Spam (unsolicited or junk email) is expected to cost $10 billion this year in the US in productivity loss, consumption of IT resources and help-desk support according to the consulting firm Ferris Research. Ferris believes that Spam accounts for 15-20 percent of incoming emails in the US. Spam is definitely a problem at USC and is currently being studied by the USC Spam Committee. Until federal or state legislation is enacted to help rid of spam.  It will continue to be a problem for each of us. The elimination of spam is the responsibility of everyone and has become easier to eliminate in GroupWise 6.5.

Junk Mail Handling in GroupWise 6.5
Use the Junk Mail Handling feature to decide what to do with unwanted Internet email that is sent to your GroupWise email address. Junk Mail Handling allows you to block or junk unwanted Internet email. When you block email, the email address or Internet domain (the text following the @ in an email address, such as sc.edu) is added to a Block List. When you junk email, the email address or Internet domain is added to a Junk List. You can also add addresses and domains directly to the Block and Junk Lists. Email that is junked is moved to a Junk Mail folder. Email that is blocked never arrives in your mailbox. A Trust List allows you add addresses and domains that you never want to block or junk. You can specify to junk all Internet email originating from all users except those in your personal address books (including the Frequent Contacts address book).

Junk mail handling

1. Right-click an item with an Internet address (such as anyname@somewhere.com).
2. Click Junk Mail.
3. Click Junk Sender.
   or
   Click Block Sender.
4. Select Junk Email From This Address or Block Email From This Address.
   
   If you select Junk, the address is added to the Junk List. All future email items from this email address will be delivered to the Junk Mail folder. You can specify that the items in this folder be automatically deleted after <n> days. This folder is not created in the folder list unless a Junk Mail option is enabled or an address or Internet domain is added to the Junk List (which enables the Junk List option).
   
   If you select Block, the address is added to the Block List. All future email items from this email address will not be delivered to your Mailbox.
   
   If the Junk List or Block List is not enabled, select Enable Junk List or Enable Block List.

Top 10 Ways Spammers Find People
Ever wonder just how your email address is added to a spammers list? Read on for the top ten ways spammers get their email addresses, according to FrontBridge.

1. Put an email address on a high traffic website.
2. Post or reply to a post on Usenet.
3. Post or reply to a post on a public web-based discussion group.
4. Register the address with a website that goes out of business and sells its email lists.
5. Register the address with a website that sells lists.
6. Subscribe to a porn site with the email address.
7. Reply to an opt-out email or click on an opt-out link in a message. Do NOT reply to a spam message—all this does is verify your address is real.
8. Use an address with a common name that can be easily guessed (e.g. bob@domainname.com)
9. Register a domain name.
10. Post an email address in a chat room.