Are you getting so much spam that you hardly want to check your Cornell e-mail? Do you eye e-mail attachments with suspicion, afraid they might wreak havoc on your computer?
Help is on the way. Starting in spring 2003, the mail servers (postoffices) run by Cornell Information Technologies (CIT) will keep virus-infected e-mail from reaching your computer. You'll be notified when this happens, so that you can tell the sender and request a clean copy of the message if needed.
The mail servers also will add a special header to messages that look like spam, indicating the probability they are spam. The messages will still be delivered to you, but the special header will make it easy to set up Eudora (or other e-mail software) to automatically send spam to the trash or another mailbox.
Why can't CIT just delete spam? The risk of deleting legitimate messages is too high, especially considering that spammers try to make their messages look legitimate. Also, the choice of how to respond to spam rightfully belongs to each individual.
This fall, CIT is enlisting the help of Cornell's technology community to test the tool, called PerlMX, and set up customizations to minimize the amount of legitimate mail flagged as spam. Details on testing will be announced soon.
PerlMX will only be implemented on CIT's postoffice mail servers. If you read your e-mail via the CIT postoffice servers (the long form of your address would be a variation of @postoffice.mail.cornell.edu), you will benefit from this tool.
If your address ends differently, your department or college is routing your e-mail instead and may or may not be filtering spam or virus-infected messages. Your technology support professional can tell you.
Cornell policy supports spam filtering or blocking as an appropriate restriction on the university's network, in accordance with university policy prohibitions against harassment. However, given Cornell's commitments to freedom with responsibility and to free inquiry, the decision to begin spam and virus filtering was made with great care. The tool chosen, PerlMX, enables CIT to continue its policy of not routinely monitoring an individual's communications and lets CIT tailor the tool to meet the community's needs.
To cope with spam in the meantime, make liberal use of the delete key, and, for the more adventurous, set up filters in your e-mail software based on the keywords and exclamation points that abound in spam. Tips for Eudora are at http://www.cit.cornell.edu/computer/email/eudora/spam.html .
To ward off viruses, keep Norton AntiVirus running all the time and update it at least once a week. And don't open any attachments you weren't expecting.
The "@cornell.edu" column is edited by Beth Goelzer Lyons of CIT. Please send suggestions to citnews@cornell.edu.
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