Using ECE SPAM Filters
The ECE mail server has the ability to filter out SPAM. In order to use the mail filters effectively, you will need to read this page carefully. Please take a few minutes to read through the entire document to understand how the filters in the ECE department work.
Email can generally be broken into two classifications: wanted and unwanted. We refer to unwanted email, particularly when it is unsolicited, as UCE, or SPAM. The opposite of SPAM is often referred to as HAM, which is email you wish to receive. When using the ECE email filtering, we use a folder called Junk to train your SPAM filters. To classify your email correctly it is important to know the difference between these two terms.
The SPAM filters used on the ECE mail server is based on Bayesian filtering. This is simply a statistical method used to determine if a given email is likely to be SPAM. Fortunately, you don't need to know anything about how the filter works, but if you are interested, you can visit Spamassassin and Dspam for more information.
Logon to the ECE Webmail interface at https://webmail.ece.msstate.edu/:
- Select the email that you think is SPAM. You can use CTRL key to select multiple emails.
- Click on the Junk button on the toolbar.
- This action will transfer the selected email(s) to the Junk folder and train the SPAM filter. This would take approximately about two hours.
- Based on this training, the SPAM filter automatically places incoming emails that it identifies as spam into the Junk folder.
- You may however find some of those emails as HAM. In such a case, open the Junk folder, select those email(s) and click on the Not Junk button on the toolbar to train the SPAM filter accordingly.
- You may want to empty the Junk folder on a periodic basis as it is not done automatically by the system.
The SPAM filters are automatically enabled on every ECE email account and trained to handle general SPAM. You need to train them to work according to the emails that you receive.
The old mail server used two different folders called nonspam and spam to train the spam filters, the new mail server DOES NOT use them any more. You must use the ECE webmail to train the spam filter, any email client may not equipped to do the same.
