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SPAM:
MSU Mail by Marilyn King "Hey, MSU Mail, I don't want your Cialas, stocks or watches!" If you go to Michigan State and are a frequent user of MSU e-mail, then you most likely understand the meaning of the title of that Facebook group: spam e-mails. As the year progresses, the amount of Spam that students are getting in their inbox has increased by a large amount. The e-mails are about anything from weight loss to Viagra, and they usually trick the unsuspecting e-mail user into opening them because the subject line looks like a normal e-mail or forward from a friend. Over the holiday season, a particular kind of spam was flooding MSU students' inboxes, claiming to be an ad for watches. These e-mails were especially creepy because at the bottom of the advertisement, there were pieces to a fictional story, what seemed to be a type of murder-mystery. Why do spammers do these things? To get your attention. But every user of e-mail, whether it is MSU web mail or not, needs to be careful. Many times, this spam is a form of fraud, or even worse, a virus. For an MSU web mail user, there is a rather simple solution: set up a spam folder. This folder catches the e-mails, and instead of flooding your inbox, the e-mails are sent to a spam folder that you can just empty regularly without ever having to open or otherwise deal with these e-mails. Once you log into mail.msu.edu, click on the preferences tab at the top of the screen and scroll down to where it says Mailmail settings. Then select "Move to Spam folder." A folder to catch your spam will then be created soon after selecting this setting. This is safer than the "block spam" option, because the assessment of spam that the computer uses may not be accurate every time and may accidentally discard an important e-mail. In other e-mail systems, such as yahoo or Google, there is also an option to block spam. Sometimes this spam blocker needs to be turned up higher so that sneaky spam will not make its way into your inbox. Be wise with your e-mails. If something looks questionable or the user name is not one you recognize, simply do not open it.
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