Spamming the system

by Melody Gustafson
EAST LIVERPOOL – Do you have erectile dysfunction? Judging by the volume of e-mail solicitation KSU students receive about Cialis, there must be an epidemic of it.

Actually, the real affliction on campus is the e-mail system itself. The spam filter, controlled at the main campus, is too strong to allow all correspondence to arrive at the intended desktop in a timely manner; but in some cases it is too weak to block ridiculous and unwanted junk mail. What is there to do?

According to Rachael Esterly, instructional technology coordinator at the East Liverpool campus, if someone is getting some offensive messages, the individual can forward them to abuse@kent.edu and the technicians there will filter specifically for that address. The perpetrators of solicitous or harmful e-mail have so many different addresses from which to spread their hogwash, however, it is nearly impossible to filter for all of them.

“Don’t ever open an attachment or open a link that you don’t know where it came from,” she said. “Delete it. If you don’t, you could infect others’ machines or your own with a virus or worm.” One courteous gesture is to be sure to enter some information in the subject line of all the messages sent. The receiver then knows for certain whether to open the message.

Students and faculty are losing faith in the campus e-mail system because messages sent often don’t arrive for days. Events occur before people are aware of them; assignments earn failing grades because instructors never receive them. In one instance, a KSU-EL student received a zero on an e-mailed assignment. After conferring with the professor, she discovered that it had been channeled into a junk e-mail folder.

Esterly offered an explanation for the messages that are very late yet maintain the original date sent. During “high traffic hours,” messages are queued. In other words, messages encounter some kind of virtual clog and are cast into a repository where they must wait for an opening through which they can find their way to the intended destination. Certain times of the year are so hectic for the Kent server that zipped files (multiple files condensed for speed and efficiency) are blocked completely.

According to Brian Kerr, computer lab assistant at the East Liverpool campus, it is possible to have e-mail routed to another address. Many faculty do this by using Microsoft Outlook Web Access; still, most of the settings and adjustments rest with the Kent campus, When someone encounters a problem, he or she should call the helpdesk at 330-672-HELP.

Kerr said that the regional campus must defer to the main campus about most issues, although an individual may filter specific addresses or senders by accessing spam blocker e-mail security at http://spam.kent.edu/. After signing on with a Flashline username, an individual can make changes. “When you tighten down the rope, you may not get mail that you should,” Kerr warned.

Some of the users of Flashline may remember a time before the “one-stop” convenience of having all online resources in one place came about. Back then, grades were still mailed out and all the departments had their own web site. This was frustrating for faculty, employees and students.

As trends in automation popped up everywhere, colleges across the nation looked for a more effective way to streamline all resources into one convenient location with a login. Esterly explained that Kent opted for the Luminis software to run Flashline, the efficient information center that everyone at a KSU campus may access. Flashline is the portal to Vista, the e-mail center.

For now, options for managing one’s security settings aren’t many. More and more students are simply not using their campus addresses and establish one at another location. Instructors are changing their methods, insisting on hard copies when assignments are due.

Regardless of the responses to the complications, the question remains: How do those who send the unwanted mail obtain the students’ addresses to begin with? Kerr noted that companies who provide free e-mail accounts such as Yahoo make their money by selling the addresses to advertisers.

The origin of the KSU spam problem remains unknown. Attempts to reach Ed Mahon, head of Internet security at Kent State University, were unsuccessful. Perhaps he didn’t get the messages.