HELPDESKSpam -Frequently asked Questions
What is spam?
Email is a key tool for communication with colleagues both within the University and worldwide. However, the usefulness of email is being undermined by the large volume of unsolicited junk Email messages we receive known as spam.
An email received may be defined as spam if:
- you did not ask for it, and
- it is sent to a large number of people.
Why do I receive spam ?
There are a number of reasons, that include:
- you belong to an internet mailing list
- your address is visible on a web page somewhere
- your address has been guessed by senders trying every combination of names in a dictionary
There are many other possible reasons and whilst the following sections describe what you can do to reduce the spam you receive and what IT Services are doing to help you, it is near impossible to eliminate spam completely...
What can I do about the amount of spam I receive?
Do not reply to spam emails, even if they offer a chance to have your name removed. This is just a trick to validate your email address and will likely result in your receiving even more such junk in future. This also applies to clicking on an "unsubscribe" web link, which may be personalised and therefore can have the same effect. We recommend you simply delete spam email.
What are IT services doing to reduce spam?
For some years, IT Services has been rejecting spam emails by means of internet-wide "blacklists", which catalogue known spam sources and also insecure computers that have been hijacked for the purposes of laundering spam. As of August 2003, these measures are rejecting around 150,000 spam messages per week coming into gla.ac.uk. Unfortunately, the number of spam sources is now so large it is impossible to catalogue them all. Therefore, in order to make further inroads into the spam problem IT Services introduced a Spam filter service based on spam signatures.
