About Spam

This section discusses the unsolicited e-mail messages commonly known as spam.

On this page

Why does spam exist?

Everyone finds it annoying, so why does it keep happening? Spam persists because:

  • regular e-mail is inherently insecure, which means that e-mail messages are easily forged, enabling spammers to avoid detection.
  • spamming is a business with a very low barrier to entry. In other words, the startup costs to become a spammer are very small, so every day new people are trying it.
  • sending spam is inexpensive. Do you have 100, 1,000, or 1,000,000 messages to send? Each costs about the same amount of money.
  • some people open spam. Even if a very small percentage of people open a particular message and buy something, that’s still enough for spammers to turn a profit. People continue to spam because they continue to profit from it.
  • e-mail works internationally, so if it’s illegal to send in one country, spammers can simply move their operations to another country.
  • zombie computers are sending it, enabling spammers to avoid detection.

There are a number of other reasons, but in any case spam is currently a very difficult problem to solve completely. At UCSF, we’re doing the best we can to keep the problem to a minimum.

Resolve spam problems

Do both of the following:

  1. In your UCSF email account you will receive notices of messages that have been classified as spam. Follow the instructions in the notice to permit or block these messages and their senders.
  2. Review and adjust spam filtering settings for the email application you use most. How to do this depends on the application or device you use. For help, call the IT Service Desk at 415-514-4100 (available 24x7x365).

More info

Go to: E-mail