BOL E-mail Policy Change FAQ

1. What's happening with UCLA's Bruin OnLine e-mail server?
2. How does this situation affect me?
3. What is UCLA doing to remedy this situation?
4. Why doesn't UCLA just "close" the open relay in order to be removed from the MAPS RSS list?
5. What happens if the off-campus relaying is closed?
6. How do servers get placed on the MAPS RSS list?
7. Why did UCLA get added to the MAPS RSS list now?
8. How can I get more information?

UCLA's BOL e-mail servers have been identified by the Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS) as providing what is known as an "open relay." MAPS maintains the Relay Spam Stopper (RSS) list of e-mail providers that, according to their standards, do not sufficiently restrict access to their e-mail gateways.

Due to recent changes in the MAPS standards, the MAPS RSS identified UCLA's major e-mail gateway, smtp.ucla.edu, provided by Bruin OnLine, as an "open relay" which spammers can exploit to send unauthorized messages through our facilities. As a result, MAPS has added this UCLA gateway to its RSS list.

Some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) automatically reject all e-mail from servers listed on the MAPS RSS as if it were spam mail. MAPS RSS does not release information about the ISPs that check their list, so there is no way to know who may be affected in advance. In addition, MAPS does not fall under any regulatory or legal oversight, and therefore can change its policies and standards without notice.

As a result, there are several potential impacts:

• BOL users who send e-mail from any location (on or off campus) may find their e-mails rejected by the e-mail servers of some recipients. In this case, you will receive a rejection notice e-mail. If you receive a rejected e-mail notice, please forward it to the BOL Help Desk at abuse@ucla.edu.
• UCLA students, faculty, and staff with non-BOL e-mail accounts whose departments relay their e-mail through BOL may also experience problems. You can check with your department's e-mail administrator or Computing Support Coordinator www.csc.ucla.edu to find out if your department relays its e-mail through BOL.
• If BOL closes the open relay (which it has not yet done), BOL users who use a local ISP, such as AOL or EarthLink (including BOL Gold), to send e-mail from an off-campus location will no longer be able to do so. If the open relay is closed, BOL off-campus users would need to make use of alternate options noted in this FAQ for sending BOL e-mail from off-campus locations.

If you receive a rejected e-mail notice, please forward it to the BOL Help Desk at abuse@ucla.edu. Otherwise, for the time being, there is nothing for BOL users to do. If you have questions or are having trouble sending BOL e-mail, please call the Bruin OnLine Help Desk at 310-825-7452, option 1. As needed, further information will be provided to BOL users via e-mail and the BOL home page at http://www.bol.ucla.edu/.

By April 19, 2002, BOL will complete the first phase of a planned infrastructure upgrade, which will include authenticated access to our e-mail gateway. The result will be a more secure e-mail system than before, and removal from the MAPS RSS list.

In the meantime, UCLA Communications Technology Services (CTS) is closely monitoring the situation to determine what effect the MAPS RSS listing has on outgoing e-mail from the UCLA community. To date, the amount of rejected e-mail has not posed enough of a problem to disable off-campus relaying. If e-mail rejections become more problematic, and no other solution is viable, CTS will disable off-campus relaying. If off-campus relaying is shut down, BOL will notify all users of the action and provide further instructions for sending e-mail from off-campus locations.

Closing the off-campus relaying will mean that all off-campus BOL users will lose the ability to directly send e-mail via smtp.ucla.edu. Because this will impact such a large number of users, CTS is continuously monitoring the situation and diligently working to implement an alternate solution prior to the April 19, 2002, BOL infrastructure upgrade.

If the off-campus relaying is closed, BOL users will be instructed about alternate means of sending BOL e-mail from off-campus locations. These options are listed in this FAQ under the heading What do I do if the off-campus relaying is closed

If BOL closes off-campus relaying, BOL users who utilize a local ISP, such as AOL or EarthLink (including BOL Gold), to send e-mail from an off-campus location will no longer be able to do so. BOL users who send e-mail using on-campus Ethernet connections or the BOL dial-in modem pool will not be affected by this closure. Off-campus users can continue sending BOL e-mail from off-campus locations by using one of the following methods:

• Dial in directly to a BOL modem pool. Information on dialup services are available at http://www.bol.ucla.edu/services/dialup/.
• Use a telnet session to connect with BOL Travelers' E-mail service. Instructions on how to use this service are available at http://www.bol.ucla.edu/help/using/interactive/.
• Use a campus webmail service (such as My.UCLA) that supports BOL accounts. The BOL Help Desk does not provide instructions or technical support for this option.

As stated above, these options will only be required until the planned BOL infrastructure upgrade on April 19, 2002. At that time, BOL will provide detailed instructions on how to change off-campus e-mail settings to take advantage of the new BOL servers.

Users who receive spam from an open relay e-mail server can forward the spam to MAPS and ask that the server be listed on the RSS. MAPS tests the server and notifies the server administrators upon verification that it is an open relay and has been added to the RSS list.

MAPS RSS has recently changed its standards. After applying a new test with different thresholds, MAPS determined that UCLA meets their new criteria for being an open relay.

If you have questions or are having trouble sending BOL e-mail, please call the Bruin OnLine Help Desk at 310-825-7452, option 1. As needed, further information will be provided to BOL users via e-mail and at the BOL home page at http://www.bol.ucla.edu/.