Email

Fletcher students, staff, and faculty email accounts are administered by ITS. Contact the ITS help desk by telephone (617 627-5898) or e-mail (helpdesk@ase.tufts.edu) for technical help with email. For information on how to configure your email client (Mozilla, Outlook, Apple Mail, Eudora, etc.) please see the help pages for faculty & staff and students.

All users may access their email through Webmail.

Spam (Electronic Junk Mail)

Junk Mail Filtering As of August 2006, Tufts has implemented a new junk mail filter. All email that is classified as junk mail is kept out of you email inbox and stored. Once a day (generally in the early morning hours), the spam filter sends an email listing all the messages that have been trapped. It is a good idea to review the list. If you find a message that should have been delivered to you, click the "Release" next to the message subject and it will be delivered to your mailbox.

You do not need to do anything to take advantage of this filtering -- it is automatic. Detailed instructions and information can be found in the Proofpoint Frequently Asked Questions document.

Here are three tips to help minimize the amount of junk mail you receive:

The best thing to do is simply delete it unopened and unread. Often, spam email messages contain graphics downloaded from the spammer's web server. When you view the graphics in the body of the message, you are unwittingly informing the spammer that you read the message.
Never follow a link from a spam to "unsubscribe." Like graphics, these links are there exclusively to tell the spammer that the e-mail message was read.
Do not reply to a spam message (this includes "out of office" messages). It is possible to set up rules that only reply to people at Tufts, for example, to help minimize the possibility that your out of office message will tell a spammer that your e-mail address is valid.

Further tips and information about junk mail can be found at http://www.tufts.edu/tccs/r-spam.html.

Computer Viruses

Tufts scans every incoming message for computer viruses and replaces infected files with a text attachment saying that the infected file was deleted. Tufts stays very current with virus files. However, it is still important that you practice several common-sense techniques to help keep your computer safe from viruses.

First and most important -- keep your computer's Windows and antivirus software up to date. Whenever you see a window from your antivirus software asking you to confirm an update to the antivirus software, say yes. Also, always accept Windows update requests -- Microsoft releases patches to close up holes in the Windows operating system that viruses exploit. A well-patched machine is an excellent defense against virus software.
Second, do not open attachments to email messages without looking at the email message carefully. Even if the message appears to be from someone you know, take a look at the subject and message text. If you are not expecting an attachment from this person, if the message text or subject has unusual phrasings, spelling, or grammar, or if the the attachment is a .ZIP, .PIF, or .EXE file, it is generally safer not to open the attachment at all.
Third, the person who apparently sent you an infected file is almost certainly a victim of faked identity. Most viruses circulating the Internet today harvest email addresses from a wide range of sources on an infected computer, and pick one of those addresses at random to be the "from" address.