"Important Must Read." "New Income." "VmIAGRA."
These subject titles may look familiar to many Miami University students - and Information Technology Services (IT Services) is answering their complaints about the volume of unsolicited, junk e-mails crowding students' inboxes.
IT Services will increase the spam filters on Miami e-mail accounts beginning Oct. 23.
"(Spam) has been a growing problem not only here at Miami, but worldwide, with about eight out of 10 e-mails being spam," said Cathy McVey, director of IT Services customer relations. "We have been receiving more complaints and the problem has been growing."
Miami students seemed to be in agreement in regards to the issue of spam on their campus e-mail accounts.
"Spam is an incredible problem," said Dave Jones, a Miami senior. "I get stock and sex tips every single day. If I leave my computer for two hours, I will have at least five spam e-mails when I return."
Allie Grant, a Miami junior, agreed.
"Spam is just expected now." Grant said. "About half of my e-mails are spam. You'll get it no matter what."
Currently, IT Services subscribes to several spam filters through a company called Spamhaus, according to McVey. These filters use "real time blacklisting" and block e-mails from specific addresses known to be spammers. She also noted that it had been about a year and a half since the filters were last updated.
According to McVey, the new filters operate by applying a series of rules to each incoming e-mail and then assigning it a score. The server will block high scoring e-mails and lower scoring e-mails will not be filtered at all.
The server will look for e-mail addresses, subject lines, or content that it detects as potentially being spam. The new filter will be set at a low, subdued level initially, but will gradually become more aggressive as IT Services monitors the new filters and receives feedback from students, staff, and faculty.
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McVey said that users should still expect spam to enter their inbox, but recommends setting their own filters. Users with difficulty setting up filters can contact the IT Support Desk at (513) 529-7900 or by logging on to www.muohio.edu/ supportdesk.
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