Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam

[Ohmer]

I am a sysadmin for a small college in the US. We have roughly 5000 email users. We use a spam blocker from a company called Ironport that does a good job from and end user perspective. We get very few complaints about spam and I get very little in my inbox. Now, according to Ironport ‘s statistics, it is rejecting 92% of the mail we get. That’s right, 92%. I have yet to hear about any false positives.

This number is so high I have a hard time believing it. Are there any other sysadmins out there that are seeing these kinds of numbers? It’s just mind-boggling to me that it has gotten this bad.

I should note that this includes viruses. Viruses only account for about 3% of the rejections.

[geni]

I am a sysadmin for a small college in the US. We have roughly 5000 email users. We use a spam blocker from a company called Ironport that does a good job from and end user perspective. We get very few complaints about spam and I get very little in my inbox. Now, according to Ironport ‘s statistics, it is rejecting 92% of the mail we get. That’s right, 92%. I have yet to hear about any false positives.

This number is so high I have a hard time believing it. Are there any other sysadmins out there that are seeing these kinds of numbers? It’s just mind-boggling to me that it has gotten this bad.

I should note that this includes viruses. Viruses only account for about 3% of the rejections.

Sounds simular to the mailing list I moderate.

[CrossHair]

From my experience my personal email accounts provide a service where the spam goes into a separate folder. I would say that the 92ish percent number being spam is accurate.

[Soapy Sam]

Bloody vikings!

[Zep]

Yep. Sad to say. Unless you actually WANT your penis enlarged in Nigeria...

[gnome]

I'm just glad that the 92% is getting choked off at the server level instead of having to be sorted by the individual user.

[Mid]

The truly disturbing thing with spam is that it works, people actually buy stuff from spammers (or at least provide their credit card/bank account details, believe the hyping stock tips etc.) Who are these people? Why do they do it? I mean even if I did want to say get my penis enlarged in Nigeria I would do at least some research behind it and go for a reputable source

[Soapy Sam]

The Odinga Mtui Clinic in Port Harcourt comes highly recommended.
That's where I went for my reduction job.
Made two new men out of me.

[Mid]

The Odinga Mtui Clinic in Port Harcourt comes highly recommended.
That's where I went for my reduction job.
Made two new men out of me.

:D

[Rufo]

The truly disturbing thing with spam is that it works, people actually buy stuff from spammers (or at least provide their credit card/bank account details, believe the hyping stock tips etc.) Who are these people? Why do they do it? I mean even if I did want to say get my penis enlarged in Nigeria I would do at least some research behind it and go for a reputable source
The thing is, sending spam is so cheap that it's enough if one person out of 10 000 is interested. And we have to admit that the idiots include far more than 0,01 % of the population.

Bloody vikings!
Spam spam spam spam. Lovely spam! Wonderful spam! Spam spa-a-a-a-a-am spam spa-a-a-a-a-am spam. Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam!Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Spam spam spam spam!

[Ohmer]

The thing is, sending spam is so cheap that it's enough if one person out of 10 000 is interested. And we have to admit that the idiots include far more than 0,01 % of the population.

Another factor here is that most spam is not even getting delivered. You could send out a million messages only to have 10,000 delivered. From there only a small percentage will get a response. I’m really curious about what response rates really are.

I also think there are a lot of “zombies (http://news.com.com/Zombie+trick+expected+to+send+spam+sky-high/2100-7349_3-5560664.html)” out here spewing junk that isn’t even relevant as spam any more. It will take a long time to clean all of them up. Fortunately, Ironport does a good job of stopping that particular problem.


Spam spam spam spam. Lovely spam! Wonderful spam! Spam spa-a-a-a-a-am spam spa-a-a-a-a-am spam. Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam!Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Spam spam spam spam!
It's realy worth seeing again:
http://www.detritus.org/spam/skit.html

[PixyMisa]

92%? Pah! 99.7% of trackbacks are spam (http://snark.mu.nu/snark.html).

[Ducky]

I'll have the spam eggs sausage and spam.

[AnotherSillyAlias]

You ask how many people believe stuff they read in spam mail?

Ask yourself this, how many people believe in psychics?

There is a huge market out there for the penis enlargers.

[JLam]

Unless you actually WANT your penis enlarged in Nigeria...

Don't knock it till you've tried it. That's all I'm sayin'.

[AnotherSillyAlias]

I wonder if there is any corelation between those who are convinced they need a larger penis and those who are regularly taken in by scams?

[webfusion]

Lately, my inbox is being flooded with nonsense messages, that contain both a subject line of nonsense and a message of gibberish. It is an ongoing occurance, with sometimes ten-twenty a day. What's the deal with that?

example:
SUBJECT: motoroladominant

tell presentation carnal stricken contributor bennington cockeye weekday cypress wastebasket canal ruth mycenae holland safe presuppose plush gladys pursuer backwater dean does damage set drastic elapse confute tangle figural mere harding pedantic hiroshi allusion lawyer met hartley afloat between cavalry ophiuchus baseman vagary snigger gaylord mascara potts slapstick bookend identity haberman inquest valerie layton peek bijective

[gnome]

Lately, my inbox is being flooded with nonsense messages, that contain both a subject line of nonsense and a message of gibberish. It is an ongoing occurance, with sometimes ten-twenty a day. What's the deal with that?

example:
SUBJECT: motoroladominant

tell presentation carnal stricken contributor bennington cockeye weekday cypress wastebasket canal ruth mycenae holland safe presuppose plush gladys pursuer backwater dean does damage set drastic elapse confute tangle figural mere harding pedantic hiroshi allusion lawyer met hartley afloat between cavalry ophiuchus baseman vagary snigger gaylord mascara potts slapstick bookend identity haberman inquest valerie layton peek bijective

I suspect someone is testing software intended to fool spam-recognition software. The gibberish is masquerading as legitimate content, and the idea is to add enough of the "gibberish" to a spam email to make it seem like a real message.

[webfusion]

Well, it works just fine, because it gets through all my spam filters and comes from such a wide array of sources that I cannot define a sender and filter it that way. It is getting to be a major nuisance, and increases in volume weekly.

I have now started MAILWASHING the stuff, deleting it at the ISP, using Nick Bolton's MailWasherFree 5.1 --