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Coping with email spam
Experts say delete key best option to deal with unwanted email
By SUE WUETCHER
Reporter Editor
The messages range from product solicitations to pure gibberish to even softcore porn.
We're all used to getting such emails on our home computers, but the intrusion of unwanted emails has become commonplace on our UB computers as well.
Such spam didn't use to be the norm at UB. Why now?
It's a worldwide phenomenon, notes Elias Eldayrie, associate chief information officer. "No one knows for certain why now, but it is probably a number of factors," Eldayrie says, pointing out that new tools have made mass emailing easier than ever.
"People think that for a very small investment of time and money, they can reach a large audience of potential customers. The adoption rate of email use has increased dramatically over the past couple of years."
Harvey Axlerod, computer discipline officer, calls spam "the second generation of Internet commerce." The first generation—Ebay and Amazon are classic success stories—is called "pull" technology in that it tries to entice, or pull, customers to Web sites, he says.
Spam, however, is an example of a "push" technology, Axlerod explains. "It pushes its messages, and offers it to the potential customer via email. If you wanted to get travel offers from a specific online agency and signed up for it, push technology is a real convenience.
"Spam is really an unwanted email that bothers us," he continues. "It's much like the bulk mailings we get in our post office mailboxes."
Eldayrie adds that besides the annoyance factor, spam is troublesome because an increasing number of these mass emails contain viruses that are more and more sophisticated and tougher to detect.
He notes that the university is taking a number of steps to try to curb the mass infiltration of unwanted emails, including improving the central email system's filtering capability so that users will be able to better identify and automatically file or dispose of unwanted email if they so choose. This effort, he adds, will feature the ability to "filter" how widespread an email message is and the character sets it contains, as well as a variety of other message characteristics.
The university also is considering installing a virus protection on the central email systems to try to flag destructive viruses embedded in many mass emails.
He says limiting spam isn't an easy solution for several reasons, not the least of which is that what constitutes spam varies from person to person. In fact, it's "a very individual definition," he points out.
Senders of spam continually are trying to find ways to circumvent defensive measures, and much of this mass email originates from non-U.S. sites and therefore is not subject to any regulation. "Even the U.S. has been very slow and rather ineffective at regulating this traffic," he says.
Moreover, there are real privacy issues with implementing wholesale blocking of any email traffic. And it is surprisingly easy to catch legitimate email in the spam control net, "so any measure that automatically deletes spam is risky.
Eldayrie notes that no matter what measures UB takes to try to stem the spam tide, "no measure will be even close to completely successful in stemming this flood."
In the meantime, there are measures individuals can take, he says.
First of all, "don't respond to these messages," he says. "Don't try to remove yourself from these lists by replying via email. This will almost always just confirm to the sender that the email address is valid," he says, adding that if the vendor offers a Web site to remove your e-mail address from its list, "this is generally a safer option."
Users also should complain to the Internet Service Provider that hosts the machine used to send the mail. "Many, but not all, of the large U.S. service providers have policies against this type of activities," he says. In fact, for every complaint that UB receives about spam originating from UB systems, "we enforce the UB policy against the use of UB facilities to send such email," he says.
Perhaps the best advice that Eldayrie and Axlerod can offer those plagued by spam is to "exercise the delete key."
Axlerod also advises email users not to take spam personally.
"Spammers are getting more aggressive in bulk mailings, rather than targeted ones. Folks get particularly upset about porn spam," he notes. "If you got it, chances are a million others did, and probably many of them are at UB. Just hit the delete key."