Email systems

[Jobos]

We use the EMBC for email filtering and we are having problems with the word CLASS in the email subject triggering a rude word block on the email. Of course being a school the word class gets used rather a lot . I’ve logged on to email systems and found the rules page but for the life of me I can’t see the rule that filters rude words.

 

Any ideas?

[User3204]

Clbuttic !

 

Have you tryed telling people to use Lesson, instead ?

 

[Jobos]

Nice one!

[Gibson335]

We're EMBC as well, and to be honest I wasn't aware that WE could control such features. Website access, yes, but words in e-mails? I think that's EMBC themselves I would have thought, and you can request it to be unfiltered. I noticed recently that using xx gets filtered for some 'sexual' reason!!!

[kmount]

Yes, as an EMBC school you can access EMF (Email Filtering) through Managed Email Filtering Service logging in with a set of credentials which the kind folks at your helpdesk will give you.

 

In there, you will find "My Group" > "Rules".

 

I don't have one which would filter the word class so it may well be a local rule only you can see, CTRL +F and find it on the page

 

We disabled most of EMBC's word based rules because we found them stupid (ie. the word hitler, ass, etc) and they wouldn't change them. - We then copied the rules we disabled, created our own and maintain those.

 

Hope this helps.

[FN-GM]

We use the same filtering. The council made up a scheme called SLUTS , loads of e-mails got stoped

[kmount]

The best one was "escort".

[Jobos]

@Kmount

Something strange is going on as I searched the rules page earlier when I was at school and found nothing. I suspect someone at the EMBC must be reading this thread...

 

On looking at logs > quarantine I find this entry dated today when I was testing:

 

inbound: Rule "EMBC RULE - Block rude words in subject": [sUBJECT: Subject "Class lists" contains "ass "]. Action: Quarantine email and alert sender. Recipient(s): {[email protected]}

 

But now when I do the same test the email goes through ok.

[kmount]

We don't have this "EMBC Rule" on our list so it might well be a local rule to your school.

 

At least its working now. Synetrix staff do read these forums and may well react upon any information they find, but I'd hope they contacted the person directly if not publicly to show any change.

 

I would however advise you print off the whole "rules" panel page and read through them, some of them are just ridiculous and you can tackle this yourself.

 

All the best; any questions drop me a pm and I'll share mine with you if you like

[GrumbleDook]

The various filter lists are under review at the moment to give more flexibility (some can't just be turned off without notifying schools otherwise EMBC and the LAs get grief if schools suddenly have stuff getting through that was prevously blocked or stuff gets blocked that was previously fine ... change is regarded as *bad*!)

 

The problem you had with ass was also reported by others.

 

A bit of background to EMF. The filters work mainly on textual searching. To stop certain words getting caught (eg scunthorpe) the word entered into the filter list has a space in front of it ... so to stop 'CLASS' being caught you have ' ASS' in the list (note the space at the begining) ... so it also catches 'ASSL!CK3R' and the like.

 

Fiddling around with the filters is something you have to be careful with. Heads will have (or will have to) sign off that the school operates on particular levels and has local control of filtering for web or email. They then have to make sure that access to these controls is used responsibly.

 

Do people feel that they could do with refresher sessions on working with EMF and netsweeper?

[kmount]

Always worth a refresher.

[SpuffMonkey]

We're EMBC as well, and to be honest I wasn't aware that WE could control such features. Website access, yes, but words in e-mails? I think that's EMBC themselves I would have thought, and you can request it to be unfiltered. I noticed recently that using xx gets filtered for some 'sexual' reason!!!

 

Boy are you going to have fun - well I started here - no one had realised that you can manage the spam and quarantined emails - there were thousands and thousands to get get rid of - its a daily task now and is over pretty quickly.

[cheesypete]

I think refresher sessions would be extremely worthwhile

 

Until i discovered the local filtering, we had no end of mail being blocked. The ASS one was the most prolific, as it stopped "classes", "assessment", kids who wore "glasses" (!)

 

I think the best one was that a member of staff literally had all her email stopped...turned out she was signing off each email with some kisses ...XXX

 

[GrumbleDook]

Sorry .. I meant refresher sessions for Northants members at the next meeting.

[TheCrust]

I think the best one was that a member of staff literally had all her email stopped...turned out she was signing off each email with some kisses ...XXX

 

 

 

 

That's good, but our ex-head can beat that.

His name was "Richard" and he signed all his emails as....

 

 

...DICK!

[OutToLunch]

"Hello, I am writing from the Technology Dept at Scunthorpe College. Our class needs more screws. Thanks, Dick."

 

This is why I don't try and run any internal filtering

[moggy]

Do people feel that they could do with refresher sessions on working with EMF and netsweeper?

 

Yes, I think this would be useful. Unfortunately we are Derbyshire and I don't think they plan anything.

Edited October 3, 2008 by moggy

[GrumbleDook]

I'm pretty sure they do, but schools suffer the same problem all over the country. The information comes in to one person and doesn't get to the right person. That's why it takes me creating my own mailing list to contact people directly in Northants in spite of not being the proper communication channel.

[cheesypete]

I'm pretty sure they do, but schools suffer the same problem all over the country. The information comes in to one person and doesn't get to the right person. That's why it takes me creating my own mailing list to contact people directly in Northants in spite of not being the proper communication channel.

 

I think Grumbledook makes a very valid point, and perhaps now via the regional boards, if folk find things out, they could post for others to see.

 

Whilst I havent seen any information regarding Netsweeper et al for Derbyshire schools, its worth ensuring that you are members of the correct DNFL mailings or at the very least ensuring that you get paper copies from those staff that look at them