Information Technology Systems and Services (ITSS) began deleting spam-tagged messages rather than delivering them yesterday afternoon to counteract problems with Webmail caused by a mysterious spike in message volume, a move that left some students wary.

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Mike Ramm

Flyer posted for those experiencing login problems at Yost House in Gov Co

The spam deletion program, which was scheduled to start later this year, only deletes messages coded [SPAM:#####]. According to Nancy Ware, ITSS project manager, the number of “#”s in the message tag is directly proportional to how confident the software is that the message is actually spam.

“This designation means the certainty factor of the e-mail being a spam message is in the 90 to 99 percent range,” Ware said. “When the central Stanford mail gateway servers receive the inbound message, it is sorted through this filter. Any message that is coded at this level will be discarded prior to any processing or forwarding. Therefore, these messages will never be received by the pobox servers and delivered to your e-mail address.”

This measure was taken in response to reports of e-mail problems, beginning on Sept. 27, which included an inability to check or receive messages, delays in receiving e-mail and blank screens or lack of connection while using Webmail.

Despite an e-mail, sent to campus RCCs, that described the new program, many students were previously unaware of the change and expressed some concerns about personal messages being marked as spam.

“I would only want it implemented if it were fairly conservative, since sometimes e-mail marked as spam is not,” said Michael Dinerstein, a senior.

Freshman Kimberly Chang shared those concerns.

“Well a lot of my e-mails are tagged as spam, so I wouldn’t want them to delete my spam e-mail,” she said.

Ware said that the problems were caused by a sudden spike in e-mail volume, but the causes of that jump are still a mystery. IT Services suspects that the spike was “due to high volumes of spam and increased e-mail volume related to the return of students,” Ware said. However, they were unable to rule out the possibility of a cyber-attack.

“Through the course of normal operations, we do provide additional allowances to handle surges and spikes in demand,” she said. “However, the load patterns of last week significantly exceeded these planning buffers. Regrettably this created a sudden degradation in our service.”

As of yesterday, Ware said IT Services had still never received a report of an e-mail tagged as the highest level of spam which turned out to be a false positive. But there are tools for looking at the headers of deleted messages and reporting false spam online at email.stanford.edu.

However, students will not be able to opt out of the level five spam deletion program.

“Since the e-mail is deleted right at the border of Stanford,” Ware said, “it is never even processed. However, we may go back and retool that in time.”

In the future, IT Services is planning on implementing an automatic deletion program for level three and four spam messages marked [SPAM:###] and [SPAM:####] for which there is less certainty about their junk-mail status. Students will have the choice to opt out of this lower scale program.

Despite concerns that personal mail might be weeded out, some students welcomed the program.

The spam software “actually works pretty well,” said senior Ryan Hopkins. He called the automatic deletions “a great idea.”

Senior Lindsey Shauer agreed.

“It’s gotten to the point where, when I check my email, I delete 75 percent of what is in my inbox,” she said. “Spam is ruining my life.”