SpamBayes junk email filtering software training will be held Tuesday, September 14 and Thursday, October 7 for faculty and staff. --Lori Mardis, Librarian/Instructor

Over half of email in your Inbox is typically junk email, most of it nuisance mail rather than malicious. However, malicious Spam, such as financial scams, are on the rise. The most well-known of these, the Nigerian scam has continued to circulate on the Northwest campus, along with the Citibank scam asking you to update your account information. The latter scam prompted Campus Safety to send a mass mailing to students, faculty and staff warning them of this fraudulent email.

Because of the ever-increasing influx of Spam inundating campus inboxes, Information Systems has taken steps to help faculty and staff better cope with junk email by acquiring email filtering software for Microsoft Outlook. SpamBayes training will be held from 4 to 5 p.m. on Tuesay, September 14, 2004, and from 3:30 to 5 p.m. on Thursday, October 7, 2004, on the second floor of Owens Library in room 250.

SpamBayes sorts email so that users do not have to do it manually, directing Spam email into one of two folders: one for known Spam and one for suspsected Spam. However, the program works only when Microsoft Outlook is open and running.

To sign up to participate in the junk email filter software training session contact Information Systems-Client Computing Manager, Merlin Miller, at merlin@nwmissouri.edu.

Participants should bring their notebook computer to the training session. Those attending without notebook computers will be able to observe, but not participate, in the hands-on portion of the training session.

According to Miller, users can take the following steps to help fight Spam:

• Activate available junk email filters and install junk email filtering software.
• Never reply to spam, even in order to "unsubscribe," unless you initiate the subscription via the company website.
• Do not give out your primary email address indiscriminately.
• Carefully and critically review the privacy policies of Web sites where you register, to make sure they will not sell or circulate your email address to third parties.