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We’ve all gotten them—those annoying, unwanted e-mails that clog our inbox and make us mentally sigh with frustration. By now, most people know what spam is, but not everyone knows how to get rid of it. By the beginning of next semester, University of Maryland computer users will find their lives made easier by a new program, SpamAssassin, which analyzes these irritating messages before they even reach your mailbox.

SpamAssassin works through the “@umd.edu” forwarding service. In other words, if a message is sent to your “@umd.edu” address, it will be analyzed by the SpamAssassin program before it is forwarded on to your official university e-mail account, which is listed in ARES.

“Basically, the program looks at your e-mails and decides which ones are probably spam,” said David Henry, OIT Director, Technical Architecture. “Then, it modifies the subject line of the e-mail to indicate that it’s probably junk before sending it to you.”

Users can set up filters on their e-mail programs to automatically move or delete anything that SpamAssassin has labeled as spam. “The program doesn’t delete e-mails for you because there’s a chance that it may mislabel a message that you actually want,” said Henry. “Setting up a filter on your e-mail program is a great idea. That way, you can check the junk messages periodically, make sure you haven’t missed anything important and then delete them. Your inbox stays clear.”

The program works no matter which e-mail client you use as long as the mail is sent to the “@umd.edu” forwarding address.

For information about setting up filters, visit the OIT Help Desk Web site at www.helpdesk.umd.edu.

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