceptable Use Policy, you may start by
reporting the abuse to abuse@ucsd.edu. You will
need to include a copy of the abusive email, including all headers.
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This email has physical threats in it. What can I do about it?
You may still wish to contact abuse@ucsd.edu.
If you are concerned about physical safety of you, your loved ones
or possessions, it is advised that you contact the campus police.
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How do I display the full headers of my email message?
You can find instructions for doing so under
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