BIG decrease in SPAM volume in the last couple o' days...

[kbeartx]

Down from an avg of nearly 100 per day, only 22 Thursday and 10 yesterday.

Not complaining, it's a welcome development, but I wonder if anybunny knows why?

Did some big spambot network get shut down recently?

Did some new laws or regulations kick-in?

Maybe a power struggle among big SPAM players over control of rival botnets?

[giantmike]

I haven't seen any news on Slashdot that would indicate a reason either. But now that you mention it, I seem to only be averaging 6 SPAMs per day to all my personal addresses combined. Normally I'm in double digits, so my delete button has had a rest too.

Don't ask me my secrets for keeping it so low, because I really don't know. It's magic

[sandbox]

Kbear, you probably won’t find-out-why either, because the solution was an algorithm in the filters, like Spamassasin. (if the name of the sender is contained in the subject add a point) or something along those lines.

It’s helpful to peek in on a spam wire now and again just to see what new.
http://spam.abuse.net/ While some folks will experience a decrease others may be getting slammed. A lot depends on your exposure.

This gives you a good outlook on the range of spam.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_(electronic)

Some good info here http://onguardonline.gov/index.html

More… http://www.topix.net/news/spam

Spam News by Search Engines http://spamlinks.net/news.htm

A UK spam newslink http://newsnow.co.uk/newsfeed/?name=Spam

[Paddy]

Um, KBear, how much spam do you get from your email address attached to your web site? (The one you use for "contact me") The reason I ask, is that it's in plain sight - a prime target for email harvesting spambots. I have always concealed my email address on all the web sites I manage and subsequently get almost no spam - and the only spam I do get is clearly from those who have actually gone to the site in person. (all education-related and very little of that)

I'd suggest that you change the code for the email link to use the ASCII text for the "@" - which is "&-#-64-;" only take out the dashes, of course - really simple and very effective in my 5 years of experience using it. Spambots are stupid because they don't need to be smart.

[()]

Isn't there anyone that has considered rewriting the email software that we have and use on our systems.

Make it so that if anyone that is not in your address book the emails (SPAM) will automatically be bounced back to sender as undeliverable.

The firewall, bounce and spam protection software doesn't really work.  all it does it put it into another filefolder to be deleted or trashed.

After I installed Norton';s on my computer, I got SPAM like you wouldnet believe.  That's why I believe that these companies like Nortons, McAfee, and others create the problem in order to keep billing you yearly for protection.

Before I installed norton, I barely got SPAM.

Some people here on CL may not believe it, but me and a growing number of people do believe that the Anti-SPAM software dealers are the ones that created the problem in order to make a business successful at your cost.

Some companies have alredy been caught by telling you that you computer was infected when running your socalled free virus scan on your PeeCee, then they infect your computer in order for you to pay for the fix.

Bottom line, it's all about the $GREEN$, and that's it.  If we didn't have SPAM then we would have no use for all these Anti-Spam companies popping up everywhere to bill you for what I believe they gave to you in the first place.

Never give out your email address on any type of form inside a store, company that aske for it.  If you do and you do not read the fine, fine print, you are consenting for them to give out (sell) their email list to other companies and so on, and son on, and so on, then every one has your email address and they sell it to other companies.

Remember how quick people put a stop to Phone Companies that were selling people phone numbers, cell phone numbers, etc.  The same needs to be done with companies that sell your email addresses.

[kps]

As Sandbox has already said, it's probably your ISP. They may have updated their spam filters at the server side or started to use multiple blacklists, etc.

When I turned on SpamAssasin on my mail server (at my web hosting account), spam addressed to my domain dropped by a good 75%.

Now I wish .Mac would do something about their spam.

[giantmike]

QUOTE

Make it so that if anyone that is not in your address book the emails (SPAM) will automatically be bounced back to sender as undeliverable.

You can set up a rule in Mail.app to do this for you. It's pretty simple, but then you have to know that anyone who may email you will be in your address book. That's not always the case. Also, most spammers use fake/spoofed email addresses. Bouncing the email back will just result in some random, innocent person getting a bounce mail, and they won't know why.

QUOTE

Now I wish .Mac would do something about their spam.

Actually, they do. If you look at the extended headers of some of the junk mail you get at your .Mac address, you will see that they tagged it as suspected SPAM. That's why the Mail.app preferences have a setting to "trust the junk mail tags from the ISP" (I don't remember exactly what it says, but it's something along those lines). Thus, when it gets tagged by Apple, it's automatically marked as junk in Mail.app (I assume other email programs have a similar setting).

[kps]

I use Mailsmith and SpamSieve, and combined, they do an incredible job and almost never miss a spam message, but that's on my client side.

I was referring to having .Mac do something on the server side to improve capturing spam from the 'get-go', so I don't see it at all...in my spam box or any other.

[()]

Still again...

.Mac is like all the other Anti-SPAM programs.

You have to pay a fee for it.

[Highmac]

QUOTE(kbeartx @ Jan 27 2007, 05:36 PM) [snapback]117146[/snapback]

Big decrease in SPAM...

Don't you find, though, that as soon as you say something like that it changes back to the worst scenario.....

"We haven't had any snow......" it starts snowing....
"Traffic's running better....." some clown turns a lorry over on a motorway junction, snarling up five roads....
and so on....

As some old British comedian used to say: "It's being so cheerful as keeps me going..."

[Gregg]

Well, I skimmed past the responses, but our level of SPAM has been up this weekend. Go figure.

[Xairbusdriver]

Sorry, Gregg, I didn't think you'd notice my forwards...

Can't complain about costs. dotMac costs the same whether you use their SPAM filtering or not. Same for Earthlink. Can't remember what I paid for SPAMsieve, but it was worth it! What it catches goes into a "Junk" mailbox, it gets deleted from there in a certain number of days, I never see it unless I look in there. I usually do look in there every few days and have to agree with kbear, there are so few in there that I don't even have a vertical scroll box!

BTW, is it safe to use anything from Norton in X?

[krissel]

Probably shouldn't say this 'out loud', but I rarely get any SPAM.




I wonder if it is because most of my email goes to my old ISP first (where I keep a basic account) and is filtered there. Then it is forwarded to my present ISP and filtered once more. Finally it goes through my rules in Mail.

If I get one a day it's a lot.  

[dolphin]

Since I changed ISPs...knock on wood...it has been nil.