Email Frequently Asked Questions

Email Addresses

Why are addresses in Physics of the form j.blogs1@physics.ox.ac.uk not joe.blogs@physics.ox.ac.uk?
The difference between the forms of Physics email addresses and other Oxford University addresses is historical - Physics began using email many years before most departments. You may find that the longer form of the address also works, the best way to find out is to try it! Hopefully Physics will move towards the University standard in the future, indeed many Physics users have already moved to the longer form with the old address kept as an alias. Email the Physics Postmaster if you wish to change.
Can I change my email address?
Generally this isn't a problem, but decisions are made on a case by case basis. Normally the old address will be kept as an alias. Email the Physics Postmaster.

Spam Filtering

I have received mail from a mailing list which I do not want, should I send them an email to unsubscribe?
Before sending an email to an address given in an unwanted email you should be sure that the mail comes from a valid mailling list. "Unsubscribe" links at the bottom of spam mails are a popular method for spammers to harvest valid email addresses, using these links will only increase the amount of spam you receive. However, if the mailing list is one you have subscribed to in the past or is a legitimate list you should indeed send an email to the list administrator to unsubscribe you.
Can you to block email from a particular person?
Blocking email from a particular sender address usually does not have much effect, since it is trivially easy to fake or change a sender address. However, if you are receiving annoying email from a particular person we can block that address from sending to physics. Please send the address and reasons why you want it blocked (e.g. a copy of an email sent to you) to the Physics Postmaster.
Can you to block email of this sort?
Please forward the complete email to the Physics Postmaster, asking to have it blocked. When doing this, it is vital that you include the full headers of the original email.
I have received a message saying mail from my account was blocked as spam. I never sent that mail, is my account compromised?
Probably not. Sender addresses are often faked and you will just have received an unjustified bounce. You can check the email headers of the rejected mail (see stopspam.org for details).
Why are you blocking email from address x@y.com? I know this person!
Since sender addresses are easily faked in email, we do not block based on sender address except for very few exceptions. It is most likely that this message was not blocked because of where it came from but rather because of what it contained. Please see above to find out how to prevent that.
Can you whitelist the address x@y.com?
Since we do not block on sender address (see last question), it does not make very much sense to whitelist on sender address either. If someone has a problem getting mail to you it would be much better to adapt the spam filter to not reject this mail. This way, if someone else sends or receives a similar message it also does not get rejected.
How much spam does the department receive?
This varies according to day of the week and even global weather conditions (spam levels dropped by a significant amount during the last Florida hurricane seasons, because a lot of spammer companies reside in Florida). On average, about 70-85% of the mail received by the central physics mail hubs is rejected as spam or malware (viruses). This is a rejection volume of approximately 15,000-20,000 mails a day.
What software do you use for spam filtering?
We use the excellent open-source SpamAssassin software for classifying mail. The rejection and inspection process is handled by our mail MTA Exim with Tom Kistner's exiscan patches applied. Our sincere and heartfelt thanks go to the diligent authors and maintainers of this software.
An email to me has not arrived, has it been rejected?
We never drop mail silently, that means a sender of a suspected spam message should always be notified by a return error message that his mail did not get through. If the sender received no such error message but you still think his/her mail was rejected by our filters, please send the detail of the expected message (date/time it was sent, sender address, recipient address) to the Physics Postmaster.
How dare you reject my mail, why can't you let users delete unwanted mail for themselves?
Sadly this has become less and less feasible. Most users do not (and/or do not care to) know about the spam filtering mechanisms their email client offers them. The volumes of UCE being what they are, spam costs organisations huge amounts of money by wasting their employees time. Users also do not appreciate receiving emails with explicit or otherwise disturbing content at their workplace. For these and other reasons we have decided to reject suspected spam outright.
I don't want my email spam or virus checked, can't I delete unwanted mail myself?
No. You might being willing to waste time deleting email, but the department doesn't want to pay for your time whilst you do so!
I am trying to send an email to a member of the Physics Dept, why has my message been rejected?
If the error message looks similar to this:
```
SMTP error from remote mailer after end of data:
host sentinel.physics.ox.ac.uk [163.1.x.x]:
550 Rejected as spam,please see http://www1.physics.ox.ac.uk/help/spam-rejection.html
```
your mail was classified as UCE by our filter and rejected. If you feel this rejection was unfair, please send the complete rejection mail,including the original message headers and body to the Physics Postmaster. Feel free to include any reasons why you think the mail is being unfairly treated. You will receive a message from the postmaster asking you to resend your mail once he has examined it and possibly adjusted the spam filter.
I am a Physics Department user, why has mail to me has been rejected?
Unfortunately spam filtering is not perfect. Please ask the sender of the email to send the complete rejection mail, including the original message headers and body to the Physics Postmaster. The sender will receive a message from the postmaster asking him to resend your mail once he has examined it and possibly adjusted the spam filter.
Do you bounce or reject spam?
We never bounce spam, we merely reject it. This is an important distinction because spam is often sent with a fake sender address. Bounces of such spam would go to an innocent email user and constitute as much of an annoyance as the spam itself. The physics mail system does not accept the message in the first place, therefore no bounce message is generated. The only way you could receive a bounce message from a mail rejected by physics is if an intermediate relay server tried to deliver a message to physics which was rejected. The intermediate server would then create a bounce message. If you think the intermediate server should not have relayed the message in the first place, please contact the admin of that server