I'm sorry to have to say that in spite of the Acceptable Use policy of the network provider, the filtering policy of the University, and the anti-spam measures of the departmental mailer, there would still be an intolerable number of unwanted unsolicited commercial emails ("spam") accumulating in my inbox if I took no additional action.
I therefore find myself compelled to state that my incoming mail is passed through a relatively aggressive filter, which segregates some mail into a low-priority folder, and which discards some mail unseen. This may sometimes inevitably result in genuine mails being discarded if they come from a provider who has shown themselves to be a haven for spamming, or from a site that has been forwarding spam for others, or on the basis of their Subject header. I'm sorry about that, but it seems to me a better compromise than those who avoid putting any email addresses on their web pages, and who use defective (and thereby RFC-violating) addresses on their usenet postings etc. in the hope of frustrating the spammers.
For legal as well as strategic reasons you will understand that it would be inappropriate to publish the exact details of this filtering. It may include tests on the sending user and Internet address, the purported From: and Reply: addresses, the subject line, etc. I can only offer my apologies in advance to the very few genuine senders who may be inconvenienced in this way. I assure you that I review the discard logs now and again, and where it is clear that a mistake has occurred (until now it's been at most a handfull of occasions in a year), I make the appropriate adjustments to the configuration. I sincerely hope that you can assign the blame where it lies, i.e with those whose outrageous spamming behaviour has forced users into this kind of action.
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