Spam is now so commonplace many users consider it a fact of life. A study conducted last summer showed that on a single day in August, nearly 90 percent of all Internet traffic consisted of spam. Anti-spam legislation in the U.S., the CAN-SPAM Act, prohibits sending bulk email and prescribes penalties for doing so. But this act does virtually nothing to deter spammers residing outside of the U.S.

Users are likely to receive a moderate to a large amount of spam on their personal Internet Service Provider (ISP) account; many ISPs do not filter spam very well. Berkeley Lab’s spam wall filters spam very efficiently, but no spam wall is perfect. Some spam is still likely to get through.

Tips for cutting down on spam at the Lab:

• Forward each piece of spam you receive at the Lab to spam@lbl.gov. The spam wall here will obtain information that will cause it to tighten its filtering rules, making it less likely that the spam you have received will be able to get through the spam wall the next time the spammer sends more such messages.
• If possible, Web surf using a completely different computer from the one you use to read email. This helps prevent unscrupulous Web sites from being able to obtain your email address by downloading spyware into your machine when you visit these sites.