Spam FAQs

1.  Why was the NSHE spam policy changed?

Spam accounts for 80-90% of all E-mail messages received and processed by the Pioneer and Fallon E-mail systems.  The increasing volume of unsolicited messages was flooding inboxes and degrading performance and service levels to unacceptable levels.

The previous policy of tagging and forwarding spam was ineffective in correcting these problems and had to be changed.

2.  Where can I find the new NSHE spam policy?

You can find a copy of the new spam policy on the SCS website titled, "NSHE Spam and Virus Policy".

3.  How are messages determined to be spam?

We use industry standard spam filtering applications and appliances that analyze each message as it arrives.  Each application assigns a score to a message based on criteria defined by the vendor through extensive research and analysis.  Using these criteria, the vendor can be confident that messages with a particular score are indeed spam.

4.  What happens to the spam messages?

We reject messages when there is 99.5% confidence that particular message is spam.

A rejected message returns a failure message to the sender.  For most spammers, this rejected message never makes it to them because they use invalid and/or short term E-mail servers.  In the slim chance that a legitimate E-mail is rejected, the failure notice allows the sender to notify the recipient or SCS so that corrective action can be taken.

Previously, these messages were tagged and sent to the individual where they could easily be overlooked or deleted.