What can I do if I have infected files or my mailbox is too full?

To assist you in managing your electronic mail, Ferris has purchased a campus-wide license for PureMessage, an antivirus and spam reduction software package.

How will PureMessage affect me?

PureMessage automatically refuses any email to your account that contains a virus. If no virus is attached to the message, the software attempts to diagnose whether the message is spam (unsolicited "junk" mail).

PureMessage assigns a probability percentage to each non-infected inbound message as to whether the message is considered spam. If the likelihood of it being spam is more than 50%, the software inserts "[x% SPAM]" into the subject line. If the possibility of the message being spam is 80% or higher, PureMessage quarantines the message.

Lotus Notes users will be notified three times a day (6:00 a.m., 12:00 p.m., and 3:00 p.m.) of any new messages that have been placed in quarantine. If no new mail has been quarantined, PureMessage does not send a notification. An example of a quarantined digest message is shown below.

How do I get a message out of quarantine?

To release a message from the quarantine, you need to click on the ID number of the message you wish to release and then send the message it generates. It may take a couple of minutes to process your request, so be patient and send only one release request. An example release message is shown below.

How do I get all my messages out of quarantine?

To release all of the messages that are currently quarantined, you can reply to the notification message itself. Once the messages have been released from the PureMessage software, they will be delivered to your e-mail in-box. Quarantined messages are held for 10 days before being automatically deleted from the system. (This time period will be longer when Ferris is closed in December and during the summer semester.)

What if I want to receive some of the quarantined mail?

If any of your e-mails are consistently being quarantined, you may forward that e-mail to whitelist@ferris.edu after releasing the e-mail from quarantine. The e-mail will be reviewed and if it does not contain spam, the sender's address will be placed on a white list where all e-mails from that address will be allowed to reach you without the need to manually release it from quarantine. Future versions of PureMessage may include the ability for the end-user to set up a white list and black list, enabling delivery of the addresses on the white list and quarantining the addresses on the black list.

I received something in my email that I want to report as possible spam, what do I do?

Forward the email to spammail@ferris.edu, or Spam Mail, and any future mail from that address will be blocked from being received. Note, however, that some addresses you might think are sending spam, other people may want messages from, for example, advertisements from a major store. They may or may not be blocked.

What if I don't want to have my messages diagnosed for spam?

If you do not want to participate in this service, send an email to PureMessage@ferris.edu requesting that you would like to be excluded from participation.

Portions of this text are used with permission from cdt.org