Dramatic decrease in SPAM

[Texas Mac Man]

Over the past year, I have averaged over 200 SPAM emails a day. However, over the last week, the SPAM messages have fallen to 10-15 per day. Don't know if this is the result of some government action (like the arrest of a major Spammer) or an ISP blocking messages from some source(s). Whatever the cause, I'm pleased.

Has anyone else seen a decline of this magnitude?

[Xairbusdriver]

Must be because of your web site? I've got 28 messages in my Eudora Junk box, all but one were placed there by SPAMsieve, for the last 15 days. They are automatically trashed after that time so I couldn't give you an estimate for a month/year. But I'll agree that the flow seems to be slowing and/or getting caught before it ever reaches any of my 6 accounts/aliases. That's also fine by me!

[jwboyd]

If anyone is suffering withdrawal symptoms, maybe I can help.

I have not noticed any reduction, and I'd be glad to share with you.

Joe

[Mayo]

My spam has actually increased to over 100 messages a day getting snagged by the Pobox.com filters.  I'm considering dropping a couple of long-time e-mail addresses...

[kimmer]

My experience mirrors Joe and Mayo. Strangely most of my spam assumes I'm a male, or least am endowed with male body parts. Except for this one legit organization that writes to Sneakers at my address (and neither of us ever gave them an email address). I consider their emails the worst kind of spam.

Perhaps the 3 of us could share our spam with others?

[Paddy]

Kimmer, if you're getting spam from a LEGIT organization, then they will have a working "opt out" option at the bottom of the email. I've opted out from legitimate emails and it works. Just don't do it with those folks trying to sell you body part enhancing pills!

As for the spam issue - Tom, your email addy is in plain sight on your web sites - and until you change it AND hide it, you'll continue to get spam, I'm afraid, even though it may have gone down at the moment.

I still use the ASCII code for "@" on my web sites, and it still works - let's face it; why bother coding a spam bot to look for "& # 64;" (without the spaces) if there are so many email addresses out there to harvest just by looking for the "@"?

Two excellent explanations of all the options for hiding email addresses:

http://www.csarven.ca/hiding-email-addresses
http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/03/hide-yo...n-websites.html

I've been very careful with my email addresses for the past few years - I NEVER put my primary one as a contact on a web page for instance - and I'm also very careful about what boxes get ticked automatically when dealing with online retailers or anyone else that could send me stuff I really don't want. Net result - I get maybe 4 or 5 spam emails a week at the most, and none on my primary email address. Of course, that doesn't count the Yahoo address, which is the one I use as a complete throwaway. I rarely bother even checking it, other than to go and empty almost everything into the trash!

[Mayo]

My primary Charter address receives no spam because I never use it publicly... For years I have used the Pobox.com e-mail forwarding service and until relatively recently it worked well enough that I would get maybe one spam a month.  But as I have used the Internet more and more I suppose that it is inevitable that I would begin getting more spam. Most of it comes to my "public" address that I use to register at Web sites, etc.

[kimmer]

QUOTE(Paddy @ Mar 25 2008, 11:31 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Kimmer, if you're getting spam from a LEGIT organization, then they will have a working "opt out" option at the bottom of the email. I've opted out from legitimate emails and it works. Just don't do it with those folks trying to sell you body part enhancing pills!

It's really legit and I've tried their "opt out" and it hasn't worked. Worse, when I write to them they ignore me because the email is addressed to Sneakers (using his real name) and he's the member and they claim that I'm not a member (and that's correct) and that they only contact members ... and they will verify the email address and tell me it belongs to Sneakers ... and I've asked him to write to them ... and he hasn't and I'm about to forge his name and do it myself. Of course, they'll probably kick him out when I'm done.

[rongold]

I have also seen a dramatic decline in spam in the past 2-3 days - from 30-50 per day to 4-8 per day. Primary spam filtering is done by ISP (Sympatico.ca).

[Gregg]

Now if we could only determine what has caused this precipitous drop in SPAM we could augment the cause to eliminate SPAM forever!

[krissel]

I don't get much SPAM in the first place since I think my ISP's are filtering it pretty heavily. My problem is I think they are filtering out some legit stuff. Over the past few days I've not received email from people who have said they sent something to me. I also have sent stuff that others say they didn't receive. And the test messages I've sent to myself didn't all make it or came a day later. I think my optonline service is messing around.

[Gregg]

kris, we have a similar problem with our myway address. Some people just can't send us messages. We've asked for help, but it hasn't been helpful.

[krissel]

Oh, thanks for reminding me of my myway email. I forgot I had it.  

[jcarter]

I almost have no spam any more, and am not sure why?
But it sure is nice,
Jane

[Raven]

I rarely get SPAM and I love that!
I use a Yahoo address for online inquiries or one time purchases.

And I will reprimand diplomatically someone who forwards a broadcast email to me and 50 of their friends where everyone's name is in the BCC field.
I'm trying to do my part to teach him about privacy and courtesy and how to use the CC field.
 It's getting better though!

Have a good one. :-)