Spam mail. Another question from a computer illiterate.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

I've banged on about spam in the past, but now I have another question.

I have one e-mail account that I have obviously let leak into the world of the spammer. It receives about 60 spam mails daily. I don't open them I don't even allow them to show their contents in the preview pane. The go straight to the junk mail folder mostly directly filtered by Apple's Mail programme, or for the few that misses, put there by me to keep training the automation. I then transfer the lot to Trash.

Why has the total stagnated at around 60? Why has it not exponentially spiralled upwards as spammers exchange databases and why has it not dwindled to nothing as I fail to react in anything other than the manner outlined above and (hopefully) not validated that e-mail address? I would have thought that a stable rate of spam would be the least likely result.

If I inactivated HTML in received e-mails, would that help stem the flow?

 

[MRC_Hans]

My spam-rate was stable at a slightly more moderate 10/day, till my ISP started operating a filter. Now it is zero.

I suppose the mechanisms you mention are exactly the reason for this situation; new spammers begin, because your address is passed on or resampled, others cease, either for having given up on you or for other reasons, so like any other population, attrition and proliferation cancel out and an equilibrium is reached.

Also, I think the number of big-time spammers is not as big as we perhaps think. The really big operators are probably to be counted in hundreds, not thousands.

Hans

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Hans

I can see that those processes might be at work, but I would have thought it could not really achieve the stability that is apparent over months.

 

[Iconoclast]

Also, I think the number of big-time spammers is not as big as we perhaps think. The really big operators are probably to be counted in hundreds, not thousands.

Hans

Even less than that. From what I've read, a dozen spam merchants are responsible for half the spam that gets sent.

 

[Stitch]

If your maibox accepts only a specific e-mail address: fred@someplace.com for example, then the chances of getting hit are reasonably small, and so I expect those that have your address keep sending you things, but few others "find" your address.

I suspect that much SPAM these days works on sending out literally millions of mails to random@someplace.com in the hope that some with get through. It costs almost nothing to use this approach and is certainly cheaper than buying databases.

My reasoning for this is that most of the 1000 or so SPAM mails per day that comes through my domain level mail server is to e-mail addresses that do not exist within my domain at all. As a result they just get dumped on the badmsg queue pending periodic purging.

BTW - yes switching off HTML, JavaScript and Images will all help. Some mails include a small 1 pixel image file that the SPAMer hosts. When your mail client loads the mail, their server logs show that your IP address is valid, so unless you have to, don't open mail unless you know who it is from and have the client as tightly nailed down as possible.

 

[alfaniner]

If you have a common nick, you might want to change it. For instance if you have spock@hotmail.com (pity the poor guy that does), spammers can reasonably guess that many others have thought of using the same moniker. When creating an account, Hotmail adds a number on the end if the original is taken and shows you which are available. I could reasonably hit 10000 valid emails by sending to spock1, spock2, up to spock10000@hotmail.com (or even more).

But if you make up a word it's much harder for spammers to hit at random.

Don't post your email on any web page.
Use one for personal accounts, and another for all web sites that require registration (it should be a valid one, though, as sometimes you have to get a registration verification through email).

 

[Soapy Sam]

I use Hotmail. I have now had no spam in the last six weeks. Nil. None. Nada. Zero.
Count them.

How? Simple. Filters only permit mail on my safe list.

Anyone else needs to get in touch, they can phone me.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

How? Simple. Filters only permit mail on my safe list.

That's my problem. We rent out a holiday cottage using the problematic e-mail account so I can't use a safe list because I don't know who is going to try to contact me to make a booking. I considered filtering on the message subject, but not people title their e-mails quite differently and I couldn't think of a good enough rule to include the good and exlude the bad.

 

[Rat]

Have a look at Outlook's spam filter file for ideas as to how to filter with rules. I wouldn't advise using all, or even many, of them (my monthly mail from the Times Crossword Club always gets dumped in the spam bin), but it shows some ideas. For example, any mail that includes '$' AND '!!' in the subject line is spam. Few would argue with that.

Cheers,
Rat.

 

[MRC_Hans]

I don't think random mails are used much. Even, say, ten chars of address before the @ runs into an astronomical number of addresses. Also, the web-hotel I use for my homepage gives me unlimited e-mail addresses under my domain, so any address@my_domain.dk goes to my box where I have a catch-all that redirects them to my regular box. So, if anybody sent randomly addressed mails to my domain, I would know (and they don't).

Hans

 

[_Q_]

I've had very satisfactory results using Spambayes. I'm using the version that "plugs in" automagically to MicroSoft Outlook.

Train it on enough "spam" and "ham" (as they call non-spam messages), and it does a fine job.

Works like magic!

 

[Ove]

I have two free Yahoo mail identities, one is "corrupt" and the other is not. Yahoo mail has a spam filter and it actually captures around 95% of the spam so filters DO work. Apparaently the one at my work also just kicked in.

I've had my work mail "infected" and i recieved something like 40 - 60 spammails pr week. It has suddenly ceased thanks to (i think) an effective spam filter.

Hip - Hip - Hooraaaaaaaay.

 

[evildave]

The weakness of a pure bayesian filter is that spam with 'l33t speak' and misspellings in it doesn't statistically "count". Worse, the bayesian filters can tend to eat legitimate order notifications, and other emails, especially if someone types in all-caps, or happens to use a word like "FREE" in the title.

Something like http://tmda.net/ is the real solution. In its simplest form, the server simply replies to the email (if the sender isn't already on an approved list) and asks the sender to reply (which gets them 'approved', and un-impounded). Virtually no spam has a valid reply address. Further steps, such as tagging to keep track of who you give your email address out to evolve from there.

 

[_Q_]

I'll qualify my statements substantially.

In my particular situation, Spambayes seems to be working very well. To the best of my knowledge, it has never eaten a legitimate e-mail sent to me. It does still put a few messages of both sorts in the "spam suspect" folder, from which I then declare them to be spam or not, but the number of such messages doesn't present me with a real burden.

It may just be my good fortune that my junk mail and my legitimate mail are simply different enough that the weaknesses of the software aren't apparent to me.