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Password Requirements

  • Passwords chosen must
    • be a minimum of eight (8) characters in length
    • be memorized; if a password is written down it must be secure
    • contain at least one (1) character from three (3) of the following categories:
      • Uppercase letter (A-Z)
      • Lowercase letter (a-z)
      • Digit (0-9)
      • Special character (~`!@#$%^&*()+=_-{}[]\|:;”’?/<>,.)
    • be private
  • Passwords chosen must not
    • contain a common proper name, login ID, email address, initials, first, middle or last name
  • It is strongly recommended that
    • passwords are changed twice per year (e.g., when clocks are adjusted in the spring and fall)
    • each password chosen is new and different

Click on these links for more tips on Creating and Managing passwords.

Eligibility Policy

All UW-Madison students and faculty/staff must have a VALID UW-Madison PhotoID in order to activate and keep their NetID accounts. Having a valid UW-Madison Photo ID does not imply that you must possess an actual physical card.

To be considered valid for NetID services one of the following must be true:

  1. You must be an officially registered student in the current semester. Students studying/working abroad must retain their registered student status with UW-Madison.
  2. You must have an official UW appointment. Those with limited term employee status (LTE) must have received a payroll issued check within 45 days of the current date to be considered eligible.
  3. You must be an officially retired faculty or staff member. Non-emeritus retirees must renew their status with their human resource department to insure eligibility.
  4. You must be a member of a group holding special authorization status with UW-Madison. This status is not granted to individuals nor is it granted by any informal request. Instead, this designation is reserved for pre-determined organizational entities.

For those who are no longer eligible, the following rules apply to deactivation of NetID services:

  1. NetID account deactivation will take place shortly after the “last day to add” of the Fall and Spring semesters each year.
  2. We will not deactivate NetID accounts between the last day of the Spring semester and the "last day to add" of the Fall semester.
  3. We will not deactivate NetID accounts between the last day of the Fall semester and the "last day to add" of the Spring semester.
  4. The initial phase of deactivations will only disable the non-eligible individual’s ability to dial into the Internet, check mail, access My UW-Madison, and access WiscCal. Mail sent to that person’s address will still be accepted.
  5. A grace period is available, by request only, to allow individuals to continue using NetID services for a specified amount of time. This grace period is intended to allow time to correct issues that may lead to reinstating eligibility or, for those who are indeed not eligible, to allow time to establish a private internet service provider (ISP) and set a forwarding address. The grace period will end on an advertised date, generally 2-4 weeks after the initial deactivation.
  6. The final phase of deactivations will take place in conjunction with the end of the grace period. Anyone who has not resolved outstanding issue will have his or her NetID account completely disabled.
  7. Forwarding addresses established before or during the grace period will be honored for a six month period. We reserve the right to exclude messages identified as highly likely to be bulk mail ( spam ) from the allowable forwarded mail.

Quota Policy

Each account on the WiscMail system will be given 200 MB for free to store email messages on the server. View the quota page for more information.

Junk Mail and Trash Retention Policy

All messages in the "Junk Mail" and "Trash" folders will be automatically deleted after 15 days of age. This is a data-to-date comparison.

IMPORTANT: Do not use the "Junk Mail" or "Trash" folders for retaining your mail. If you want to save your email, use the information provided under the filtering and manage your IMAP folders area.

Appropriate Use

WiscMail is a University of Wisconsin information technology resource. When using WiscMail, you must abide by the appropriate use policy that you agreed to when you activated your netid.

Virus Policy

WiscMail will virus scan all inbound and outbound mail.

  • All detected viruses will be removed and replaced with a warning message.
  • Inbound mail containing a virus will also be flagged as Spam.
  • We discard the majority of virus messages which are known "spammy" variants.
  • Virus Scan Exceptions: None

Unsolicited Bulk Email (Spam)

WiscMail will spam scan all inbound mail and rate it from 1-8.

  • Mailboxes with filtering active will read this spam score and act according to the wishes of the owner, usually filing the spam into the Junk Mail folder.
  • Mailbox owners may further customize their filtering preferences to block or allow certain domains or addresses.
  • Users of off-campus ISPs such as Charter or SBC may occasionally inherit an IP number that was previously used by a spammer and is currently on an industry RBL (Realtime Block List). We do not use RBLs to block mail, but this can skew spam scan ratings. If you think your routine mail is being rated as spam, contact the Help Desk for assistance.
  • An attempt will be made to exempt messages from spam scanning if they are sent by authenticated users and/or campus origin. However, because this information can be easily forged, we will err on the side of caution if the sender/origin cannot be determined beyond a reasonable doubt.
  • Legitimate mail, especially mass mailings, may be interpreted as spam because of content or formatting. If your messages are being mislabeled as spam, contact the Help Desk for assistance.
  • If you wish to report messages as spam or not-spam but do not require DoIT support, then you may forward the full source of the messages to our automated system. Forward misclassified spam messages to is-spam@doit.wisc.edu. Forward misclassified legitimate messages to not-spam@doit.wisc.edu.
  • Spam Scan & Rate Exceptions: None

Forward Policy

Some non-UW email providers to which mail is forwarded can categorize some forwarded mail as bulk mail or spam. As a result, placing a forward means timely and proper delivery cannot be guaranteed as final delivery to the destination mailbox is not within our control.

High volumes of forwarded bulk mail can lead some external email providers to block the successful delivery of all UW mail into their systems. To prevent such unexpected mail stoppages from effecting the entire University population we reserve the right to exclude messages identified as highly likely to be bulk mail from the allowable forwarded mail. Obvious bulk mail, defined as email receiving a spam score of 7 out of 7 stars, is currently not being forwarded to the following email providers:

  • gmail.com
  • hotmail.com
  • yahoo.com
  • aol.com
  • comcast.com
  • msn.com
  • sbcglobal.net
  • charter.net
  • excite.com

For more information on bulk mail, go to http://www.doit.wisc.edu/wiscmail/policies.asp#spam.

Throttling

WiscMail will impose throttling policies on all mail received from outside of the 'Campus'.

  • The 'Campus' is defined as the UW-Madison IP space including: 144.92.0.0, 128.104.0.0, 128.105.0.0, 72.33.0.0, 146.151.0.0 & 198,150.0.0.
  • Throttling will allow 4 connections per outside MTA per WiscMail MTA per minute, with 50 messages per connection. When the throttle limit is reached WiscMail will issue a 421 error code. This is a temporary error, meaning that MTA can try sending the message again at a later time.
  • RFC compliant MTAs will have no trouble with this policy. Outside mailers that do not deploy an MTA will experience connection problems, especially those that choose to send bulk mail programmatically using a 'machine-gun' approach.
  • Campus departments should keep this in mind when contracting out various email related functions to 3rd parties, such as surveys, solicitations and announcements.
  • Throttling Exception Requirements:
    • Exception requests should originate from a UW-Madison department and include a department contact as well as the exception information in the next bullet.
    • Exception requests must have valid, electronic and non-electronic contact information for the Company or Organization doing the actual mail. This should include: name, company, phone number, physical mailing address and email address. An ending date should be included and should be less than one year. We can exempt up to five IP numbers from throttling.
    • Email content must be relevant to UW-Madison's mission of teaching, research and public service. Email must comply with the policy governing Appropriate Use of UW Information Technology Resources. Email must be related to the programs or operations of the University. Email can include ticket prices for UW-Madison events.
    • Email cannot be sent for personal purposes or gain.
    • Email subject line must be descriptive.
    • Body of email must contain the UW sender's name or department affiliation.
    • Bulk mailings should contain simple and obvious unsubscribe mechanisms, such as a working link to a unsubscribe system or a valid "reply to:" address.
    • Throttling Exceptions do not exempt messages from spam scanning. We will scan all mail as potential spam regardless of originating IP address.

Obtaining multiple addresses

The campus WiscMail email system provides one address for each individual. If you want an additional, specialized address (such as myname@departmentname.wisc.edu or myservicename@mydepartment.wisc.edu) have your department set up a WiscMail Plus account. WiscMail Plus enables your department to add, remove and modify addresses within the domain you request. For details see the WiscMail Plus site: http://www.doit.wisc.edu/WiscMailPlus/index.asp.

Application/Programatic Use

WiscMail is intended only for use by individuals for the sending and receiving of electronic communications. Integration of any WiscMail function into an application or any other programmatic function for use other than individual access to email services is strictly prohibited. Restricted uses include but are not limited to:

  • authentication services
  • smtp relay for web based forms
  • smtp relay for email gateway applications
  • smtp host for applications requiring a relay for notification function
  • smtp relay for sending "Collateral Spam" (messages that are automatically sent to forged addresses from incoming messages,) including, but not limited to:
    • Challenge/Response spam filtering
    • Virus or Spam failure notices
    • "Out of Office" notifications

WiscMail Administration reserves the right to expressly prohibit such activity when identified. Advance communication will be attempted to those in violation of the above and a transition timeline can be established where warranted. Questions you may have about your particular situation should be directed to WiscMail Administration via the DoIT HelpDesk.