U of MN spam email Policy

Frank GreweOffice of Information TechnologyUniversity of Minnesota

fjg@umn.edu

Bulk Mail Policy

• Bulk mail to U of MN accounts must be approved in advance by a Vice President of the University of Minnesota, or

• Bulk mail may be sent only to accounts which have explicitly subscribed to the mailing list.

Strategic Policy

• Email spam is an institutional problem that must be addressed

• Financial resources will be made available to solve the problem

• Personnel resources will be made available to solve the problem

• No excuses – solve the problem!

Analysis 12/30/2002-1/5/2003 1/6/2003-1/12/2003---------------------------------- ----------------------------------

• SBL 540,865 65.7% 65.7% 804,657 72.9% 72.9%• U of MN 73,410 8.9% 74.6% 65,188 6.0% 78.9%• Bad Originator 16,764 2.0% 76.6% 23,582 2.1% 81.0%

• Dynamic IP 30,699 3.7% 80.3% 49,951 4.5% 85.5%• rDNS 78,130 9.5% 89.8% 78,619 7.1% 92.6%

• Open Proxy 55,067 6.7% 96.5% 52,735 4.8% 98.4%

• Open Relay 28,842 3.5% 100% 28,589 2.6% 100%---------- ------------823,777 1,103,321

Tactical PolicyGive the User’s Power!

• User options to block or filter• User managed exceptions• User reporting & education

Next Steps

• Campaign to block sites that don’t “opt-out”

• Better open proxy detection• Better open relay handling• Better Dynamic IP identification

Reactions

“ I was so moved by your spam police action that I felt I must delay no further in letting you know how I feel about my IT service at the U.”

Reactions

“To all of you who administer, jump start and generally keep my systems alive and breathing for me ...”

Reactions

“My email ALWAYS works well, fast, smooth....

You could stop at that and I would be the richer for it, but no, you've gone farther ...

The authentication piece works great ... every... single time.

Now you are going to keep me from getting spam!?!

Geez, do you do catering too?”

Reactions

“I know that IT personnel don't get appreciation or credit for the obvious brilliance, hard work and (assumed) charm that they bring to work every day, all day, each week. I wanted to take a moment out of my massively important life (sarcasm intended) to thank you for all that you do for me each day, and for putting icing on that proverbial cake by now spam controlling my email....”

Reactions

“I cannot thank the University powers-that-be enough for beginning to put some controls on spam. Dealing with junk email has been a huge drain on me and my email accounts every single day.”

Reactions

“You're beautiful and I love you man!”

Reactions

“With great respect and well wishes for you and your entire lineage,…”

Reactions

“You ROCK!!!”

Reactions

“Please pass on my gratitude to whomever made the decision to begin togive me some of my valuable time back!”

Reactions

“Thank you! Thank you! THANK YOU!!!”

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