According to the University Campus Information Technologies and Educational Services (CITES) Web site, approximately 65 percent of the more than 1.5 million e-mails sent daily through the University system are spam.

As e-mail is becoming an increasingly essential method of communication, unsolicited e-mail – known as spam – has become more frequent. Students and faculty alike have complained in recent months about a significant increase in spam appearing in University e-mail accounts.

“I’ve gotten several spam e-mails, mostly having to do with different drugs, and it’s annoying,” said Kathryn Broderick, freshman in LAS. “One doesn’t expect that kind of junk on a University account. It also scares me that a virus may be sent through one of these spam e-mails, and that would be a huge problem.”

Not only is spam an annoying problem to many using CITES University e-mail, but it also costs the University money.

“We have to deliver the mail,” said Mike Corn, security director of CITES. “The mail infrastructure that we use is one which can support the number of messages that go through our system. So we pay for the capacity, even though the capacity is mostly junk mail. Currently, we will spend several hundred thousand dollars on a spam solution.”

While some students are being bombarded with such e-mails, others are left with little or no junk mail in their inboxes.

“I receive spam every once in awhile, probably every week,” said Tad Sligar, senior in engineering. “I’m sort of used to getting spam, so it doesn’t bother me all that much. However, it is quite disturbing because I never give my school e-mail address out. So I’m not sure how they are getting my address.”

Even though students may not be giving out their addresses, according to the University CITES Web site and the University of Hartford spam Web page, spammers still have an easy time targeting students. When sending mass e-mails, it is important to make sure to use the blind copy field (BCC) to hide recipient addresses. The exposure of e-mail addresses makes those listed more susceptible to spammers.

Securing Web pages is important as well when avoiding spam. Visiting “mail-to” links will ensure more junk mail. Even if a person clicks on any part of a spam e-mail, it will transmit a serial number back to the sender, allowing them to identify an account as active. In turn, this spammer will sell this address to others. Sending an e-mail back to the spammer requesting removal from their mailing list will again provide them with evidence of an active account.

In addition, there have been many concerns brought up by students and faculty regarding the Phonebook Gateway, also known as PH. Some claim the online student and faculty directory allows those with Web access too much freedom in obtaining personal information.

“It’s really annoying,” said Maria Surawska, freshman in FAA, of the spam. “It makes me wonder why and where these spammers are getting my e-mail from. Probably from the University people search, which is another problem because it gives away so much information. It’s sort of creepy.”

Through the PH system, people can access e-mail addresses, phone numbers, local addresses and permanent residence information. CITES has taken precautions to help students and faculty protect their privacy by allowing them to choose what personal information is available on PH, Corn said.

He said, however, that spammers using the system to access e-mail addresses is both unlikely and inconvenient for them. He suggested students be more careful when using their e-mail addresses and only “use the UIUC address for school and work-related things” in order to help reduce the amount of spam they receive.

The CITES Security Services Group is implementing a centralized anti-spam service that is projected to be ready by early 2005.

Corn said a random sampling of people participated in a trial run of the service in August and September. The 113 enlisted members were recruited to test four anti-spam programs for a two-week time period each. The results of the tests proved positive, Corn said.

“These tools are going to make a huge difference (in getting spam e-mails),” he said. “I don’t want to give people the impression that spam will magically disappear, but it’s just a way of controlling it.”

Some products being considered will evaluate incoming messages and give the e-mail user a percentage ranking in the header as to the likelihood of the message being spam. The user can then respond accordingly. Another such product both quarantines what it identifies as spam into another folder as well as providing a ranking in the header.

“I think this will save the average person at the University a significant amount of time,” Corn said of the new anti-spam products. “We’re going to try and deploy this as soon as possible.”