Purdue to shut down open
e-mail relaying
By Kelsey VanArsdall
Campus
Editor
Approximately 2,500 students will be affected by
the shutting down of open e-mail relaying.
About 2,200 students and 300 faculty members may
have already received an e-mail message Monday that wrote "you are currently
using a mail hub mail relay capability that unfortunately Purdue must
discontinue."
The open relay system is creating several problems
for Purdue computing systems and those who use Independent Service Providers,
which do not come through the University.
"We know that those coming into the University
via ResNet dial-up, Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol, Verizon DSL or
the Exchange server will not be affected," said Jim Bottum, the vice
president for information technology.
"One result of the open relay is that Purdue e-mail
is being blacklisted by a number of institutions," said Bottum. "Increasing
numbers of organizations fight e-mail abuse by blocking sites that are
involved in abuse incidents. Purdue continues to find itself blacklisted
and cut off from large portions of the Internet."
Bottum announced that the University is taking
action to solve the problem.
"It is time to take action to ensure that Purdue
e-mail will be able to function at a productive level," he said.
In addition to the problem of blacklisting, the
e-mail system is at risk of crashing.
"Due to a denial of service attack, because the
service you depend on, e-mail suddenly stops working due to the overwhelming
amount of bulk e-mail being sent," said Bottum
Some students who received the informational e-mail
on Monday are wondering how to react to it.
"At first, I was kinda confused," said Tom MacDonald,
a sophomore in the School of Liberal Arts. "Because I had just gotten
notice of another virus, so I thought this was the same thing."
Though its looks may be deceiving to some students,
the relay message being received is not part of a virus. However, some
students are still upset about the action the University is taking to
solve the problem.
"(It made me angry) because I pay money to go to
this school," said MacDonald. "If they cancel it, I won't get e-mails
from the people I gave my address to so I get their mail."
Other students understand what the problem is,
but think that the University should have solved it by other means.
"I know that it affects people not on the Purdue
servers, but it's still stupid," said Scott Koerner a junior in the
Schools of Engineering. "I'm not going to send spam to anyone."
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