SPAM Prevention

Recently several u.select sites (including us!) have been receiving spam sent via the u.select Contact link. We believe that the majority of this spam is created by automated programs. We have put in place two different enhancements to the 4.2.1 release that we feel will either eliminate this spam, or at least make it easier for you to quickly identify as potential spam.

reCAPTCHA

We have installed reCAPTCHA Anti-Bot service which will display distorted text to a user then requires them to enter it correctly before their contact question is sent.

reCAPTCHA was created by Carnegie Mellon University who uses this to help in the process of scanning old books. There is also an audio option available that will play a bit of distorted audio that the user must type in order to prove that they are not a bot. You can find out more about what Carnegie Mellon is doing with this technology here.

Within u.select, reCAPTCHA will be used in the following locations:

• Creating an account - every time an account is created
• Guest Contact - every time a guest email is sent
• Student Contact - a student's first functional or technical contact email and randomly thereafter (we have received spam from "student" accounts)
• Student Email Plan - random

You have the ability to customize the reCAPTCHA settings on your server (individual schools cannot turn this functionality on or off). There are three settings:

• Use reCAPTCHA - will enable reCAPTCHA for all guest contacts, account creation and student contacts as listed above.
• Disable reCAPTCHA - will turn off reCAPTCHA for all guest and student functions.
• Only Require reCAPTCHA for Guests - will only enable reCAPTCHA for guest questions and account creation.

You can change these settings for your server by going to Manage Servers and clicking the Edit icon for your server and then changing the reCAPTCHA Options.

Contact Email Modifications

We have added additional text to the format of some emails:

All Guest Emails - will have a disclaimer at the top of the email reminding you that this question comes from an anonymous user (someone who is not logged in to u.select). The message is "This email has been sent by an anonymous user."

A guest email that contains html or javascript language - In addition to the anonymous user note, a guest email containing html or javascript will also have WARNING: POSSIBLY SPAM added to the subject line. This will make it easier for you to create a filter for your email if you want to sort these guest emails into a separate folder.

A student email that contains html or javascript language - any email that comes from a student u.select account that includes html or javascript will have a note added to the top that reads: "This email may contain unexpected markup in the form of javascript."

Email Examples

Click the thumbnail to expand

Student Email with HTML	Guest Email with HTML	Regular Student Email

While the email modifications won't prevent spam from reaching your inbox, it should help you identify those emails which have the potential to be spam. Again, however, we are hopeful that the reCAPTCHA will prevent most (if not all) of the spam that we have been receiving so far.