PureMessage at UW Oshkosh

Academic Computing has installed a server based filtering solution called PureMessage to remove viruses from incoming E-Mail. PureMessage also has the ability to flag Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail (UCE) - also known as spam or junk mail. The following describes how this new system works, and how you can configure your E-Mail client to filter unwanted messages to a separate folder.

Virus filtering

Hundreds of virus containing messages are currently being blocked at the server every day. If a virus is sent to your address, it is quarantined on the server and neither you nor the sender is notified. Most E-Mail viruses today send messages with a fake "From" address, so it is difficult or impossible to track the actual sender if the virus originated from off campus. If you receive a virus through e-mail, please notify the Academic Computing Help desk at 424-3020. It is possible the virus originated on campus, in that case the virus can be tracked and that computer cleaned.

Junk mail filtering

PureMessage has the ability to detect possible junk mail "spam" messages, and it will add text to the message header which can be used to filter spam into a different folder using your e-mail client. Here are some important points to know about the spam filtering:

Messages sent from an on-campus computer are never flagged as spam.
It's not perfect. Unlike virus detection, detecting unsolicited mail is not an exact science. The great majority of messages sent from one person to another will pass though just fine. However, most commercial mailing lists will look like junk mail to PureMessage. If you are subscribed to a lot of commercial mailing lists, expect to see most mail received from the lists flagged as junk mail.
PureMessage detects spam in several ways. It matches common words and phrases which appear in many junk mail messages. It checks the mail for proper format, many spam messages do not follow Internet standards. PureMessage also has a blacklist of common spam sources which is updated regularly.
Junk mail is currently not being stopped at the server. You will be able to use Eudora or Outlook to filter messages to a separate mailbox, and decide what to do with them from there.
WebMail cannot take advantage of the junk mail detection. Our current version of WebMail does not offer the required filtering features.

Choose your E-Mail program for instructions which detail the junk mail filtering:

For questions or comments, please contact the help desk at 424-3020 or E-Mail acshelp@uwosh.edu
Academic Computing, UW Oshkosh