Spam filtering

The University filters a great deal of spam sent to ANU email addresses.

Spam filtering is done by looking at the content of the message and scoring it against a set of rules. Each rule is worth a number of points and at the end of scanning the message, the system simply adds up the number of points that a particular message has scored. The more points a message scores the more likely it is going to be spam. Both the content of the message and the formatting and other characteristics are used when classifying.

When is it spam?

Messages with more than a 50% likelihood of being spam are rejected.

Messages with between a 30% and 50% chance of being spam are delivered, marked with an additional header to assist in client-side filtering. Mail identified at this level will have the header

X-Spam-Score: * (5) added.

But what if it's not spam?

If you continue to receive mail from a particular address which is being marked as spam we can "whitelist" this address. The whitelist is a list of trusted email address which do not have their content scanned for spam. To have an email address added to this list please email the address to doi.helpdesk@anu.edu.au along with details of why it should be added to the whitelist. Email addresses submitted will be reviewed before being accepted and added to the whitelist.