If you want to supercharge your love life or lose 30 pounds in 30 days, just check your e-mail.
And then, hit the delete key.
"Spam" -- the term for junk e-mail -- was coined after a Monty Python skit. But its effects aren't nearly so funny. Real problems arise. Massive influxes of junk e-mail can, and do, shutdown entire networks. Typically spammers "spoof" operations, masking the true source of e-mails.
During the past two years, the amount of spam sent daily worldwide has doubled to more than seven billion messages, according to National Public Radio. On campus, experts say that some 35 percent of e-mail may be spam -- e-mail with hyped headings and lowly content that is annoying to delete and takes up valuable computer space.
Two weeks ago university technicians implemented "SpamAssassin" to squelch the spam tide. The software scans e-mail, tagging suspected spam by recognizing words used in mail headers and body text, and assigns points to suspicious words or phrases. Messages with a "spam score" over a certain threshold can be filtered away from users' inboxes. Campus experts say it is UC Davis' best anti-spam alternative at this point.
"A number of other higher education institutions are using SpamAssassin," said Bob Ono, campus information technology security coordinator. "We studied the issue extensively and decided upon software that has benefits in terms of cost -- it's free -- performance, flexibility, and its integration with our existing campus e-mail system and virus scanning system."
The campus offers e-mail users a couple of options to filter away spam:
The first option, according to a recent campus directive announcing SpamAssassin, allows users to configure their e-mail programs, such as Outlook or Eudora, to recognize SpamAssassin tags and create a folder into which spam can be filtered. For this option, a user will download all e-mail as usual, including those tagged as suspected spam. Mail tagged as spam will be directed to the user's spam folder, where the user can view and/or delete it.
The second option applies to users of the campus Web-based e-mail program, or "Geckomail." With this option, the directive states, users complete a Web-based form (see http://e-mail.ucdavis.edu/secure/spamfilter.pl) to set up spam filtering. SpamAssassin then tags suspected spam and moves those tagged messages to a spam folder (created automatically) directly on to the campus e-mail servers.
Under this approach, suspected spam messages will remain on the server for four weeks so users can view them if they so choose. In addition, weekly e-mail digests can notify users when there are messages in their spam folders.
Ono said employees can get more information on the campus's Spam Filtering Web pages at http://security.ucdavis.edu/spam.cfm. Faulty and staff also are encouraged to check with their departments' technology support personnel.
Departments managing their own e-mail servers are encouraged to use this same service. Instructions for configuring e-mail servers and technical contact information are posted on the Spam Filtering Web pages.
Ono says the SpamAssassin choice involved input since last November from a committee of campus technical support employees, staff from Information and Educational Technology, and even the campus legal counsel's office. He estimates some 8.7 million of the 25 million e-mails the campus receives each month may be spam. About 8 percent of the total campus e-mails are identified to be from known spammers, and automatically deleted. But it's always tricky to lay down anti-spam measures with total clarity. "What may be spam to you may not be to someone else," Ono said.
Greg Loge, network administrator for the College of Agricultural and Environ-mental Sciences, said that during the past six months his unit has seen a "big increase" in spam. "It varies by user. And it grows, because spammers use all kinds of tricks to find new e-mail addresses."
Californians fed up with unwanted e-mail advertisements could sue for $1,000 per message under legislation passed overwhelmingly last week by the state Assembly.
Still, the impact a solitary state law can have upon spam is questionable.
Associate Campus Counsel Deborah Allison says that while many states have statutes regulating spam, several courts have held that state regulation in this area violates the commerce clause of the United States Constitution. Because use of the Internet crosses state boundaries, these courts have found that state laws impermissibly subject interstate use of the Internet to inconsistent regulations. As a result, emerging federal laws will be a critical component of managing unsolicited commercial e-mails.
"Spam comes from around the world," notes Allison. "Therefore, the problem may require not only federal attention, but international attention as well."
Barring that, hit the delete key.