Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q. What is spam?
A. Spam is any email message, regardless of content, that is unwanted or unrequested by the recipient.
Q. Why is it so difficult to block spam?
A. The most important objective of an email filtering system is to make sure that legitimate email gets delivered to the intended recipient. Unfortunately, there is no single word or phrase that a filtering system can use to determine if a message in undesirable. This is particularly apparent in a university setting where serious academic or clinical discussions can use the same terminology as the most offensive spam message. To make matters even more difficult, spammers will often try to fool filtering systems by using tricks like misspelling words or forging the sender's address.
Q. What is NSU doing to reduce spam?
A. We are currently using a program called Secure Mail to filter potential spam email before it is delivered to the user.
Q. How does Secure Mail work?
A. Secure Mail scans every incoming email message using TrustedSource and various policy based filters. TrustedSource is a global threat correlation engine and intelligence base of global messaging and communication behavior that includes reputation, volume, and trends, including email, web traffic and malware. Secure Mail also uses a variety of policy based rules, such as content and envelope analysis, to further determine whether the email is spam or indeed valid. Once the email has been processed by Secure Mail various tests it’s given a score and based on that numerical value it’s delivered to the user or mark as Spam.
Q. What if a message I wanted to receive was marked as quarantine?
A. Secure Mail has the ability to send notifications via email to notify users when a message is quarantined because a Secure Mail policy condition was met. The notification lists the messages that are in the quarantine queue at a given point in time. By clicking the Message ID on a notification email, or by making selections from a message list window, you can release your messages so that they can be delivered to your inbox or whitelist the email address to avoid this in the future. This allows you the user to visually inspect the contents of emails for the purpose of identifying and releasing email that was improperly identified as spam.
Q. What is the Quarantine Queue?
A. The Quarantine Queue is a logical holding area where other queue services may send message if certain conditions are met. Whereas the other queues and features actually process messages in some way, the Quarantine Queue holds messages in a quarantined status. All messages have status of some kind, such as, currently in work or already delivered, etc.
Q. Can I recover a message that was deleted by the spam filter?
A. Messages with a spam score that exceeds the 'max score' threshold are dropped...permanently. Check your filter log periodically to make sure that legitimate message are not being deleted. If a legitimate message has been deleted, contact the sender to resend the message and inform Network Operations at the email address below.
Q. Should I use the 'unsubscribe' link to unsubscribe from unsolicited email?
A. Spammers can collect information from you any time you click on the 'unsubscribe' link. It is recommended that you only unsubscribe from reputable commercial sites.
Q. Who do I contact if I have any questions?
A. If you have any questions or wish to report any problems with the system, please send us an email.