In attempt to reduce the volume of spam flowing into Bowdoin inboxes, the Department of Information Technology (IT) undertook a lockdown of course email lists. The lockdown limits access to class email lists to students in the class.
The change, which was effected last Wednesday after a fact-finding and impact-analysis mission, caught some staff off guard. For Director of the Quantitative Skills Program Linda Kirstein, the change posed a challenge to her tutors and study group leaders, who require access to the course email lists to communicate with students in their study groups. Initially after the lockdown, tutors and study group leaders could not access the necessary course email lists because they were not enrolled in the courses. However, IT quickly rectified the problem, giving such students special permission to use these mailing lists.
"It was a brief frustration, but they took care of it quickly," Kirstein said.
Senior IT Administrator Randy Pelletier believes that as spammers find new ways to avoid detection and get around existing filters, it will become increasingly challenging to balance the College's communication needs and keep junk mail out of inboxes.
"[Spam] has become a constantly moving target and evolves quite rapidly, in finding ways through and around unsolicited email prevention mechanisms," he said.
According to Pelletier, Bowdoin is not alone in taking more extreme measures to reduce the flood of spam.
"Other universities are doing anything possible without completely crushing communications," Pelletier said.
He has already noticed a reduction in the flow of spam.
"The results were instantaneous," he said.