The University of Iowa ITS Campus Services - E-mail Support

Anti-Spam Service Tool Help

Information Technology Services

The University already employs many layers of anti-virus and anti-spam protection, but unrelenting electronic attacks and solicitations are requiring us to strengthen our email security practices.

To select your spam threshold now go to http://email.uiowa.edu , http://webmail.uiowa.edu or http://cs.its.uiowa.edu/email and click the Anti-Spam Tool link. You will have to login to the tool with your Hawk ID and password. You may adjust your settings at any time.

The Anti-Spam service is used to reduce the volume of spam that email users receive. Currently, email marked with the pound sign (e.g., spam?#) indicates the likelihood that a message is spam. More pound signs (#) indicates a higher likelihood that a message is spam.

By default, email with a spam probability of 90% or greater will be returned to the sender with a message indicating that the message was blocked. You may change the default and select the spam level acceptable to you. You may completely opt-out of the service, continue to have spam marked and delivered with the pound sign designation, or you may choose to block messages that are spam-rated at different thresholds.

You may change your spam threshold now by using this Anti-Spam Tool.

Anti-Spam FAQ's

Below are the explanations of each setting:

Spam Setting

Description

High Spam Rejection

### (3) or higher

Overview
Reject spam with a probability of 70% or higher, tag and deliver rest. Please mark all spam below that level with the traditional pound (#) sign format.

Detailed Explanation
Any incoming message scored at 70% or higher probability of being spam will be returned to the sending server; messages scored between 50-69% probability of being spam will be tagged on the subject line with spam?# (see table below) and delivered; and all messages scored between 0-49% probability of being spam will be delivered without a tag.

Medium Spam Rejection (DEFAULT)

##### (5) or higher

Overview
Reject spam with a probability of 90% or higher, tag and deliver rest. Please mark all spam below that level with the traditional pound (#) sign format.

Detailed Explanation
Any incoming message scored at 90% or higher probability of being spam will be returned to the sending server; messages scored between 50-89% probability of being spam will be tagged on the subject line with spam?# (see table below) and delivered; and all messages scored between 0-49% probability of being spam will be delivered without a tag.

Low Spam Rejection

##### (5) or higher

Overview
Reject spam with a probability of 99% or higher, tag and deliver rest. Please mark all spam below that level with the traditional pound (#) sign format.

Detailed Explanation
Any incoming message scored at 99% or higher probability of being spam will be returned to the sending server; messages scored between 50-98% probability of being spam will be tagged on the subject line with spam?# (see table below) and delivered; and all messages scored between 0-49% probability of being spam will be delivered without a tag.

Tag and Deliver

Overview
No spam rejection. Please mark all spam with the traditional pound (#) sign format.

Detailed Explanation
Any incoming message scored at 50% or higher probability of being spam will be tagged with the traditional pound (#) sign format. All messages will be delivered to your inbox.

Opt-Out

Overview
Please do not reject or mark any of my spam.

Detailed Explanation
All messages will be delivered to your inbox. None will be tagged.

Notes:

The Anti-Spam Tool selections only apply to email messages sent from off-campus to your university alias (firstname-lastname@uiowa.edu) email address.
The default for Special Email Accounts will be to continue to flag potential Spam with # signs and deliver them (tag & deliver). To change the spam threshold setting for Special Email Accounts, contact the ITS Helpdesk at (319) 384-Help (4357).

Spam #s	Probability Rating %
###### (6)	100
##### (5)	99
##### (5)	90-98
#### (4)	80-89
### (3)	70-79
## (2)	60-69
# (1)	50-59
none	0-49

For more information regarding security issues, see IT Security.