Re: Mail spoofing

Bill Flechtner (flechtnerw@bergen.nclack.k12.or.us)
Mon, 8 Apr 1996 23:51:14 EDT

We have had e-mail and internet access for all students and staff in our
district for almost three years. To my knowledge, we have never had an incident
of mail spoofing. This is a district of over 600 teachers and 15,000 students
spread over 25 schools, three of which are high schools.

Possibly the reason is that teachers and administrators have one server and the
students have another. The students is called "stumail" and any recipient of
mail from a student would recognize that it came from a student.

In addition, our mail program requires that real names must be attached to all
mail messages. Without it, the mail would be returned to the sender. We use
POPMail, a free program from the University of Minnesota. We like this program
because it is visual and easy to set up...even for the first graders who have
their own accounts.

If a student would try to use teacher/administrator mail, the student would
need to know the teacher's password which is different that what the students
use; teachers/administrators can and do change their password so that no one
would know it.

Unless I'm missing something here, I don't see how mail spoofing could occur.
The trick is to have two servers.

Bill Flechtner
Journalism/Computer Instructor
Newspaper/Yearbook Adviser
Milwaukie High School
11300 SE 23rd
Milwaukie, OR 97222
503-653-3750
E-mail: flechtnerw@mortimer.nclack.k12.or.us
billf@teleport.com