What is SPAM? - email that you have not asked for and don’t want. SPAM messages are created by automated email programs and sent to thousands of people at once.

Why do people send SPAM? - Usually because they want to get money from you, but some people send messages hoping to offend as many people as possible, or pass on a political message. Messages will tempt you to visit websites and buy products you really don’t need. Well run businesses do not use SPAM to sell their products. A large number of SPAM messages are sent to sell illegal goods.

Helping to eliminate SPAM
Spam, viruses and other unwelcome email content have become a serious problem for internet users and in response Information Services has subscribed to the MessageLabs anti-spam filtering service. 

The aim of this hosted service is to prevent spam from reaching our network in the first place and to prevent any bogus messages from compromised accounts being sent from the university.

How does the new spam filtering service work?

All mail coming in to the university from the internet first passes through the MessageLabs filtering service. Any messages suspected of being spam are returned to the sender.  These messages are not deleted, but are kept in a quarantine folder on the MessageLabs service. Thus, if you suspect that a message you are expecting has been wrongly identified as spam, you can contact our Service Desk and ask them to retrieve the message for you.

You should see the following reassuring text at the bottom of messages received from, and sent to, external email addresses:

For more information please visit http://www.brighton.ac.uk/is/staffmail

About MessageLabs

MessageLabs services are currently used in over 83 countries and customers include the whole of UK central government, 35% of local government and 30% of FTSE 350 organisations. More significantly MessageLabs have a 99% success rate in capturing spam and removing threats. We anticipate that by using this service we will be able to protect the university's digital reputation and prevent future blocking of the university's email systems. We also expect to virtually eliminate internet spam and hoaxes from your inboxes. See www.messagelabs.co.uk/ for further  information.

What should you do when you receive SPAM? – Delete it immediately. Never reply to a SPAM message. Don’t even ask to be taken off the mailing list, because then the SPAM senders will know your email address is real and active and you will receive even more messages. Never click on links in a SPAM message. SPAMmers use similar techniques to people spreading viruses. A SPAM message could be concealing a virus. If you click a link, you could infect your computer, or you could find offensive material (pornography etc) displayed on your screen. Don't forward your message on to others, you'll just be spreading the misery further!

If the message is really offensive and you feel it needs action then you can  either

• Complain to the internet service the message appeared to come from. Send your complaint to abuse@samedomain replacing ‘samedomain’ with the right hand side of the address. For example if your message came from Johnny@fastnet.co.uk, send your complaint to abuse@fastnet.co.uk. Bear in mind that most SPAM addresses are forged!  or ..
• Send it to us and we will look into it – forward the message to servicedesk@brighton.ac.uk We do not have the resources to deal with all the SPAM that arrives.