2008 Woodie Awards
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Spam blockers not often efficient
E-mails can be stranded in cyberspace
MELISSA WEINMAN For The Red & Black
Issue date: 2/21/07 Section: News
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The new spam blocker installed on UGAmail blocks e-mails promoting investment schemes and miracle drugs, but could be blocking urgent and legitimate e-mails.
Some UGAmail users have reported experiencing false positives with the blocker, installed in December. A false positive happens when spam-filtering programs block legitimate e-mails.
Amanda Wartner, a senior from Alpharetta, didn't get an important e-mail when corresponding with prospective medical schools.
"I got an interview at the University of Alabama-Birmingham Medical School. They said they would e-mail me with more information, such as detailed directions, a week before the interview," Wartner said. "When I still hadn't received anything the day before the interview, I called, and they said they had sent the e-mail four days ago."
Enterprise Information Technology Services is the group that provides technology support for the University and installed the spam blocker.
Managing UGAmail includes updating spam filtration, which according to Albert DeSimone, associate director of EITS, has become a huge problem - especially since 2006.
DeSimone recalled a Security Focus News article from October of 2006 that estimated a 450 percent increase in spam since February of that year.
The increase is due both to spam messages becoming more difficult to detect and also to an increase in the volume of spam.
Potential spam can go through three different detection processes before it ends up in a student's inbox or junk mail folder - Realtime Block Lists, MailHurdle and an heuristics-based tool.
Realtime Block Lists are constantly revised records of spammers.
MailHurdle is a more complicated spam-blocking program that examines Internet servers.
The program reduces the amount of spam that gets through to UGAmail because the servers of spammers often are configured differently than most others.
Though most servers will resend a message after being temporarily rejected from a program such as MailHurdle, spam servers aren't configured that way and will not resend the message, DeSimone said.
Some UGAmail users have reported experiencing false positives with the blocker, installed in December. A false positive happens when spam-filtering programs block legitimate e-mails.
Amanda Wartner, a senior from Alpharetta, didn't get an important e-mail when corresponding with prospective medical schools.
"I got an interview at the University of Alabama-Birmingham Medical School. They said they would e-mail me with more information, such as detailed directions, a week before the interview," Wartner said. "When I still hadn't received anything the day before the interview, I called, and they said they had sent the e-mail four days ago."
Enterprise Information Technology Services is the group that provides technology support for the University and installed the spam blocker.
Managing UGAmail includes updating spam filtration, which according to Albert DeSimone, associate director of EITS, has become a huge problem - especially since 2006.
DeSimone recalled a Security Focus News article from October of 2006 that estimated a 450 percent increase in spam since February of that year.
The increase is due both to spam messages becoming more difficult to detect and also to an increase in the volume of spam.
Potential spam can go through three different detection processes before it ends up in a student's inbox or junk mail folder - Realtime Block Lists, MailHurdle and an heuristics-based tool.
Realtime Block Lists are constantly revised records of spammers.
MailHurdle is a more complicated spam-blocking program that examines Internet servers.
The program reduces the amount of spam that gets through to UGAmail because the servers of spammers often are configured differently than most others.
Though most servers will resend a message after being temporarily rejected from a program such as MailHurdle, spam servers aren't configured that way and will not resend the message, DeSimone said.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
MC
posted 2/21/07 @ 10:52 AM EST
This is a worldwide problem, not just at UGa. Everybody has to run a spam blocker to survive, and everybody is losing some legitimate e-mail because of it. (Continued…)
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