Spam

In addition to anti-spam filtering mechanisms applied in various areas of the University's information technology environment, NERDC's ListServ server also monitors e-mail traffic in an effort to prevent spam from being distributed to it's 3,400+ lists. Because spam detection algorithms haven't been perfected, some messages are sent to a list owner who may take action.

When a potential spam message is intercepted by the list server, advisory messages received by list owners conclude with the phrase "...If this is the case, simply forward this message back to the list with an explanatory note."

The advisory message recommends the following actions:

1. The message was not delivered to the list named in the subject line
     (e.g., ListName-L: possible spam from UserID@HEALTH.UFL.EDU)  

   When the anti-spam software sees a single message being sent to multiple lists, it prevents delivery and lets the list moderator/owner know that a possible spamming attempt was made on the list.

    

   It is up to the list's owner to evaluate that possibility and delete the message or forward it to the list.

 
2. While viewing this advisory message, any one of the list's owners may use their mail system's Forward command to redistribute the message using the list address cited in the subject line. However, the forwarded message will look like it was created by the list owner.
 
3. If the message is valid, the responding list owner is supposed to type some sort of comment indicating they've allowed the note to go through.

and finally,  

4. The last two steps must be repeated for all of the lists involved.

Observations and local response guidelines:

Individuals who send notes which trigger an anti-spam response, are prohibited by the ListServ server from sending any further messages for 48 hours.

The suggested response asks list owners to perform work that may confuse message recipients. If a list owner forwards the blocked message, their submission includes the list owner's address in the "From:" field.

The IT Center's list management team has been directed to advise UF-based senders that their message was identified as potential spam and was not distributed.

If the message appears to be legitimate, the message creator may also be advised to ask someone else in their unit to submit a new note on their behalf. This should only be done after evaluating and resolving the problem. The most common cause for a false positive spam error, seems to involve having too many addresses in the "To:" field. Messages containing 16 to 22 addresses have recently been rejected as potential spam. Other issues may be associated with too many ALL CAPITAL characters, too much HTML coding, or some combination of these and other characteristics.

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