Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google


12 PA Districts To Eliminate Spam with Abaca Appliance

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 06/09/08
##AUTHORSPLIT##<--->

Twelve school districts in Northeast Pennsylvania will be using the Abaca Technology Email Protection Gateway appliance after testing by BLaST Intermediate Unit (IU) 17. BLaST is an education service agency that delivers services to 19 school districts and 36,000 students.

Since BLaST is a large education service agency with a public mission, the email addresses of many of its departments and employees are public as well, making them targets for spam. Over a five-year period, BLaST tried several e-mail filters. As time progressed, they had only marginal success in blocking spam. Some e-mail users were receiving hundreds of spam messages every day.

Jon Paulhamus, assistant director of technology, did a Google search that led him to the Abaca Email Protection Gateway. After installing and configuring the service, he said, "Our spam problem went away immediately. Within 48 hours email users started coming up and thanking me for eliminating all the spam from their mailboxes.... The administrator dashboard showed that we were getting 6,000 to 15,000 spam messages an hour--in one district alone. And all of that spam is now effectively blocked by Abaca."

The Abaca gateway integrates hardware and software to detect spam, viruses, phishing, invalid bounces, spyware e-mail attacks, denial-of-service attacks, and directory harvest attacks. A component of the gateway, ReceiverNet Service, examines each user based on how much spam he or she receives and uses that data to rate incoming message flow. The company claims a 99 percent spam catch rate and near-zero false positives. The appliance is priced from $1,495 to $6,495. The ReceiverNet Service is priced from $0.60 per user per month.

Get daily news from THE Journal's RSS News Feed

About the author: Dian Schaffhauser is a writer who covers technology and business for a number of publications. Contact her at [email protected].

Proposals for articles and tips for news stories, as well as questions and comments about this publication, should be submitted to David Nagel, executive editor, at [email protected].

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • tool icons with variety of business icons

    SETDA Releases Free EdTech Quality Action Toolkit

    The State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) has put together a free K-12 EdTech Quality Action Toolkit that provides a framework for evaluating education technology products as well as guidance on regulatory compliance, templates for communicating with vendors, training resources, and more.

  • Young child

    When Technology Serves Learning, Not the Other Way Around

    A reflection on designing learning experiences where technology supports instruction rather than defines it.

  • abstract colored blocks

    OpenAI Letting Go of Sora Short-Form AI Video Platform

    OpenAI is reportedly getting rid of Sora, its generative AI model that creates short video clips from text prompts, images, or existing video inputs. The move upends the company's December partnership with The Walt Disney Company.

  • abstract generative AI technology

    Apple and Google Announce AI Deal to Bring Gemini Models to Siri

    Apple and Google have embarked on a multiyear partnership that will put Google's Gemini models and cloud technology at the core of the next generation of Apple Foundation Models, a move that could help Apple accelerate long-promised upgrades to Siri while handing Google a high-profile distribution win on the iPhone.