In-boxes are full all over campus.

With more than 1 million e-mails passing through MSU’s Pilot system each day, students are receiving more junk mail than ever before, said Tom Davis, interim director of the Computer Center.

That number is up nearly 30 percent from the 700,000 e-mails sent through the system on a typical day last year.

“I’m sure that much of that is junk mail,” Davis said. “I just can’t believe that much traffic is real e-mail. It’s very much an annoyance.”

The staff at the Computer Center is searching for a remedy to the junk e-mail, but haven’t yet found a answer, Davis said.

“Technology has made the problem,” he said. “Technology is going to have to find a solution.”

And the problem isn’t limited to the university. The federal government is searching for a reply to the frustrating e-mail, Davis added. Legislators are introducing bills to address spam, or junk e-mail, on a nationwide level.

“It’s an industry wide problem - Internet wide,” he said. “It is certainly not limited to MSU.”

Spam can be sent out to a large address book because it’s so cheap, Davis said. Without postage, paper or ink costs, spam companies can send e-mails out in mass quantities.

“It’s much like junk mail you get in your postal box except that the cost is much, much less,” he said. “It comes from everywhere.”

But advertisements are the least of students worries. Viruses are also infecting computers through e-mail, Davis said.

“I have a hard time understanding why that’s funny,” he said. “Why is it funny to write a virus?”

To combat the problem, the Computer Center offers a free download of Norton AntiVirus Professional Edition to each student with a Pilot account.

Before the service began in January, international relations senior Lisa Hale said she was left with the frustration of dealing with a virus. Last Christmas, she downloaded a virus, believing it was a holiday card from a friend.

“It was really cleverly disguised,” she said. “The only reason I opened it was because it said it was a Christmas card and I knew the person who sent it.”

Hale’s holiday gift turned out to be a virus that erased her hard drive.

“It totally crashed my computer,” she said. “I have a backup disk for everything now.”

Labor relations and human resources graduate student Raynard Dennis said his solution for viruses is to delete the junk e-mails as soon as it arrives.

“A couple of viruses have been sent to me, but if I don’t recognize the sender account, I don’t even bother to open it,” he said.

With Pilot as his only e-mail account, Dennis said the spam has substantially increased since he was a freshman seven years ago.

“Some days back then I would be begging for more than two e-mails a day,” he said. Now, Dennis said he sometimes receives more than 150 e-mails per day.

“Maybe 20 of them are pertinent or business related,” he said. “If I didn’t subscribe to you for anything, don’t send it to me.

“Delete is my favorite key.”

Avon Bragg also said she wishes the electronic advertisements would quit clogging her accounts.

“It’s irritating,” the merchandising management senior said. “You want to check e-mails from professors and you have to wade through all this other stuff.”

Despite filters offered by some e-mail accounts, Bragg said she can’t escape spam.

“It’s like watching TV. You change the channel when the commercials come on, but on e-mail you can’t change the channel.”

To download the anti-virus software visit ntweb11.ais.msu.edu/clnav/AppLogin.Asp.

Tara May can be reached at maytara@msu.edu.