Anti-Virus Software:
Recognizing that virus threats were possible through our email, the District upgraded its email program to Software602's 602Lan Suite. This dramatically reduced the number of virus infections passing through our email computer.

The new program also permits us to prevent email from being passed third-hand from some outside computer through us to unsuspecting folks who thought we were the source of the spam. This is known as being an "open relay" and caused many systems to stop accepting email from us at all.

The only downside is that if you are home and check your PGUSD email with a regular email program and try to reply to someone other than a "pgusd.org" account, the computer blocks your email because it is being relayed from an outside computer, through the PGUSD computer and out to another address. The solution is to add specific outside computers to the "approved" list of those who can "relay" messages. (If PGUSD employees have this trouble, they can just send an email from their home computer to bcates@pgusd.org to get on the approved list.)  You can also use the convenient webmail feature of the email program and send messages to email addresses inside and outside of pgusd.org.

Anti-SPAM Software:
The latest version of the 602 LanSuite email program adds powerful features to their anti-spam settings. Now we can block specific addresses or whole domains from sending us their mail.
Examples:
   bob123467@hotmail.com (blocks only this email address)
   @buythisthingnow.com (blocks any email from "buythisthingnow.com")

In addition, their spam filters can learn to block messages based on more than the address and subject line.  As pgusd.org users submit their spam messages to junk@pgusd.org, the filters will learn to identify more and more messages as spam.  This will reduce the overall amount of junk you get daily.

Reporting Spammers:
We encourage you to forward your spam to the companies that provide the email accounts, but if you cannot identify the best place to report the problem, you can forward the spam to the PGUSD System (junk@pgusd.org) which will add this spammer to the blocked list.