UITS might cut forwarding feature from e-mail

IU might stop allowing students to forward their Webmail accounts to other services such as Gmail and AOL if spam problems persist.\nWhen IU users forward their University mail to a different account, spam is also forwarded. The forwarding becomes a problem because larger e-mail providers view IU as the spam's origin, thus blocklisting, or blocking, IU accounts, said Mark Bruhn, chief IT security and policy officer for University Information Technology Services, via e-mail. \nHowever, UITS is evaluating ways to decrease spam before it becomes too much of a problem. \nBlocklisting is a way Internet sites and e-mail providers combat spam. It causes difficulties for students and faculty trying to deliver legitimate e-mails to outside e-mail services once IU servers are listed, Bruhn said.\n"We periodically get blocklisted," he said. "We have to then negotiate with the external service to get our e-mail servers removed from their lists."\nEliminating the forwarding option will prevent IU accounts from being blocklisted, Bruhn said.\nHowever, Bruhn said this is unlikely to happen unless spamming gets much worse.\nUITS data shows an estimated 60 percent of e-mail sent to IU accounts is spam, said Rick Jackson, manager of UITS messaging services. \n"Whether an individual receives this much spam, or more or less spam, is highly variable," Jackson said. "What an individual may consider spam, another person may consider legitimate, requested e-mail."\nUITS is testing different ways to reduce spam and will adjust to methods that work well while not limiting their users' ability to use e-mail, Bruhn said. \nIn the meantime, UITS recommends students and faculty do their part to eliminate spam.\n"We strongly encourage IU e-mail users to make use of the spam filtering service offered by UITS, so that much of the incoming spam is caught, quarantined, and so it won't be forwarded," Bruhn said. \nJackson called Webmail's spam filter "quite effective," but said less than 10 percent of Webmail users subscribe to the service.\nSenior Phil Johns describes the spam he began receiving this summer as "annoying." Despite the unwanted mail, Johns didn't fight it because he didn't know spam filters existed and thought the responsibility rested with UITS, he said.\nSpam filters don't guarantee protection from unwanted mail, though.\nJunior Anna Norris uses the Webmail spam filter but only noticed a small reduction soon after she implemented the device. A variety of spam still finds its way to her Inbox.\n"Spam was ridiculous over the summer," she said. "I had five or more spam e-mails when I first checked my mail each day. I wish there was a bulk folder (for spam) like the one Yahoo! offers"