Spam Increase?

[stevevan]

Is it just me, or has anyone else seen an increase in the amount of spam getting through? This is happening on my TCH mail (yes, Spam Assassin is enabled) as well as my ISP email account. Maybe I need to just tweak the settings on Spam Assassin a bit.

 

Don't some people have anything better to do with their time?

[TCH-Bruce]

Don't some people have anything better to do with their time?

Apparently not. It comes in cycles. I've noticed it on some of my accounts but not all. Tighten up your settings.

[TCH-Tim]

My SpamAssassins are set at 4. I'm considering going down to 3.

[Deverill]

Strangely enough, my gmail account is at what may be an all time low. Only (sheesh, only he says) 5212 spams in the past 30 days. It's often over 6000. Must be their spamming algorithms focusing on some segment they assume you to be in and not me... which is not a bad thing for me.

[stevevan]

Deverill...I'll send 'em your way!

[Samrc]

Our main office address has been a nightmare for the last week 2 different filters in place and yet hundreds of spams through in the past week. Use of PICTURES to sell assorted crud that is mispeled and poorly written.

 

The old-school spam used to tell you about a product, suggest a site in plain english instead of nonsense phrases. Other than clogging the email process and selling programs to stop this stuff, I see no purpose for MOST of the spam lately as they are not designed to get you to respond, just annoy.

[Zach]

My spam level has also greatly increased lately--it's not just your imagination!! I wonder if the spam is getting smarter and more is getting thru SpamAssassin. ?

[Deverill]

They are definitely getting more clever. I've read many articles lately about techniques being used to fool the filters and they are working. It's a constant tail-chasing endeavor - update filters - update spam - update filters - do it all again.

[carbonize]

I still recommend Spamihilator. It sits on your machine and scans the email as it comes in. Has about a 99% success rate for me after training and with the extra plugins. But yes there has been an increase in spam. Also an increase in pointless spam (lots of meaningless text with no links), 419 scams and phishing.

 

They really need to get together on this and come up with an international agreement on dealing with 419s and phishing. Also someone to actually report them to. As to sites that spam me I report them to their hosts. Sometimes it works.

[stevevan]

The program looks interesting, but I access my mail using either webmail (ISP) or PopTray. It's just a pain in the you-know-where to have to even bother to delete this garbage. But, such is life on the Internet!

[pmark23]

Over the past few weeks I've had a massive increase that both Spam Assassin and Thunderbird can't deal with. I dropped Spam Assassin down to 4 with little effect. Looking at the headers of the new spam, they're coming through at close to 1 or 2 -- the same that regular emails get.

 

The frustrating thing is that the message bodies for each are mostly identical -- difficult to automate spam removal. I was soooo used to getting ZERO spam.

 

Argh!

[carbonize]

I still recommend trying Spamihilator.

[TCH-Bruce]

Or K9

[carbonize]

K9 looks good but it's just a Baysian spam filter like most are. Spamihilator has plugins to do such things as check domains in emails against black/white list. Check number of words in an email. Check if stupid characters have been used to space out subject and it also uses DCC whereby it connects to a DCC server and sends a hash of the email to see how many, if any, others have received the same email and classed it as spam.

[Deverill]

I still recommend trying Spamihilator.

 

Now all they have to do is figure how to wedge it into Gmail!

I love Gmail because I can access it from anywhere, I can search ANY email I received or sent since starting. An old site I haven't messed with for months sends me an email I can jump into Gmail and search on the site name and find my password so I can cancel it. It's got pretty good spam filters... but they are only pretty good. I use a work desktop, home desktop and laptop as well as an occasional computer at church. Yes, I can pop the email but my HD would hate me and it would live in only one of those locations, thus defeating some of the benefits.

 

One day they will give us the perfect solution - maybe after the world is wiped out and replaced by something even more weird.

[carbonize]

To be honest I use two web based services, Yahoo and Gmail. All my email is forwarded to both. My Gmail seems to catch aroun 98% of the spam sent to it.

 

The only perfect solution is to insist that all emails to you contain a certain string or signature.

[thehemi]

My SpamAssassins are set at 4. I'm considering going down to 3.

 

I am getting a much higher level of spam bypassing SpamAssassin lately.

I am also using 4, because anything less and I start catching legit emails.

I hope it slows down soon, or I'm going to have to see what else I can do.

[thehemi]

I'm noticing that many of the spams are getting a really low SA ranking.

SA definitely needs to update their rules. For now I'm filtering my email

through my pobox.com account, they've got a great spam catching setup.

[TCH-Bruce]

I have switched to using Antispam Servant client side to combat the increase. So far it's working great. Thanks for the recommendation TCH-Dick!

 

The idiots sending spam are getting smarter at defeating anything you were used to using to combat it.

 

You will have to train it to what you consider to be spam but once you do, you can go about your day and quit worrying about spam.

[Prel]

My SpamAssassins are set at 5. I´m think about modifying for 4.

[carbonize]

OK I know I sound like an advert but I can't recommend Spamihilator highly enough. I just had to format and so started off with a clean install of it complete with a couple of plugins. After a single learning session it is now catching 99.9% of spam emails.

 

I may be wrong but I think Spam Assassin only uses a Bayesian filter and this is it's downfall.

[TCH-Bruce]

I may be wrong but I think Spam Assassin only uses a Bayesian filter and this is it's downfall.

You can white-list and black-list in Spam Assassin.

 

I looked at the program you keep recommending. I didn't like the idea that I had to install plugins to get all the protection needed.

[stevevan]

I may be wrong but I think Spam Assassin only uses a Bayesian filter and this is it's downfall.

Seeing as this could turn into a learning situation for everyone, then what is the difference between SpamAssassin and Spamihilator? From the Spamihilator web site:

The new Learning Filter (Bayesian Filter) uses the rules of...

They are both using the same type of filter? The other problem is that Spamihilator assumes one uses a stand-alone mail client. Unfortunately, I use several web-based mail programs.

 

But for many people, this program may be just the ticket! Interesting though!

[carbonize]

Spam Assassin sits on the server. Spamihilator sits on your computer and intercepts the email as it comes in. Maybe Spam Assassin should look at adding some other methods of scanning. The plugins I use in Spamihilator are

 

Attachment Filter (Blocks emails with certain types of attachments)

 

DCC Filter (This is a list where people using a DCC program send a hash of any emails they class as spam and if X number of people report it the filter blocks it)

 

Empty Mail Filter (Blocks emails with x number of words or less and can be told to ignore HTML tags)

 

Mystic Signs Filter (blocks emails with ascii in subject)

 

Substring filter (you can specify words to look for and block if found)

 

URL Filter (has a black and white list of urls and blocks as needed)