'Hardware as a service' to block spam

Filtering spam is a seemingly never-ending headache for school IT admins. Now Sendio offers a solution that may prove to be more effective - the ICE Box, which stands for Intercept, Confirm, or Eliminate, reports Campus Technology.

ICE is a "hardware as a service" system, a pun on the popular "software as a service" trend. The first time sender shoots off an email, the box intercepts the message, flags it and sends it back to the sender to verify his or her e-mail address. For computer-generated email, administrators can create preauthorized contacts individually or by complete address books.

"Spam attacks can be devastating for schools and colleges because they reach so many inboxes," said Kelly Anderson, CEO of Sendio, in a statement. "Not only do administrators and teachers have to deal with massive amounts of unwanted e-mails, but students can also be targeted by unscrupulous scammers sending them inappropriate messages or trying to defraud them."

Anderson claims the product "guarantees" that unwanted spam will be blocked at the source.