Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Messages I send to people at Cornell are getting marked as spam. How can I stop this from happening?
A: PureMessage checks for a few hundred spam "clues," so if your newsletter or other message is being labeled as spam, you may be able to change your format slightly to avoid this problem. See our Spam Rules page for more information.
Another possibility is that your host or domain has been reported for sending spam, and have been added to a list of bad actors (known as an RBL - Realtime Blackhole List). Sometimes this happens in error, but this tends to be self-correcting, as these "blacklists" are frequently updated, and the oldest entries removed. If you think this may be the problem (for example, if messages you send to several different places is being rejected or not delivered), you should contact your ISP (Internet Service Provider) for help.
If an e-mail newsletter or other mailing needed by several people is being mistakenly labeled as spam, please write to the CIT's e-mail system administrators, virus-spam-mgr@cornell.edu, to request that the filters on the central mail servers be modified to accommodate your needs. (This is called "whitelisting" - the opposite of "blacklisting.")
Q: Why can't CIT just delete spam, instead of making everyone set up filters or delete spam messages one by one?
A:This is an issue we discussed with many of our customer groups, and the consensus was for us to err on the side of caution. We'd rather let a few spam messages get through than delete a few valid messages. So we automatically delete any message with a spam probability over 80%, and label messages with a probability over 55% for you to handle as you see fit.
Q: Will all Cornell e-mail be screened by PureMessage?
A: PureMessage is implemented only on CIT's postoffice servers. If you read your e-mail via the CIT postoffice servers (the long form of your address would be a variation of @postofficeX.mail.cornell.edu), you will benefit from this tool.
If your address ends differently (for example, with @something.cornell.edu), your department or college is routing your e-mail (instead of CIT) and may or may not be filtering spam or virus-infected messages. Your local technology support professional can tell you.
Q: Does this mean CIT is reading my e-mail?
A: No. The filtering tool, PureMessage, enables CIT to continue its policy of not routinely monitoring an individual's communications. The tool can also be tailored to meet the community's needs.
Cornell's policy on Responsible Use of Electronic Communications supports spam filtering or blocking as an appropriate restriction on the university's network, in accordance with university policy prohibitions against harassment. However, given Cornell's commitments to freedom with responsibility and to free inquiry, the decision to begin spam and virus filtering was made with great care.
Q: What else can I do to deal with spam and viruses?
A: For spam, set up filters in your e-mail program to automatically delete messages that PureMessage suspects are spam, or to set these messages aside in a separate folder from your regular e-mail. CIT's Eudora documentation includes instructions for setting up filters and dealing with spam.
To ward off viruses, keep Norton AntiVirus running all the time and update it at least once a week. Although most viruses and worms travel by e-mail, about a fifth of them arrive by other routes, such as file sharing and infected web sites. PureMessage filtering can do nothing to protect against these; up-to-date antivirus software is the best defense.