Spam Detection System Enabled

CNS NEWS: N0406

April 28, 2004

The CNS Open Systems Group has enabled a SPAM detection system for every e-mail sent to ufl.edu addresses. This system works by calculating the probability of an e-mail being spam. E-mails are given scores based on a set of rules. Each rule that matches a message adds or subtracts to the cumulative score given to that message.

Because each person's opinion on what is a desired e-mail varies, the spam scoring system doesn't do anything beyond calculating the score and reporting that score to you. It is up to you to decide what action, if any, should be taken based on that score.

If your mail program has a customizable mail filtering option, you can use it to read the score and sort your mail according to your wishes. While GatorLink WebMail does not currently have this feature, a new version of webmail that includes a spam filter option is in test and should be announced very soon. You can preview the new version from a link at webmail.ufl.edu .

The spam score will be located in a line in the header area of your incoming messages. It will be called X-Spam-Level and will look like

X-Spam-Level: ****

where each additional star increases the likelihood that the message is spam.

While you can set a filter to automatically delete mail that you think is spam, you should use caution. If you start automatically deleting messages, some messages will probably be deleted before the next CNS e-mail backup window. There is nothing we can do to recover a lost message that was deleted in this manner.

You can read more about our spam detection system and about establishing mail filter rules at http://www.cns.ufl.edu/spam .

If you have any questions about using e-mail filters, or about controlling spam in your mailbox, please contact the UF Computing Help Desk at 352-392-HELP (2-4357). Their consultants will be happy to assist you.

News articles, CNS documents, and related information can be accessed on-line through DOCWEB, CNS's WWW-based documentation system, at http://docweb.cns.ufl.edu .

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