Off course at the start of any quarter, something has to go wrong that costs me a lot of time

For the last 3 weeks, my domain has been used as a spoofing address. This is when a spammer uses some domain they do not own (mine) and then uses that address to then spam hundreds/thousands/millions of other normal users. And of course these messages are falsified to make it look like they come from that domain (mine).

The net result is… last Wednesday evening I returned from class and found about 2,000 bounced messages in my in-box. 2k bounced messages makes me think that the spammers must have sent a LOT of messages using my address to generate this many bounced messages… argh!

This has been going on for about 3 weeks, but not to this extent. Needless to say it was hard for me to to discern real messages from meaningless messages.

I have spent a lot of time this week dealing with the situation and think it is under control… but, a word of warning!

I’ve always had spam plug-ins to deal with spam (more now), but it is important for you to know that if you send me a message - you need to ensure that the subject of your message is concise and relevant to the class you are in… otherwise a spam filter may just put your message in my Junk mailbox and I may never see it.

If you are sending me e-mail, PLEASE include the course name and number in either the subject or the body of the message.

I have lots of students and it really does take some time to learn who is in which class. Putting the class name and number does a couple of things:

• If COIN or CAST is in the subject or body of the message, my filters ensure that your message is not put in my Junk mailbox… I will see it!
• It helps me organize my messages. I get a lot of e-mail, and if you do not tell me which class you are in… the message may not be dealt with by me, and it helps me to then file your messages.
• This is what I asked you to do, and expect your do, in the materials for every class… you need to follow those instructions. Otherwise I may never see your message or actually “receive” your attachment/assignment!

Let me know if you have questions or issues.