Keep going forward with e-mail

For better or worse, one thing all IU students and faculty share is a common reliance on IU Webmail. \nHowever, many users feel Webmail is insufficient due to its poor spam filter, lack of a bulk mail folder and interface reminiscent of the early 1990s, among other concerns. \nThus, these people often have their e-mail forwarded to accounts on other servers, such as Yahoo! or Gmail. Since the spam that slips through the filter is forwarded right alongside the legitimate e-mails, some servers have blocklisted IU's domain name. \nObviously, this is a problem for those who send and receive e-mail through Webmail. Because of this, UITS has said if the volume of spam increases significantly, it might eliminate the option of having Webmail forwarded to other servers.\nThough this would solve the problem in a practical sense, it would also leave many users extremely unsatisfied. This "nuclear option" is far too extreme, and also fails to address the real source of the problem, which is IU's outdated e-mail system.\nIn the past, Webmail has only been updated as a result of a major catastrophe. Returning students most likely remember last year, when the e-mail quota was increased only after the Ariel server crashed, causing 25 percent of users to go without e-mail for days.\nProblems ranged from the annoying to the disruptive. In some cases, classes were interrupted when large portions of classes were not able to receive assignments and professors were not able to get in touch with students.\nThis shouldn't be the driving force behind Webmail updates.\nAfter all, spam is a problem that so far has not been able to be solved by legislation, and doesn't seem to be showing any signs of decreasing in the near future. Like other black market occupations, whenever a big spammer is caught, someone else just steps in to fill its place.\nTherefore, UITS should update the program so that fewer students will want to forward their mail to outside servers and less spam will fall through the cracks, causing further blocklisting. \nOur e-mail system should be on par with our amazing wireless technology, which Intel ranked first among U.S. universities. Instead, it seems to be the University's dirty little secret. \nAs it currently stands, our larger Webmail quota just means more spam can be jammed into our Inboxes than ever before. The technology for a better e-mail system already exists, it just needs to be implemented. \nWe hope the many intelligent people in charge of UITS will use this opportunity to resolve the e-mail problem before it becomes a cataclysmic problem, and without restricting the freedom of IU students and faculty to utilize whichever e-mail server best suits their needs.