Campus implements new spam-blocking system

Starting on Tuesday, October 19, after 11 p.m., the campus will begin implementing a new spam-blocking system known as "SBL/XBL blocking" for all incoming "@ucsc.edu" email.

This system, which the School of Engineering and Physical and Biological Sciences have already been using, checks all incoming "@ucsc.edu" messages against a list of known spammers and rejects any message that comes from a server known to send large amounts of spam.

This approach blocks spam "at the front door" and doesn't allow it into the system, which has, in the past, resulted in wasted user time, storage space, and processing power.

When a message is rejected, the sender will receive a bounce message. Spammers will ignore these messages, but legitimate senders will know that they need to try sending email to you from another address or that they need to contact their Internet Service Provider (ISP).

This system is one that has been proven to have a very low incidence of "false positive" errors. In addition, this system is expected to reduce significantly the load on the campus mail servers.

The use of the SBL/XBL spam-blocking system has been approved by the CruzMail Steering Committee, the Information Technology Committee (ITC), the Committee on Computing and Telecommunications (CCT), the Executive Advisory Committee (EAC), and ITS management.

For more information, including FAQs, please go to:
its.ucsc.edu/services/cruzmail/reducing_spam.php.

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