As part of an increased effort to slow the flood of spam e-mail, Cornell Information Technologies (CIT) will begin rejecting even more incoming messages in the new year. CIT has been running Sophos PureMessage, a spam-identifying system, in full production for more than two years. PureMessage assigns a spam-probability score to each incoming message, based on a complex set of rules. As of Jan. 15, any message rated 80 percent or higher will be rejected, and you will never see it. This will reduce Cornell's e-mail traffic by more than 500,000 messages every day.

Real messages coming through Cornell with false-positive ratings at the 80-percent level are rare, but CIT will ensure that the sender of an e-mail with a false-positive rating has the best possible chance of knowing the message was not received, why that happened and what to do about it. The sender will get a message saying the e-mail bounced.

CIT will add # signs in the subject line for mail that has a spam-probability score between 80 and 55 percent.

If you prefer to receive e-mail with all spam included, CIT has created a way to opt out of the spam curtailment process. Anyone who opts out will continue to receive all messages, just as they do today.

To change your opt-out status:

You can opt in or opt out at any time, and changes will be updated every night.

If you receive your mail through a departmental address (like somebody@astro.cornell.edu), see CIT Web pages for details on how you will be affected.

For more information, visit http://www.cit.cornell.edu/computer/email/puremessage/curtailment.html. For assistance with opting out, call the CIT Contact Center (HelpDesk) at (607) 255-8990 or send e-mail to helpdesk@cornell.edu.

Leslie Intemann is a technical communicator with Cornell Information Technologies.