Anti-Spam Service: Why use it? Introduction and Article Index
Everyone who regularly uses e-mail for communications is familiar with the problem of unsolicited, unwanted e-mail (spam). To help members of the Ohio State University community better manage this problem for their own e-mail communications, the Office of Information Technology has installed an Anti-Spam service (CanIT Spam Trap from Roaring Penguin) on the central e-mail system (osu.edu).
Note: The anti-spam system should be used with caution. As with any filtering technology there is a risk of losing wanted e-mail. Please follow the set-up instructions carefully.
Why You Probably Want to Use the Central Anti-Spam Service
Using the service can cut spam to a negligible volume. This saves time and effort in locating desired e-mail messages as well as eliminating the need to spend time deleting the unwanted e-mail. Also, since the unwanted e-mail never gets to your mailbox, it doesn't count against your central e-mail system storage space allocation (quota) , but still gives you the option to review the filtered e-mail for any messages that might be wanted.
Other considerations: If you use the OSU Webmail client to read your e-mail, the Spam Trap is the only spam filtering available to you. Training the system to filter spam can help you avoid the need to deal with unwanted messages even if you check your e-mail using OSU Webmail only on the weekends or for travel.
Since everybody has a different definition of which e-mail is unwanted, the system is trained by each individual to meet their own needs. After about a week of training (it takes a few minutes each day), the system weeds out a large portion of the unwanted e-mail. The longer the training continues, the more effective the program becomes for each person.
How It Works
The CanIt Spam Trap scans e-mail messages before they reach the central e-mail server. As part of this scan, each message is tagged with a "score" based on how likely the message is to be spam. By default, the Spam Trap is set only to tag messages with this score. Each user turns on the Trap for their e-mail, and customizes the settings for their own needs.
Each user of the system has a choice for how they want to use the Trap. Options:
- Set up and train the CanIT Spam Trap on the central system to stop spam from being delivered to your mailbox. Step by step instructions as well as recommended settings are available in the following articles:
- Getting Started: Turning on the Service
- Reviewing Trapped Messages
- Training the Filter
- Using the Message Voting Feature
- Turning On/Off E-mail Notifications
- Glossary of Terms
- Advanced Troubleshooting and Diagnostics
- Benefits of Low, Medium, and High in Anti-Spam While Continuing to Use Advanced Features
- Descriptions of the Anti-Spam Service Simplified Interface Settings
- Opting-Out/Disabling
- Anti-Spam Service and LEFS
- Anti-Spam Turned on Automatically for Students
- Faculty / Staff Using Simple Interface
- Whitelisting and Blacklisting Senders/Domains/Hosts
- If you are working with a non-standard username (one that is not in the format lastname.#, instructions for Working with Organizational and Other Special E-mail addresses and Usernames will provide instructions for working with these exceptions.
- Use the scores to set rules in e-mail client anti-spam programs to filter spam within the client. If you would prefer to use the Central E-mail Anti-Spam rankings with an e-mail client (that can be used to set up filtering based on the scores), the following articles will help with set-up. This option is available if you use Eudora, Outlook XP/2003, or Apple Mail.
- Ignore it, and continue to receive all e-mail (including spam) addressed to you (possibly setting rules in your e-mail client to filter some messages to a special folder).
The Anti-Spam service can be used by individuals who forward e-mail off the central system. (Example: lastname.#@osu.edu forwards to username@collegemail.edu). The steps for setting up and using the Anti-Spam service are the same as for an individual who reads their e-mail on the central e-mail server. Note, however, that in this case only e-mail sent to lastname.#@osu.edu will be filtered through the Anti-Spam service (before filtering to the service (departmental e-mail, Internet Service Provider, etc. where e-mail is read. E-mail sent directly to username@collegemail.edu will not.
Current Record: 2746
Create Date: 09-29-2005
Last Reviewed: 04-30-2007
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