The UW will soon begin implementing more vigorous procedures for preventing computers on the UW network from being used to originate spam.
A small change will be made on June 27 affecting UW dial-in modem users who have their e-mail program set to send e-mail using a service other than the central UW services. Details are described in the Web page listed below. A relatively small number of people use the modem pool in this way.
Beginning Aug. 8, Computing & Communications will be implementing e-mail changes affecting many more people. On that date, authentication will be required to send e-mail through the central UW e-mail services. Settings in many desktop e-mail programs will need to be changed to prompt for UW NetID and password.
Both of these changes will be taken care of automatically for users who send e-mail through WebPine, or those who use Pine through UW servers named Homer, Dante or Aagaard.
鈥淲e encourage users to make these changes as soon as possible,鈥� says Oren Sreebny, director of client services and learning technologies for Computing & Communications.
Detailed instructions for updating configurations are available at here
Information about systems not described on this page is available directly from C&C, at help@cac.washington.edu.
鈥淲e have had lots of spam sent from UW-infected computers, often without the computer owner鈥檚 even knowing it is happening,鈥� says Dave Wall, consultant for client services at C&C. 鈥淪pam coming from the UW sometimes prompts major Internet services to block UW e-mail, as happened last November with AOL. So, we needed to implement more security for how e-mail messages are sent.鈥�