Control Junk E-mail

Network Filtering

To proactively address computer security threats, NUIT's University-wide E-mail Defense System (EDS) scans all incoming mail, deletes identifiable viruses, and quarantines various junk e-mail before delivering messages to the University's central e-mail servers (casbah, hecky, lulu, and merle).

Local Filtering

You've probably received junk e-mail at your northwestern.edu address. The best action is to delete it. Do not respond directly, even though you may be annoyed. Responding just tells the e-mail solicitors that your e-mail address is functional and can be targeted again.

Tips and Tools

NUIT has developed the following tips to help protect your privacy and reduce the amount of unwanted junk e-mail you receive.

• Recognize sender — If you do not recognize the sender of a message and/or the subject line is offensive or unknown, delete the message immediately.
  
  
• Filters — Set up filters in your e-mail software. Check the Web sites below for helpful hints:
  • Reduce junk e-mail in Outlook 2003
  • Reduce junk e-mail in Apple Mail
  • Reduce junk e-mail in Eudora
  
  
• Do not respond — Do not respond or unsubscribe to an "opt-out" e-mail address / link or sender asking to be removed from the list unless the message comes from a company or organization you recognize and trust. Getting you to respond or request to unsubscribe from a list can be a ploy by solicitors to verify your e-mail address. The solicitors can then generate a known list of users that they might sell for profit or for further scamming activities. Your best bet is to simply delete the junk e-mail from your inbox.
  
  
• List information — Be sure any mailing lists you are on do not allow nonsubscribers to view list member information. Check with the list manager if you are not sure.
  
  
• Keep address private — Avoid publicizing your Northwestern e-mail address. Do not submit your e-mail address to any Web sites unless you have read and agree to their privacy policy. The same applies to any company that wants your street address. Unless you know who will have access and under what conditions, don't give them the chance to sell your information. E-mail solicitors search the Internet for mailing lists, public bulletin boards, newsgroups, chat rooms and online directories for addresses to add to their databases.
  
  If you must provide your e-mail address online, look into alternatives such as:
  • e-mailhere[insert the @ sign here]northwestern.edu
    This forces the user to insert the "@" symbol.
  • 
    Create a graphic (e.g., .gif file) of your e-mail address to display on Web sites.
  
  
• Alternate account — Set up an alternate e-mail account with a free e-mail service such as Yahoo and use that address when transacting personal business. This will reduce the e-mail sent to your Northwestern account and will also decrease the chances of your Northwestern e-mail address being distributed to e-mail solicitors.
  
  
• Alert domains — Forward junk e-mail to the originating ISP. Check the e-mail header information to see what Internet domain the unwanted e-mail came from and forward it directly to the postmaster or abuse alias at that ISP. If the ISP is msn.com, forward the entire e-mail, with headers, to abuse@msn.com.