Dealing with {*** Spam ## }

Helping You Deal with Spam Mail, continued and expanded

Spam to Trash

Beginning Monday, May 1, 2006, spam email that has a score of 20 or higher is automatically moved to the Trash. Mail stays in the Trash for 7 days, after which it is permanently deleted. If you want to see the mail CSS marked as spam, look for mail with a subject line that begins {*** SPAM ##.#}. If you find spam mail in the Trash that is not spam (a false positive), please forward that message with its headers to the postmaster.

If mail is sent to your UI alias (first-last@uiowa.edu), ITS may also mark it as spam; their notation is to add to the subject line [spam ####]. False positives that ITS marks should be reported to the ITS Help Desk, 4-4357.

SpamAssassin

CSS has two features that may simplify dealing with spam, unsolicited email, you receive. CSS uses SpamAssassin, a mail filter to identify spam. SpamAssassin uses rules that look at mail headers and body text and assigns a score to the message. Messages that score over 6 are tagged {*** SPAM ## } in the subject line, where the "##" is the score SpamAssassin assigned to the message. (The higher the score, the more likely the message is spam.) CSS continues to adjust the rules so that SpamAssassin does an increasingly better job of identifying spam mail. In December 2003, CSS changed the spam header to enclose the spam notation with "{ }" and include the number score of the message; you will now see SpamAssassin-tagged email with a subject line such as: {*** SPAM 17.5 }Best Prices Here.

Messages with the {*** SPAM ## } tag are delivered with all other mail to your inbox. You have to decide whether or not to open such messages. If you find messages that have been incorrectly identified as spam, please send the message with all the headers visible to the postmaster.

Spam Mailbox

Using your preferred mail client, create a folder on the mail server named Spam [must be capital “S” and lower case “pam”]. Mail that SpamAssassin identifies as spam is automatically put in the Spam folder. All such mail has a subject line that starts with {*** SPAM ## }. You can open the Spam folder and read or discard all mail put there. Like the Trash and the Virus_Quarantine folder, mail left in the Spam folder will be deleted after 7 days. If you find a message that has been incorrectly identified as spam (shows {*** SPAM ## } in the header), please send it with all the headers visible to postmaster@engineering.uiowa.edu

If you need help sending mail with the headers on or have questions about our spam filter, please talk to the consultants, 319-335-5055, 1253 SC.

Making a Spam-Status Filter

With Webmail and Thunderbird you can create a filter that will put messages with a high spam rating into the Trash or other folder you identify. With either of those programs, create a filter that moves mail with X-Spam-Status equals HIGH to the Trash or other folder.

Blacklisting

Although Webmail does include a blacklist function, do not count on it to keep spam out of your inbox. You can blacklist email that is spam, but spammers rarely use the same From: address repeatedly. (from Webmail Help: The blacklist is a list of email addresses known to send email that you do not wish to see in your INBOX.)

Want All Mail?

If you want to receive all mail sent to your address regardless of its spam rating or origin, please send email stating that request to the postmaster .

Is this {*** SPAM ## } or [spam?###]

If mail is sent to your UI alias (first-last@uiowa.edu), ITS may also mark it as spam; their notation is to add [spam ####] to the subject line. If you receive mail that has [spam?##] in the header, it is ITS that has identified that message as spam.

False positives that ITS marks should be reported to the ITS Help Desk, 4-4357.

You may receive mail that both the ITS and the Engineering mail systems have marked as spam; the subject line will show {*** SPAM ## }[spam?###] and then the message subject.

Do you get mail at an ITS account (Webmail.uiowa.edu, blue, Outlook/Exchange)? Read about the ITS anti-spam service.

updated: 18 August 2008