I’ve been receiving more advertising on my office computer lately, but I’m especially concerned about an e-mail I received that was soliciting my help in opening a bank account in which to transfer $126 million from a bank in Africa. I’ve never received this kind of e-mail. Is it a scam? What should I do?

Unfortunately, this is a fairly common example of SPAM, or junk e-mail. It’s annoying, but relatively harmless. The good news is that it doesn’t contain a virus and won’t damage your system -- it will just waste your time. ETS hopes to purchase SPAM filtering software for the District this year, but the timing may be affected by budget cuts. Check out the ETS website for more e-mail FAQs.