E-mail Services
E-mail Forwarding
AIT maintains an e-mail forwarding service (available through the ITS Secure Server) so that mail.psu.edu and email.psu.edu users may forward e-mail to another preferred e-mail address. Once an Access Account is activated, it is joined to a number of services, including e-mail services. For example, if your user ID is xyz123, your public e-mail address would be xyz123@psu.edu. Those who wish to use another preferred e-mail account (whether that of a college/department, a third-party ISP, etc.) may utilize this forwarding service. E-mail communications may continue through one's Penn State address, but mail will automatically forward to the preferred account.
E-mail+ Addresses
Penn State's e-mail servers permit the use of addresses utilizing a "+" as a result of updates made to Penn State Directory Services in 2005. Typically, addresses with a "+" are used for finer-grained sorting and filtering of e-mail messages on the client-side.
LISTSERV
Information Technology Services (ITS) uses the LISTSERV® e-mail list system to manage over 5,000 mailing lists containing a total of over 1,000,000 subscribers. Classes, clubs, committees and professional organizations use the lists for announcements and discussions. AIT maintains the server for this service.
Spam Filtering
In an effort to reduce the amount of unwanted, unsolicited e-mail, ITS activated spam scoring on incoming e-mail going through psu.edu. On the server-side, a "mail filter" runs on Penn State's incoming e-mail servers to scan for and identify spam. The mail is analyzed, scored, and flagged as spam per the rules used for Penn State's e-mail servers. The filter also inserts mail headers in order to explain the results of the spam filtering. Users may add and create filters to client-side e-mail programs in order to filter and handle messages flagged as spam. In partnership with this spam filtering, Penn State WebMail runs an incoming server-side mail filter that inserts a mail header in order to explain the spam filtering results. This feature is active by default; however users may choose to deactivate it via WebMail's built-in "Options" screen. Additional information is available via the following links:
The existing spam scoring filters have been upgraded to a new version and the database behind the filters have been "trained" to score all incoming e-mail. With this improved version of spam scoring, AIT has played a significant role in decreasing the amount of incoming unsolicited mail, as up to 30 million spam messages per day are filtered at the server level.
"Vacation" Auto-reply Messaging Service
The auto-reply messaging service, commonly referred to as the "vacation" service, allows Penn State faculty and staff to create automated responses to send to incoming mail when they are not available to check e-mail. Also, this service has been upgraded to handle spam. Any e-mail marked with a spam flag of "yes" is no longer sent a reply, thus preventing the propagation of one's e-mail address on spammers' lists.
Virus Filtering
To dramatically reduce the amount of virus proliferation, virus protection software has been installed on Penn State's outgoing (smtp.psu.edu) and incoming (psu.edu) e-mail servers. Any message with a virus sent from Penn State through smtp.psu.edu or to Penn State through psu.edu automatically forwards notification to Security Operations and Services (SOS, a unit of ITS), regardless of its final destination (such as an e-mail account on a machine maintained by a Penn State college or department). Between 2004 and 2005, over 6,000,000 viral e-mail messages were blocked.
