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All email sent to user@mines.edu addresses from outside the campus, and some email from inside the campus, will first pass through a system that will analyze messages. The system can be configured to block or reject messages based on a list of known spam sources or if a message is detected to contain a virus. These features will be used cautiously since they must be implemented on a site-wide basis. Once an email is received, characteristics of the email are analyzed and the message is given a "score"based on the probability it is spam. If a message does not appear to be spam, it is delivered to the user's inbox. Messages determined likely to be spam are given a high spam score and messages exhibiting some characteristics of being spam are given a medium score. If a message receives a medium score, additional headers, known as "x-headers" are inserted into the mail with additional information, and the subject line is modified to start with [spam-medium] to warn the recipient that this message may be spam. If the message receives a high score, the same action can be taken (except the subject line is modified to start with [spam-high]) or the message can be quarantined in a special inbox on the spam filter server for later review by the recipient.
User capabilities (a quarantine inbox account is required to have access to these features)
Once you establish a quarantine inbox account, you can control a variety of options to help control or manage how the system deals with spam. Those capabilities include
- enabling/disabling spam filtering
- enabling/disabling quarantining
- quarantine notification
- quarantine inbox review
- whitelisting and blacklisting.
These capabilities are described in greater detail below. To request a quarantine inbox account, fill out the "Request Quarantine Inbox" form on the Spam Management Services for "@mines.edu" Addresses web page at http://www.mines.edu/academic/computer/email/spam/.
What is subject line tagging and how do I use it? (subject line tagging does not require a quarantine inbox account)
Subject line tagging is simply the insertion of additional text at the beginning of the subject line of an email message in order to provide you with additional information. Most email programs have the ability to sort and filter messages based on content found in the subject line, sender, recipient, or other parts of a message. AC&N's default spam identification system will tag a subject line at the very beginning with one of the following text strings:
[spam-medium]
[spam-high]so a message you received from a junk mailer that had a subject of
BUY STUFF CHEAP
may be changed to look like one of the following based on the spam "score" received when the message was analyzed by the spam filter system. A medium score indicates the message could be spam but the system will always deliver it to your inbox so you can make that decision. A message marked spam-high has a high probability of being spam and is eligible to be quarantined on a separate system if you choose to not have [spam-high] messages automatically delivered to your inbox. (To activate this, you must request a quarantine inbox account.)
[spam-medium] BUY STUFF CHEAP
[spam-high] BUY STUFF CHEAPYou use this information by creating a filter in your email program to look for these tags and then give the email program instructions about what to do with the email if it is delivered to your inbox.
A quarantine inbox will prevent the automatic delivery of messages determined to be [spam-high] to your inbox. You must request a quarantine inbox account on the spam filter system by submitting the Request Quarantine Inbox form on the Spam Management Services web page. Only email addresses of the form user@mines.edu (not user@othersystem.mines.edu) are eligible for these accounts. Once the account is created for you, an email message will be sent to the registered address with a password that will allow you to access the spam filter system, manage your quarantine inbox, and set other preferences. Note that your quarantine inbox account username will be your full email address.
Logging in to your quarantine inbox account (a quarantine inbox account is required to have access to this feature)
To request a quarantine inbox account, fill out the "Request Quarantine Inbox" form on the Spam Management Services for "@mines.edu" Addresses web page at http://www.mines.edu/academic/computer/email/spam/.
Once your quarantine inbox account has been setup, login to http://cardea.mines.edu/ with the username and password provided to you. Note that your quarantine inbox account username will be your full email address.
Enabling/Disabling Quarantine (a quarantine inbox account is required to have access to this feature)
To request a quarantine inbox account, fill out the "Request Quarantine Inbox" form on the Spam Management Services for "@mines.edu" Addresses web page at http://www.mines.edu/academic/computer/email/spam/.
Press the Preferences tab and then press the Quarantine Settings button. To activate a quarantine inbox, select Yes. This will prevent the automatic delivery of [spam-high] messages to your inbox. Press the Save Changes button. Press the Quarantine Notification button next.
Quarantine Notification (a quarantine inbox account is required to have access to this feature)
To request a quarantine inbox account, fill out the "Request Quarantine Inbox" form on the Spam Management Services for "@mines.edu" Addresses web page at http://www.mines.edu/academic/computer/email/spam/.
Press the Quarantine Notification button and select whether you want to receive quarantine inbox notification messages. If you select Daily or Weekly, you will receive a single email once per day or once per week with either a summary list of quarantined messages or a link to remind you to login to the spam filter server to review and manage your quarantined messages.Quarantined messages older than 30 days will automatically be deleted and could be deleted sooner if disk space is needed.
Reviewing your quarantined messages
and managing your quarantined messages
(a quarantine inbox account is required to have access to this feature)
To request a quarantine inbox account, fill out the "Request Quarantine Inbox" form on the Spam Management Services for "@mines.edu" Addresses web page at http://www.mines.edu/academic/computer/email/spam/.
Press the QUARANTINE INBOX tab if it is not already selected. A listing similar to the following will appear if you have quarantined messages. Note that there may be multiple pages of messages. When you review your messages, if you identify any false positives, you will probably want to add the sender to your whitelist so messages from this sender will not be quarantined in the future. You can manage your messages either by pressing the individual Deliver Whitelist Delete buttons based on what you want to do, or by selecting the messages you want delivered/whitelisted/deleted by selecting the checkbox to the left of the message and pressing the Deliver Whitelist or Delete buttons at the top of the section under the words Quarantine Inbox. You can review the first 50 lines of any message in text form by clicking on the Date From or Subject of the message.
Spam Filter Enable/Disable (a quarantine inbox account is required to have access to this feature)
To request a quarantine inbox account, fill out the "Request Quarantine Inbox" form on the Spam Management Services for "@mines.edu" Addresses web page at http://www.mines.edu/academic/computer/email/spam/.
This option allows you to enable or disable spam scanning for your email address. Press the Spam Filter Enable/Disable button. If you select yes, messages will be scanned. By default, all @mines.edu email accounts are set to yes. If you have not enabled a quarantine inbox, email believed to be spam will be tagged with either [spam-high] or [spam-medium] and delivered to your inbox. If you have enabled a quarantine inbox, [spam-high] email will be quarantined on the spam filter server and [spam-medium] email will be tagged and delivered to your inbox. If you select No for the Spam Filter Enable/Disable option, messages will not be scanned and all email (except for system-wide blocked email) will be delivered to your inbox without any tagging.
Whitelist/Blacklist (a quarantine inbox account is required to have access to this feature)
To request a quarantine inbox account, fill out the "Request Quarantine Inbox" form on the Spam Management Services for "@mines.edu" Addresses web page at http://www.mines.edu/academic/computer/email/spam/.
Press the Whitelist/Blacklist button under the Preferences tab. This option lets you create lists of email addresses or domains that are always allowed or always blocked. If you always want to accept mail from any user at Colorado State, you can enter colostate.edu and press Add. All email coming from any Academic Computing and Networking mail server will be accepted unless you explicitly block it. Most internal email will not go through the spam identification and filter system so this is not a reliable way to disallow email from another mines.edu user. (To do this, you should also learn to use spamassassin on imagine).
Changing your password (a quarantine inbox account is required to have access to this feature)
If you do not know your current spam filter system password, simply enter put your e-mail address in the username field on the main login screen and click the "Create New Password" button. A new password will be mailed to your account. If you are logged into your spam filter account, press the Password button under the Preferences
tab. Use this option to change your password to manage your quarantine inbox
and preference settings on the spam filter system.
Changing your spam scoring levels (a quarantine inbox account is required to have access to this feature)
Press the Spam Settings button under the Preferences tab. Use this option to change your spam scoring levels on the spam filter system.
The default system levels are the levels used for all @mines.edu addresses by the spam filter. Having a spam filter account allows you to change these settings to meet your individual spam filtering requirements. To change the settings for your account, check the No button then the Save Changes button.
You can then change the scoring level by keying in a number in the box to the right of the Tag Score, Quarantine Score, and Block Score. Changing this scoring level will affect how the spam filter treats all new incoming messages to your personal Mines e-mail account.If the message score is lower than the Tag Score, the message subject is not rewritten and the message is delivered to your inbox.
If the message score is between the Tag Score and Quarantine Score then the message will be marked as [SPAM-MEDIUM] and be delivered to your inbox.
If the message score is between the Quarantine Score and Block Score, the message will be marked as [SPAM-HIGH] and either held in your spam filter quarantine box OR delivered to your inbox depending on your spam filter preferences.
If the message score is higher than the Block Score will be automatically discarded.
How do I determine the message score?
The message score is contained within the e-mail message headers. With some email clients you can view the headers by choosing Show Message Source. Look for the header lines starting with X-Barracuda-Spam. In this particular example, you will see the message score is 4.6.
X-Barracuda-Spam-Score: 4.60
X-Barracuda-Spam-Status: Yes,
SCORE=4.60 using per-user scores of TAG_LEVEL=2.6 QUARANTINE_LEVEL=4.0 KILL_LEVEL=1000.0
tests=FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK, FORGED_OUTLOOK_HTML, FORGED_OUTLOOK_TAGS, HTML_10_20, HTML_ATTR_UNIQUE,
HTML_MIME_NO_HTML_TAG, MIME_HTML_ONLY, UNDISC_RECIPS, X_PRIORITY_HIGH
X-Barracuda-Spam-Report: Code version 3.02, rules version 3.0.8527
Rule breakdown below pts rule name description
---- ---------------------- --------------------------------------------------
0.12 X_PRIORITY_HIGH Sent with 'X-Priority' set to high
0.88 UNDISC_RECIPS Valid-looking To "undisclosed-recipients"
1.17 HTML_ATTR_UNIQUE BODY: HTML appears to have random attributes in tags
0.94 HTML_10_20 BODY: Message is 10% to 20% HTML
0.00 MIME_HTML_ONLY BODY: Message only has text/html MIME parts
0.10 HTML_MIME_NO_HTML_TAG HTML-only message, but there is no HTML tag
0.00 FORGED_OUTLOOK_TAGS Outlook can't send HTML in this format
0.02 FORGED_OUTLOOK_HTML Outlook can't send HTML message only
1.36 FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK Forged mail pretending to be from MS Outlook
