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The WAM/Glue Mail Access File

On WAM/Glue, incoming mail is handled by the SENDMAIL program.

One of its functions is to prevent misuse of the mail system by doing the best it can to reject spam and mail with fake headers. It does this by checking information in a large file to which there is a convenient link:

/local/mail/access

There are four sections in the file:

1. "umd.edu" -- domain names and IP address ranges that are considered to be part of UMCP
2. Known or reputed spam sources
   1. IP addresses -- a few dozen
   2. entire domains -- a few hundred
   3. individual addresses -- a few thousand

The spam sites come from two basic sources:

1. Universally recognized sites, which are available in various public "blacklists" files. These are all individual addresses.
2. UMD-selected sites, some of which are individuals, some are whole domains (e.g., an ISP which doesn't stop customers who spam or where a spammer moves from one address to another). This collection started out as AOL's list of sites against which it protects itself, and has been heavily modified based on our own experience with WAM/Glue.