If you
are like most of us, at some point you will receive unwanted
and unsolicited e-mail (spam). Unfortunately, spam is currently
one of the biggest electronic epidemics being dealt with by both
the computer industry and government.
Dealing with
spam requires a certain amount of both prevention and cure.
Tips to help
reduce and prevent spam:
- If you
receive spam e-mail, do not reply to it. Not even if they
give a link for you to request them to stop. It just confirms
there is a warm body at your address which can lead to
more spam.
- If you
use newsgroups or write webpages, you might either want
to consider not placing your e-mail address on there or
using one specially designated for that. The problem with
having your e-mail address available on the web is that
it can be discovered by "webcrawlers". (A webcrawler is
a program spammers use to "crawl" through the web looking
for e-mail addresses to send spam to). Using a specially
designated address reduces the risk that your "good" e-mail
account will receive spam.
- When
you give out your e-mail address on a website or order
form, be sure to read the privacy policy to find out what
they will do with that information. Often times, companies
will sell your e-mail address much like telemarketers sell
your phone number.
Tips to clean spam out of your inbox:
- Currently,
both Ag and ITS use spam filters on their e-mail systems.
These systems won't remove the spam ( to be sure they don't
accidently remove a message that may be important to you!),
but they will mark it with "{Spam?}". While not
foolproof, this can help you identify and remove spam messages
easier.
Just a word of caution, be sure to check that it didn't
come from someone you know, sometimes spam filters can
accidently label "good" mail as spam.
- If you
are comfortable with how well the spam filter is doing,
you can create filters in Pegasus mail to automatically
remove any e-mail labeled as spam.
Click here
for instructions on creating a spam filter
or
Click
here for a .pdf file with instructions & images
Why the spam filter doesn't catch everything:
While we work hard to make sure the spam filter will adequately
protect you, we also have to strike a balance between the amount
of protection and risk to legitimate e-mail. As we increase
the strength of the filters, we also increase the possibility
of filtering out legitimate mail. When faced with that choice
we feel it is better to have a few spam messages come through
rather than have someone miss an important e-mail.
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