Google defines spam as:

To indiscriminately send unsolicited, unwanted, irrelevant, or inappropriate messages, especially commercial advertising in mass quantities.  Noun: electronic "junk mail." 

Just like the junk mail in your mailbox at home, advertisers have figured out they can easily, cheaply send advertising to millions of people electronically.  Even if only a few respond, it can pay.

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FCUSD's E-Mail Filtering, and How It Works

Our e-Mail system contains a filter that can search for certain characteristics in e-mail that identify it as potential spam.  This includes things like:

• unusual e-mail addresses
• lots of mixed capital letters
• "from" address doesn't match where it's actually from
• multiple punctuation in subject lines, etc. 

Your message collects "points" based on these characteristics (called "heuristics"), and if  it reaches a set number of points, the filter pulls it out and either blocks or filters the message.  Just know that:

• it's BLOCKED when:  the sender's IP address is on a real-time "blacklist," i.e., it's a known spammer. If so, it gets blocked by the filter, and you never see it at all. 
  
  Obviously, no system can ever effectively identify EVERY spam sender and blacklist it (they're too clever for that - they often change addresses), so we need a Plan B.
   
• it's FILTERED when:  the sender is NOT on the blacklist, but the message still appears to the system to be spam.  If so, the filter will set it aside for your further review.  It'll create a list that it e-mails you a few times a day from our GWAVA system.  See below for more on GWAVA.

Just FYI, we are currently blocking anywhere from 50-65% of ALL e-mail received from the outside, not counting what goes to your GWAVA list.  Translating that to real numbers, we just received 32,000 e-mails in one day, and 63% of that was blocked spam.  Impressive, isn't it?

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What is the GWAVA system?  Why am I getting e-mail from it?  How can it help me?

Since no system is perfect, it's possible that the filter could identify a message as spam that actually isn't.  Our system has a feature that allows us to make sure you can get to any messages that were blocked, but shouldn't have been.  It's called GWAVA. 

Three times a day, you'll see an e-mail delivered from the system with the subject line "GWAVA Message Restriction Digest."  That report shows a list of the e-mail referenced above (likely spam, but not on the blacklist).  Each message has a link that allows you to tell the system to release that e-mail to you.  When you click that button, it will pass the message on to your e-mail in-box.  (You may receive less than 3 of these in a day if you didn't happen to have any messages blocked that day.)

You'll likely find that 90% or better of the messages on your GWAVA list are in fact junk, and you can just delete that day's GWAVA messages.  However, it's a good habit to open those messages and give 'em a two-second scan to make sure there wasn't any legitimate e-mail in there.

Know someone sent you a message but you didn't get it?  Check your GWAVA reports!

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What Can I Do to Avoid Getting Spam?

Spammers have a LOT of clever ways they get your e-mail address for their lists (then promptly sell them to others, who sell them to others, etc.).  Here are some tips to fight back:

• Get a Junk E-Mail Account - Lots of ISPs give away free e-mail accounts you can sign up for any time, like Google ("Gmail") and Yahoo!  Here's a tip - sign up for one of these accounts and use that e-mail address for whenever you deal with vendors, do any business online or fill out a form that asks for your e-mail address for non-business purposes.  Every once in awhile, dump that one and establish a new one. 
   
• Guard your FCUSD Address - If you never give your district e-mail address away to anyone except people you personally know, spammers have a much harder time finding you on the lists they buy.  As a rule of thumb, the more you give out your e-mail address, the more spam you're going to get.
   
• Never Respond to Spam Sent to You - Responses back verify they have a good address, which they can then sell as extra-valuable!  And as always, remember that banks, financial organizations and other institutions will NEVER ask for you to "verify your account information" via phone or e-mail - no matter how "legit" it looks, it's a scam!
   
• Make Your Own "Blacklists" - See the tips below on using the features in GroupWise or Outlook to manage spam that does get through. 

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What can I do with all the spam that gets around the filters and gets delivered to me?

Again, since it's not perfect, just like at home, you can always expect to get some junk mail.  Here are some tips for managing it:

• The simplest, fastest thing to do with it when you spot it is to just delete it.  (And unless it's something really threatening or extremely unusual, there is no need to report it or share it with ETIS.) 
   
• If you find you're getting a LOT of junk mail with some things in common, i.e., the same or similar subject line, etc., your e-mail software can give you a little help.  Both GroupWise and Outlook have systems for handling junk mail.  Choose "Help" and enter "junk mail" or "spam" as your search term.  They'll have instructions for your version that tell you how to add items to your own personal junk filters.  Keep in mind, though, the spammers are clever.  They'll likely find new ways to send similar messages that get around your filter too.  You may have to get a little clever yourself! 
   
• If there's an extremely high volume of spam moving from one sender, it's highly probable we're already seeing it on our end.  Just assume we're going to do everything we can to address it. 

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With all the good things we get from the convenience and ease of use of e-mail, we trade off a few inconveniences.  Fighting the battle of spam is a bit of a challenge, but we continue to fight the good fight! 

Your team here at ETIS is constantly working to provide you the best, most reliable technology services possible.  Thanks for taking a little time to learn more about how this particular system works! 
 

Dr. Joe Jenkins, CTO, on behalf of the
Department of Educational Technology and Information Systems