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General discussion

Spam trends - They're Back Again ...

Feb 27, 2004 11:49AM PST

A couple of months ago I posted about how I was getting a lot less SPAM than usual. It lasted for about 2 months. The whole family was only getting about 30-40 junk emails a day back in November & December. That's total for several people, each of whom has at least one email address.

Now we're getting more like 150-200 a day.

AFAIK we haven't signed up for anything or done anything different. Is it possible that SPAM volume is seasonal?

Anybody else notice a change recently?

Discussion is locked

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Bouncing Spam...
Feb 27, 2004 2:08PM PST
Anybody else notice a change recently? - Bill Osler

I'm receiving far less Spam , knock on wood. However, I've been bouncing all the Spam I receive using MailWasher Pro for quite some time, so hopefully I am being removed from the lists of those who send out most of the Spam...
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Re:Spam trends - They're Back Again ...
Feb 28, 2004 12:36AM PST

Hi Bill,

I don't notice, because I've had very little spam to my real addy, and the throwaway addy I don't pay much attention to.

My guess though, is that spamming humans, are as cyclical as any other humans, like maybe are busy shopping and at parties at Christmastime, and now are back at work with nothing better to do.

Cindi

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Bill - do you have Mailwasher ?
Feb 28, 2004 4:51AM PST

Echoing what Blake said, and apparently recognised happily by those "in the know" on the Cnet help sites.

Here is the link:

http://www.mailwasher.net/

Regards
Mo

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Re:Spam trends - They're Back Again ...
Feb 28, 2004 5:13AM PST

Hi Bill

Are you on a Cable Modem?

I'm on Dial-up.
Its very rare that I get Spam on my main e-mail address and maybe a couple per week on the others.

Comcast Cable and AOL seem to be the worst culprits around here. Many are switching to DSL which I'm not familar with. My neighbor dumped Comcast and switched to DSL. It ended the spam problem with him.

Another friend of mine had to change his e-mail address to get rid of the spam.

George

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Re:Spam trends - They're Back Again ...
Feb 28, 2004 5:30AM PST

My ISP has an excellent SPAM filter.

However, recently I received one that had a subject line that looked like it was a reply to someone. However, it was an ad for a mortgage company.

I have received about 6 of them, each having a different name as "sender". I have sent copies to the abuse address of my ISP, and am betting they will soon put an end to it.

The trick they are using is the variable, innocent looking subject line which sends out no red flags, and there is no attachment.

Angeline
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

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Re:Re:Spam trends - They're Back Again ...
Feb 29, 2004 10:51PM PST

Hi Angeline:

I've been getting a lot of those lately too, SPAM emails with "re:...whatever" in the subject line. The messages are intended to look like replies, and the subject rarely has anything to do with the content of the message.

I hardly ever got any SPAM on my Comcast account until a month or so ago. I'm not sure what changed.

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Josh: It is good to know what to look out for - thanks, Mo
Feb 29, 2004 11:07PM PST

.

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Re:Josh: It is good to know what to look out for - thanks, Mo
Feb 29, 2004 11:20PM PST

If the sender is someone I don't know, that's the first red flag. If the message is supposedly a response to something I sent, but I don't know the person and I know I never sent them any messages, that's an automatic deletion.

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Re:Re:Re:Spam trends - They're Back Again ...
Mar 1, 2004 11:48AM PST

Hopefully Comcast itself didn't sell your email addy.

Otherwise, somewhere you had used it probably shared it. Even if not suppose to have done so.

RogerNC

click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

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Perhaps I should clarify ...
Feb 28, 2004 8:14AM PST

Almost none of the SPAM reaches my inbox. My ISP uses Postini as a SPAM filter. I have almost all of the filters set to the most aggressive choice and I've entered all of my regular correspondents on the 'white list'.

I don't think the filter has let through more than 2 or maybe three SPAM messages on any given day in months. Most days it does not let any SPAM pass.

During the last 6 months the filter has blocked 3 or 4 messages that I did want, so I try to review the blocked messages by looking at the 'sender' and 'subject' lines at the Postini site every day. If they build up too much there is a real temptation to just nuke the lot of them instead of actually looking at the list. During November and December it was easy because, even though Postini was effectively blocking the SPAM, there were only a couple of dozen messages daily that I had to review. Now it's getting to be a pain because the count is up near 200 a day again.

I've never trusted any program enough to just 'set it and forget it' when it comes to these decisions, so even if I used Mailwasher I'd still have to review the reject list.

One thing about Mailwasher, though. I'm told that a sophisticated user who looks at 'bounced' emails can tell the differences between messages bounced by Mailwasher and those actually bounced by an ISPs mail program by looking carefully at the headers. If that is true then sooner or later it will lose its utility.

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Bill, I get almost no spam. I'm on Yahoo, so
Feb 28, 2004 9:52AM PST

I don't know how much they are blocking that I don't see. I do not see much even in my 'bulk mail' folder, and all my usual newsletters get through just fine. I dropped AOL because they were blocking mail I wanted. I am very careful about giving out my email address. I usually use an alternate like Kiddpeat that I only look at occasionally. I also avoid posting it without disguises. For example, I might use k i d d p e a t at myisp instead of typing the actual address.

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"......differences between messages bounced by Mailwasher and ...."
Feb 28, 2004 10:04AM PST

.
As I see it, bounced is bounced. Either way the receiver didn't read it and the sender got it back. The problem is that the return address most often is bogus and actually the bounce goes nowhere so the sender doesn't know or care that the email is being bounced.

But at least you get rid of it before it gets to your Inbox and that's what matters.

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Re:Spam trends - They're Back Again ...
Feb 29, 2004 4:45PM PST

How the heck are u getting 150 a day is it because, and i assume you're in US? i get about 8-10 per day,
i live in UK and very little spam filter only hotmail's own filter. i'm on NTL broadband.

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I think there are multiple causes ...
Mar 1, 2004 8:53AM PST

The total is for the entire family, with something like 10 email addresses between us. All of the addresses get some SPAM, even the ones I have never AFAIK given to anybody outside the immediate family. Some of those addresses get very little SPAM, but others get a lot. Some of the family are more likely than I am to post their email addresses in places where the address can be 'harvested', but I won't name any names. A couple of the addresses are at Yahoo and have been in use for nearly 10 years now for various purposes, and those are the ones that get the most SPAM.
One of these days I may have to abandon the present set of email addresses, but so far it hasn't come to that. I'd like to try to keep the addresses stable so that friends who only write occasionally can still find me.