Does Spam Still Bother You?
I receive a ridiculous amount of spam email because I own a few domains and all email comes into one box. OIonly realised today just how much I receive when a colleague who was looking over my shoulder saw that I had 7,225 spam emails in my inbox. When I explained to him that this was only since 5th April, he worked out that I was receiving 1,200 spam emails per day or 50 per hour!
To be honest, I don’t even notice the spam anymore as about 80% gets caught automatically by gmail, and it’s easy for me to quickly move the other 20% to my spam box. In the a broadband world with massive mailboxes, I just don’t care about spam and I’m sure this is the case for most other people who can spot spam easily now.
Does spam still annoy you or are you blind to it like me?
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Comment by Marie - Wipe Out Cellulite on 11 April 2008:
Yea, spam was killing me too… till I decide to let google’s gmail filter it. Now I can’t believe how little I have to deal with and how much time I’m saving
Comment by Tim Igoe on 11 April 2008:
Spam used to drive me up the wall, I decided to implement some filtering on my server to see what happened. I found that grey listing made the biggest difference to reducing my spam.
I use postfix and can use postgrey to do the grey listing (temporary delay to mail) for me, this in combination with black listing (blocked mail) and virus and spam filtering enabled me to reduce my spam down to 1-2 a week.
For more about the filtering I implemented I wrote a small article http://tim.igoe.me.uk/view/11-Postfix_Spam_Filtering.html
Comment by victor louis on 12 April 2008:
Free Anti spam webinar, Why Today’s Spam Filters Fail
Spam isn’t just a big nuisance; it’s big business as well. So why is spam persisting?
Ferris Research estimates that spam will cost $140 billion worldwide in 2008, of which $42 billion will be in the United States alone. If you compare these numbers with Ferris’s 2007 estimates of $100 billion and $35 billion, you’ll see that the cost of spam has increased substantially over 12 months.
Register for a complimentary Webinar conducted by Abaca and Ferris research to know more about how you can stop this nuisance. To register please click the link below:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=LPFKkdkFwOYltiQZtM_2bttw_3d_3d
Comment by Alan Hearnshaw on 12 April 2008:
Anyone else notice the irony that the last post is really just spam?
Anyway, the only thing that worries me about this article is that it seems to be making light of spam. The scum that are bringing the Internet to its knees need to know the sort of damage they’re doing - not have it made light of.
They’d love to see an article like this which feeds into their “What’s the problem - just hit the delete key” attitude.
The true costs of their criminal and immoral activities are incalculable. For my part, I know of at least one contract - worth about $40,000 to me, that was lost because of the train wreck which e-mail has become now thanks to the spamming vermin.
I also have a photography business. I’m finding that sending files to my customers is now all but impossible. They simply don’t get there. No NDRs, they just disappear.
In short, e-mail is completely finished as a reliable medium of communication. Businesses are leaving it in droves because it simply can’t be relied upon any longer. Web sites and individuals go to great lengths to hide their e-mail address.
It’s probably already too late, but these scum will continue their onslaught as long as there are fools out there buying whatever it is the low-life spammers are peddling. Shame on anybody that ever deals with a spammer.
For my part, after many years battling the scum, I’ve finally given in and gone challenge/response. I know all too well the arguments against C/R, but nobody else is doing anything about it, so I have to be selfish too and protect myself.
Any message to me now has to run the gauntlet of 13,000 IPTables address range blocks, hundreds of postfix rules, SQLGrey, AMAVISD, Spamassassin and RBL checks. If they make it through that lot and I don’t know who they are, they get a challenge.
I have had TMDA operational since Monday. It’s now Saturday and I’ve had zero spam (usually a thousand a week), and VERY few challenges sent.
I’m done with fighting the scum, but I’m not blind to spam. It still annoys the hell out of me. I can no longer waste my time tracing headers and shooting off complaints to ISPs that show little real interest in dealing with the problem.
I’m done. I’m closing the gates. I have removed all e-mail addresses from my web sites. I’ll probably remove them from my business cards as well. If people need to contact me, they can use the form on my web site, the telephone, or expect a challenge from my mail server if I haven’t dealt with them before.
Comment by Deca on 16 April 2008:
Spam is the BIG enemy
I’ve got a lot of spam everyday
Comment by Goran Website on 28 April 2008:
I get almost nothing each day, off 50 accounts maybe 20 spam emails. The key is to get Google to fetch the email from your domains email spool and then you use their filtering to pop3 it onto your machine. Google uses its algorithm to filter the spam so you only get whats yours.
Granted you may use a few but I promise its worth it. Spam free mail.