Additionally, your reply might provide further valuable information such as your gender, profession, phone number or other items that you might typically include in your signature. A common measure is to notify the postmaster of the domain where the spam originated from to request action against the originator of the junk mail message. While system administrators and Project NEThics staff do not have the resources to address all of the possible junk mail that is received, they are interested in protecting your rights. They can also assist users in deciphering whom to complain to since many of the junk mail messages are forged or efforts are made to disguise the identity of the sender. Mail can be filtered at many different levels.
System administrators can block individuals or sites that have demonstrated a pattern of abuse.
However, filtering will require constant attention and effort in the junk mail era. It is not set up so someone can pull the entire database of users. The recent experience of one academic department also illustrates the vulnerability of departmental Web sites that publish their employee's e-mail addresses on their Web site. An investigation concluded the sender took all the e-mail addresses from the Web site and targeted the faculty in the department because his question was relevant to their field of expertise. E-mail system administrators across campus have taken several measures to reduce the impact of junk mail upon the daily operations of the university.