Setting up your Squirelmail SPAM filter.

Yes, wouldn’t it be grand if you actually could receive a fortune in ill-gotten Nigerian gold? Or win a free iPod. Or get that low, low mortgage rate of 3%. And how many ways will they come up with to spell ‘Viagra’ or ‘Cialis’?

Spam is a fact of the modern internet. It cannot be stopped, and nearly one of every two emails sent is an unsolicited advertisement. We have installed a spam filter on our mail server called SpamAssassin. SpamAssassin does not delete any e-mail that is sent to you; it simply allows you to have most spam messages automatically filtered into a folder called ‘Spam’ within your e-mail account rather than cluttering up your Inbox.

SpamAssassin works by assigning a "spam score" to each piece of incoming mail. It checks for a long list of characteristics that are associated with spam: for example, the word "viagra" in the Subject line; the sender information does not contain an actual e-mail address; the sender's IP address is on a blacklist of open mail server relays, etc. Each one of these characteristics that the message contains increases the overall "spam score" of the message. The higher the score, the more likely it is that the message is spam. A message with a score of 10 or more is very likely to be spam, a score of five is more tentative, and anything lower than that might be legitimate. Each person can decide what spam score should be considered spam for messages coming into their account. For a more complete listing of the types of tests that SpamAssassin performs, see http://www.spamassassin.org/tests.html.

We have set the default score that a message should receive to be considered spam at ‘5’. As you use the Spamassassin filter you should review the messages routed to your ‘Spam’ mailbox to check that no legitimate messages are being sent there. If you find that no legitimate mail is being tagged as spam and messages that are spam are still being delivered to your Inbox, lower your spam score to ‘4’. If after reviewing your spam mailbox, you find messages that are legitimate being marked as spam, raise your spam score to ‘6’.

The following instructions will help you configure your personal Spamassassin spam filter.

**Note** You must have an account on receptor in order to utilize the Spamassassin spam filter. People still using old genetics accounts should contact support@genetics.med.harvard.edu to have their accounts moved to receptor.

Log in to the Squirelmail interface at https://receptor.med.harvard.edu. Regardless of whether you use the Squirelmail interface to check you email, or a local desktop client, this is the means by which you will configure your spam filter.

The first screen you see after logging in will have a series of links across the top.

Click on the Options link. You will see the following screen:

Feel free to explore all of the configuration options possible. To configure your spam filter, click on ‘Spam Filter Configuration’. The screen will look like this:

First, click on the red button to enable the Spam Filter. The screen will be reloaded and the button will turn green. The server automatically creates a folder called ‘Spam’ underneath your Inbox when your account is created. Click on the ‘Select to Change’ drop down menu to change the Spam Folder from ‘INBOX’ to ‘Spam’. Your screen should look like this:

Click on the ‘Change Settings’ button and you are done. Remember to check the Spam mailbox every once in a while to insure that no legitimate messages are being tagged as spam.