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Posted to users@spamassassin.apache.org by sn...@fastmail.fm on 2005/01/03 20:06:22 UTC
Are spammers finally feeling some pain?
Over the past month I've seen a ~25% dropoff in the amount of spam we're
receiving on a daily basis. Anyone else seeing a significant drop in
spam recently?
--
snowjack(a)fastmail.fm
Re: Are spammers finally feeling some pain?
Posted by Matt Kettler <mk...@evi-inc.com>.
At 02:06 PM 1/3/2005, snowjack@fastmail.fm wrote:
>Over the past month I've seen a ~25% dropoff in the amount of spam we're
>receiving on a daily basis. Anyone else seeing a significant drop in
>spam recently?
I only noticed a short-term drop off during the last two weeks, apparently
due to the holidays. (Spam levels here drops off on major holidays, and on
weekends. Tues-Thurs seems to be a peak time, baring holidays)
Yesterday (Monday) was back up to the level typical for a Monday spam load
on my network. Strangely, early November was a particularly high-spam
period, so if you're comparing December to November, you might also want to
look back at October.
Re: Are spammers finally feeling some pain? (update)
Posted by AltGrendel <al...@exit0.us>.
snowjack@fastmail.fm wrote:
>On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 11:06:22 -0800, snowjack@fastmail.fm said:
>
>
>>Over the past month I've seen a ~25% dropoff in the amount of spam we're
>>receiving on a daily basis. Anyone else seeing a significant drop in
>>spam recently?
>>
>>
>
>(Replying to self)
>The amount of spam we're receiving did go back up a little after the
>holidays, as some of you suggested it would. But it didn't go back up to
>pre-December levels. We are seeing a consistent decrease in the amount
>of spam addressed to recipients in our domain.
>
>Back in March, when we started rejecting high-scoring messages with a
>550 at our internet gateway, we were getting 200000 messages per week on
>average (over 90% spam), including rejected messages. After we started
>rejecting, over a period of about a month it rapidly dropped to 130000,
>and for most of the summer it stayed around 110000-130000. Through
>October and early November is was steady at 110000 messages per week.
>Then it started dropping again:
>Week ending total received messages
>Dec 5 104217
>Dec 12 103839
>Dec 19 103748
>Dec 26 89378
>Jan 2 80315
>Jan 9 89175
>
>I don't know whether the 550s are getting our users removed from spammer
>lists, or if there's some other factor. I was thinking maybe overall
>Internet spam was dropping, but from your replies last week, that
>doesn't seem to be the case. Anyway, I guess we're doing *something*
>right. :-)
>--
>
> snowjack(a)fastmail.fm
>
>
Er, Dec 26 == the date of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean.
Probably coincidence.
Re: Are spammers finally feeling some pain? (update)
Posted by sn...@fastmail.fm.
On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 11:06:22 -0800, snowjack@fastmail.fm said:
> Over the past month I've seen a ~25% dropoff in the amount of spam we're
> receiving on a daily basis. Anyone else seeing a significant drop in
> spam recently?
(Replying to self)
The amount of spam we're receiving did go back up a little after the
holidays, as some of you suggested it would. But it didn't go back up to
pre-December levels. We are seeing a consistent decrease in the amount
of spam addressed to recipients in our domain.
Back in March, when we started rejecting high-scoring messages with a
550 at our internet gateway, we were getting 200000 messages per week on
average (over 90% spam), including rejected messages. After we started
rejecting, over a period of about a month it rapidly dropped to 130000,
and for most of the summer it stayed around 110000-130000. Through
October and early November is was steady at 110000 messages per week.
Then it started dropping again:
Week ending total received messages
Dec 5 104217
Dec 12 103839
Dec 19 103748
Dec 26 89378
Jan 2 80315
Jan 9 89175
I don't know whether the 550s are getting our users removed from spammer
lists, or if there's some other factor. I was thinking maybe overall
Internet spam was dropping, but from your replies last week, that
doesn't seem to be the case. Anyway, I guess we're doing *something*
right. :-)
--
snowjack(a)fastmail.fm
Re: Are spammers finally feeling some pain?
Posted by "Eric W. Bates" <er...@vineyard.net>.
I agree with Louis. I graph various numbers from our postfix with
mailgrapher and I would say that the amount of mail we block has been
pretty consistent for the last 6 months at about 250 msg/min.
Louis LeBlanc wrote:
> On 01/03/05 11:06 AM, snowjack@fastmail.fm sat at the `puter and typed:
>
>>Over the past month I've seen a ~25% dropoff in the amount of spam we're
>>receiving on a daily basis. Anyone else seeing a significant drop in
>>spam recently?
>
>
> I sincerely doubt it. I just turned on fetchmail to pull all my
> holiday backlog of work email. 1856 messages total. 45 of which were
> real email, the rest were spam. This is from 12/23 to 1/2, 11 days.
> That's actually a little bit of a spike.
>
> At home, I'm getting far less, but still seems a small spike there
> lately. Even with all my honeypots seeded out there.
>
> Well, at least now I'm getting my automation tuned out a little.
>
> That's not to say they aren't feeling any pain. Every week or so, /.
> has some spammer related story, and the spammers aren't coming out on
> the rosy end. Matter of fact, ISTR one where a judge awarded
> $1Billion to a small ISP in California(?) that was nearly driven under
> by a single spammer. Maybe it was mentioned here?
>
> Lou
Re: Are spammers finally feeling some pain?
Posted by Louis LeBlanc <sp...@keyslapper.org>.
On 01/03/05 11:06 AM, snowjack@fastmail.fm sat at the `puter and typed:
> Over the past month I've seen a ~25% dropoff in the amount of spam we're
> receiving on a daily basis. Anyone else seeing a significant drop in
> spam recently?
I sincerely doubt it. I just turned on fetchmail to pull all my
holiday backlog of work email. 1856 messages total. 45 of which were
real email, the rest were spam. This is from 12/23 to 1/2, 11 days.
That's actually a little bit of a spike.
At home, I'm getting far less, but still seems a small spike there
lately. Even with all my honeypots seeded out there.
Well, at least now I'm getting my automation tuned out a little.
That's not to say they aren't feeling any pain. Every week or so, /.
has some spammer related story, and the spammers aren't coming out on
the rosy end. Matter of fact, ISTR one where a judge awarded
$1Billion to a small ISP in California(?) that was nearly driven under
by a single spammer. Maybe it was mentioned here?
Lou
--
Louis LeBlanc spamassassin@keyslapper.org
Fully Funded Hobbyist, KeySlapper Extrordinaire :)
http://www.keyslapper.org Ô¿Ô¬
today, n.:
A nice place to visit, but you can't stay here for long.
Re: Are spammers finally feeling some pain?
Posted by Sam Nilsson <sa...@servingpeace.com>.
Andy Jezierski wrote:
> Probably not. Every year around the holidays our spam hits a yearly low
> usually the week of Christmas, then goes right back up to the previous
> levels. I think some of the spammers may be taking a holiday break as
> well.
I have to agree, but only based on my experiences this year. We had
incredibly low mail volumes (mailing lists included) throughout the
holiday period, then yesterday we had one of our biggest spam days ever.
Of course, since we're using SA (and dropping high scoring messages), I
got only 1 spam in my mail, and it was properly marked as such ;-).
- Sam Nilsson
Re: Are spammers finally feeling some pain?
Posted by Brian Godette <bg...@idcomm.com>.
On Monday 03 January 2005 01:09 pm, Andy Jezierski wrote:
> Probably not. Every year around the holidays our spam hits a yearly low
> usually the week of Christmas, then goes right back up to the previous
> levels. I think some of the spammers may be taking a holiday break as
> well.
>
> Andy
Perhaps some of the 5437986034 zombied Windows boxes were turned off over the
holidays? :P
Re: Are spammers finally feeling some pain?
Posted by Andy Jezierski <aj...@stepan.com>.
snowjack@fastmail.fm wrote on 01/03/2005 01:06:22 PM:
> Over the past month I've seen a ~25% dropoff in the amount of spam we're
> receiving on a daily basis. Anyone else seeing a significant drop in
> spam recently?
> --
>
> snowjack(a)fastmail.fm
>
Probably not. Every year around the holidays our spam hits a yearly low
usually the week of Christmas, then goes right back up to the previous
levels. I think some of the spammers may be taking a holiday break as
well.
Andy