Calvin's Spam Firewall: Overview

Objectives for a Spam Firewall
When we researched the various spam firewall products we looked for a product that would:

1. Reduce a sufficient percentage of spam coming into e-mail inboxes.
2. Not block any legitimate messages.
3. Work without requiring user action.
4. Allow users to set personal settings.

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How does the Firewall work?

It checks e-mail messages coming to @calvin.edu mailboxes for:

• Known spammers
• Viruses
• Attachments such as bat, cmd, com, cpl, exe, dif, scr, vbs
• Content matching known characteristics of spammers and phishers
• Fake senders

If it passes those checks, it is assigned a spam score. What happens to the message is then determined by:

• Your personal settings
• The system defaults

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What can I expect from the default settings?

• Considerably less spam in your inbox, but some amount
• Less than 15 minutes a day spent managing spam
• The option of using Junk Mail Handling under GroupWise or similar features under other e-mail programs
  • Use caution when adding these features, as you may inadvertently block important messages

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Customization

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