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Google"Don't send it, unless you don't mind just anybody reading it."
The comment came after a policy governing e-mails -- and providing that they be archived -- was brought before the board for approval at the Thursday night meeting.
The policy on "Acceptable Use" has been in place, but has largely dealt with acceptable internet use and what was forbidden, from sending or displaying offensive messages or images to violation of copyright laws.
"This is a revision," said Ed Gray, school superintendent, who added that some of the revisions were merely to clean up the language.
The big change, he said, was about e-mail.
"We will now archive all non-spam e-mails, then purge them after one year," said Gray. "If they (school employees) utilize the school system e-mail, they have no privacy. They need to be cognizant that they don't own that e-mail account."
Even when the user deletes his or her e-mail, they aren't gone forever. The document is automatically sent to the archives.
The change was made to the policy to bring it into accordance with governmental records management rules, Gray said, although there are no state or federal regulations determining how long the e-mails must be kept -- yet.
"You only have to keep them if there is pending litigation," he added.
The policy changes were approved unanimously.
The archiving job could be more difficult than it seems on the surface. Later in the meeting, Gray brought up another e-mail issue the school system is facing -- spam. The system gets more than 55,000 unwanted commercial e-mails a day.
Gray presented a chart Thursday night to the board meeting which detailed how many e mails were received, and of those, how many were spam.
"It's a real problem," he said.
Gray said teachers complain about having to wade through the junk -- about 98 percent of their incoming e-mails -- to get to the items they need.
"We have the best spam filter there is," he said. "But no filter gets all of it."
On the chart he handed out, he listed tips for reducing spam, including:
* Never reply or unsubscribe
* Don't use auto-preview
* Don't use your work e-mail for personal business
* Don't give out your e-mail except to reputable companies
* Don't register your work e-mail account online unless it is a work-related site and can be trusted.
Gray also suggested using the Outlook e-mail software from the Office 2003 or 2007 suites and not the web-based version.
Note: The nature of the Internet makes it impractical for our staff to review every comment. If you feel that a comment is offensive, please
I use Spam Assassin and it works very well I get maybe 2-3 spam emails a month instead of the 5000 I used to get. The Outlook 2007 filter is worthless right now, I would state it needs more updates.
Inappropriate computer use has been going on for years in the county. It's my understanding the County Mayor and some County Commissioners were shown where there had been "explicit "and "inappropriate" material downloaded to a computer at the 911 Center. And to my knowledge there has been nothing done about it. There were even several policy infractions regarding the use of Com Center equipment. You may be asking, how do you know nothing was done?? Well, because the employees that were involved in the misconduct are STILL there. There were even 911 dispatchers that were on county time, being "allowed" to take online college courses when they should have been giving quality dispatching service. But, hey how could I blame them, if the Director was "allowing" it to happen, because NOW one of those dispatchers is working for the state. In other words, WE paid for them getting a degree instead of doing their job!! And then, there is the issue of employees playing those beloved online games. Aren't those games a distraction?? Aren't the games notorious for infecting computers with viruses?? Dispatchers should have been doing something constructive. Like MAP STUDIES or even studying where the proper departments are supposed to be dispatched to. Just this morning, it took a dispatcher "THREE" times to get the right agency sent to to a life threatening call near Normandy.
And we have all heard of MySpace, that has been going on there too. WOW!! No wonder they need more dispatchers!! Kind of makes you think, doesn't it??
Computers use needs to be watched at all county agencies, because WE are paying for it!! Thanks to the school board for taking the right steps. Just don't limit the monitoring to only emails.
aol does a good job filtering spam.
Gray said teachers complain about having to wade through the junk -- about 98 percent of their incoming e-mails -- to get to the items they need.
"We have the best spam filter there is," he said. "But no filter gets all of it."
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If 98% of incoming e-mails are spam then they do not have the best spam filter there is.
Nathan,
I totally agree, they aren't using a good system whatsoever, they are counting on software on the client computer instead of a centralized system that gets rid of the spam before even hitting the client system.
Scannermanner,
I agree that dispatchers should not have access to community portals, and gaming sites, those sites can be easily blocked if there was a centralized system. Regarding online games causing viruses, I haven't heard of one that has done that unless those individuals were playing a hacked/cracked version of the game.
Basically, what the county needs is a centralized server to maintain traffic that comes in and out of their computers. Right now, our entire system is pretty vulnerable.
"Gray also suggested using the Outlook e-mail software from the Office 2003 or 2007 suites and not the web-based version."
I hope he doesn't mean that in order to stop spam by using the built in filters. Spam needs to be stopped at the border. And like Nathan said, if some people's emails really are 98% spam then they certainly don't have the best anti-spam filter. Or they definitely didn't configure it correctly.
Also, he listed ways to not have your email address gotten into the spam lists. He left out the one about not posting your address to a website. If you go to their website you can get very many addresses from there. Spam aggregates will and do eat those up. THey probably already have. If your address is listed on a website those other methods are next to meaningless.
If only trusted persons have your email to contact you,can't you "whitelist" those addresses and check them first?
Then,the remainder that lands in the spam pile can be examined and good things extracted during any downtime currently being used for recreational purposes.
Dispatchers can learn on company computers IF they have fulfilled their duties and their colleagues have got things covered.
(They can't have been assigned anything they'd be distracted FROM.
They could be waiting for a shift change or be otherwise redundant or off duty.)
Thanks Evil.
I was not sure about gaming vs. viruses. I just know where I worked before, it seems the games were played a lot and it seemed the computers got slower as more games were downloaded. Yes I admit that played them a few times, but never was my focal point of my job. I am sure some gaming sites are a "shared" site and that could open the door for any hacker. Besides I am sure that there is a lot of sensitive data on the 911 computers. Names, addresses, phone numbers {even the unlisted ones}. I would also tend to think that the school system has a lot of detailed info on students. I know computers are not foolproof, so I can't really give a good answer to the spam and hacker problems. I suspect they get some ideas and programming from the Tn. Tech. Cemter, simply because it is at their disposal. They may even get programs free or discounted, the thing is, you get what you pay for.
what was the duties of that dispatcher?? were they just sitting there or were they trainers or anything like that? from what i have been reading in the past comments and stories, he/she would be proud to get a degree and get the heck out of that messed up place. as far as spam... i like it fried!! :)
Well I talked with Joan, and they are using Barracuda as their spam fighter, the TG author of this story seem to have not understood what was said at the meeting. According the Joan Gray, 98% of the spam was caught by Barracuda before it entered into the Board of Education's main intranet.
As far as spam I am not sure of a good one.I actually need one myself.But as far as viruses I use avg(www.grisoft.com)
They have a free one and it has caught several viruses that came with games I have played online.I like it a lot better than the one that came with my computer and it is so easy to use.