Sophos PureMessage spam filtering is available on all ECE/CS accounts. It is enabled by default.
To view your account’s individual anti-spam settings, to disable spam filtering entirely, or to view your blocked messages visit:
and use your UNIX [username]@eecs.tufts.edu to login
(i.e., if your username was arober01, you would login using arober01@eecs.tufts.edu) and your UNIX password.
Disabling PureMessage Spam Filtering
If you would like to opt-out of the PureMessage anti-spam service, login to the mailfilter website and proceed to the options page. Select the “Disable” check box and press the Submit button. Your incoming mail will continue to be filtered for viruses. Additionally, we do a small amount of server-side filtering using the blacklist maintained at cbl.abuseat.org, but no other message blocking takes place.
Viewing Blocked Messages in PureMessage
Once logged in, you will be presented with a list of messages that have been blocked in the last week. The blocked messages page is updated every 10 minutes, so it may take 10-15 minutes from the time a blocked message is received until it is viewable in the web interface.
In the rare event that a legitimate message is blocked, you can check the message in the list and press the “Deliver Message” button to have it released into your inbox. If the message is from a sender you want to always trust (such as a mailing list) you can press the “Deliver & Approve Sender” button and the sender will automatically be added to your white list.
Enabling Blocked Message Notification
If you prefer, you can enable periodic automated email notification from the PureMessage server, which will include a list of all new blocked email messages for your account. To enable these automated notification emails login to the mailfilter website and go to the options page. Select the “Notify me” check box and press the Submit button.
Approved and Denied Sender Lists
You may also create your own custom white-list and black-list of senders. After logging in to the mailfilter website, click the link to “Approved Senders” to create a list of senders whose mail will automatically be delivered to your inbox, regardless of its spam score. Similarly, use the “Blocked Senders” list to prevent particular senders from reaching your inbox.
Virus and Spam Filtering Applied to all Messages
All incoming email goes through three filters before the optional PureMessage anti-spam filter. The CBL and sender verification filters have been in place since early-2005.
- Incoming mail is checked against cbl.abuseat.org. All email received from hosts listed in the CBL will be rejected. CBL is an automated UCE (Unsolicited bulk Email) tracker. Essentially, the site maintains a number of “spamtraps” (bogus e-mail addresses which don’t belong to anyone). Any sites that send email to the bogus “spamtraps” are added to the blocked list. The site has a webpage from which you can have a host removed, but most junk email senders do not bother.
- Finally, messages are scanned for viruses. If a virus is found within the body of a message it will not be delivered. While we find that this virus scan will catch most viruses and the definition files on the mail server are updated regularly, it is still critical that you use anti-virus software on your desktop, and use caution when opening any attachment.
Using SpamAssassin
We strongly discourage using SpamAssassin. PureMessage employs many of the same tests that SpamAssassin does, as well a variety of other tests. You may find that with PureMessage enabled there are very few additional messages for SpamAssassin to catch.Additional documentation on the PureMessage end-user interface is also available in the Help link on the left navigation bar after you have logged in.