Maleficent
Premium
join:2002-02-11
The Dungeon
clubs:
edit:
March 23rd, @05:30PM
| Spam E-mail Has Gone Down Considerably
Knock on wood. About a week and a half ago, I was going to post here that my spam e-mail has gotten out of control. I was getting around 1000 spam e-mails a day. Not including the "bounce backs" from people spoofing my e-mail address. There wasn't really any one thing either. Some were, "process rebates at home", get rich quick schemes, the usual Nigerian scam, Viagra and cheap drugs. And then, suddenly, it's dropped down to maybe a dozen a day. It's been real nice. I'm not expecting it to last.
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Have you hugged a spider today? |
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Grimy
Pencil Neck Geek
Premium
join:2005-01-13
Orange, CA
 ·AT&T Yahoo
| What mail service are you using?
My att-yahoo mail has been behaving the same way. First, a big increase in the amount of stuff hitting the junk folder, and then virtually nothing appearing in there.
I know yahoo has been working on the mail system a lot in the last month or so and messaging me to upgrade to their new mail system as well. I'm guessing that the new system filters spam differently.
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"Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself"-Bo Diddley |
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nwrickert
sand groper
Premium,MVM
join:2004-09-04
Geneva, IL
·AT&T Midwest
| reply to Maleficent
I'm guessing your ISP is AT&T. It seems that AT&T has recently instituted some significant spam blocking.
I can assure that the spammers have not given up. It is just that they are being blocked.
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AT&T dsl; Westell 327w modem/router; SuSE 10.1; firefox 2.0.0.12 |
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Doctor Olds
I Need A Remedy For What's Ailing Me.
Premium,VIP
join:2001-04-19
1970 442 W30
clubs:
edit:
March 23rd, @06:08PM
| said by nwrickert  :It seems that AT&T has recently instituted some significant spam blocking. Which means time will need to be spent looking for lost legit email trapped by these new filters. 
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What’s the point of owning a supercar if you can’t scare yourself stupid from time to time? |
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Grimy
Pencil Neck Geek
Premium
join:2005-01-13
Orange, CA | There's no way to look for lost legit mail. It's being blocked at the edge and no longer makes it into the junk folder.
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"Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself"-Bo Diddley |
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Wily_One
Premium
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA
·Pacific Bell - SBC
|  reply to Maleficent
I was just going to post about this. I have AT&T (sbcglobal.net) and have also noticed a significant reduction. I used to get dozens per day*, now almost none. I've noticed this for the last several days.
* My spam filtering caught 99% of these, so no worries. It was interesting to see the trends in the attempts, however. Different message titles, spelling permutations, etc. |
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Maleficent
Premium
join:2002-02-11
The Dungeon
clubs: | reply to Grimy
Yup. AT&T. It's been real nice.
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Have you hugged a spider today? |
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Doctor Olds
I Need A Remedy For What's Ailing Me.
Premium,VIP
join:2001-04-19
1970 442 W30
clubs:
| reply to Grimy
said by Grimy :There's no way to look for lost legit mail. It's being blocked at the edge and no longer makes it into the junk folder. It doesn't get reported in Web Mail like most filtering systems? That's not good. That means there is no way to fix/flag/forward onto the real email in-boxes any false positives which still do occur.
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What’s the point of owning a supercar if you can’t scare yourself stupid from time to time? |
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Grimy
Pencil Neck Geek
Premium
join:2005-01-13
Orange, CA
·AT&T Yahoo
| said by Doctor Olds :It doesn't get reported in Web Mail like most filtering systems? That's not good. That means there is no way to fix/flag/forward onto the real email in-boxes any false positives which still do occur. That's essentially it, I'm afraid. While it's nice to have an empty junk folder, I'm a little worried about how this is going to work out. Time to do some research on the new blocking paradigm they're using.
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"Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself"-Bo Diddley |
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darthboy
join:2007-12-31
Canada | reply to Maleficent
noticed the same thing with my yahoo mail as well. |
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pleekmo
Triptoe Through The Tulips
Premium
join:2001-09-14
Manchester, CT
clubs:
·AT&T DSL Service
edit:
March 24th, @04:48AM
| reply to Maleficent
I'm also a northeast sector AT&T/Yahoo! user who has witnessed a significant drop in spam. Originally on the order of 250/day total spam spread across five inboxes, that total has dropped to less than a half-dozen a day. I, too, am mildly concerned about the possibility of dropped legit e-mails but I'm too lazy to do something about it.
Now I suddenly have quite a bit of time to do something else as certain spam would get forwarded to certain agencies (about 125/day).
If I had to guess I'd say they may be blocking spam based upon originating IP or whether the spam came from a legit e-mail server (perhaps AT&T has created a list of "authorized" servers it will accept e-mail from). They may be blocking e-mails from dynamic IPs, that is.
Or perhaps they've been going through the Feds' repository of spam which had been forwarded to them -- data mining them for filterable trends. On the gripping hand, the spam I've been forwarding is not all the spam I've received but only a specific portion of them, so that they would be receiving a skewed sample not suitable for data mining.
Edit: speculation and other "Mindless Dribble". |
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michmac
@ameritech.net | reply to Maleficent
at ameritech.net I too see a huge reduction in spam 150 per day down to 5, after years of heavy spam I don't know what to do with myself. I'll hope it stays this way as long as I don't lose real email. |
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darthboy
join:2007-12-31
Canada | reply to Maleficent
oops. Bad news. I noticed that I was missing a confirmation email after placing an order on an online store.
The store's records showed that their system sent out that email.  |
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Grimy
Pencil Neck Geek
Premium
join:2005-01-13
Orange, CA | Yeah, the daily newsletters that I subscribe to aren't arriving. One more reason to hate Yahoo.
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"Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself"-Bo Diddley |
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omgdave
join:2006-12-31
United State | reply to pleekmo
I am in the West, and all of my newsletters _seem_ to be getting through to my Yahoo In boxes and my home At&T account.
My Spam has dropped about 50% on average with a larger drop in the Yahoo accounts than in the ATT one.
Dave
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NanDog
The Pup Was Female, I'M Not
Premium
join:2003-12-28
Tacoma, WA
·HarborNet
| reply to Maleficent
said by Maleficent :Knock on wood. About a week and a half ago, I was going to post here that my spam e-mail has gotten out of control. I was getting around 1000 spam e-mails a day. Not including the "bounce backs" from people.......And then, suddenly, it's dropped down to maybe a dozen a day. It's been real nice. I'm not expecting it to last. Lucky you! 
I've never had much problem with my home box due to my personal behavior/protocols.
My work box is another issue. Because it's in the public domain (it's a municipal address which is readily available) I think there's more vulnerability.
Case in point: In the last 3 days I've been getting hundreds of bounced messages. Obviously someone has harvested my address or a box with my address.
I've checked the work machine and it comes up clean.
Oh well, part and parcel of playing on the interweb I guess! 
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See ya across the Rainbow Bridge, my good and faithful friend! |
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Doctor Olds
I Need A Remedy For What's Ailing Me.
Premium,VIP
join:2001-04-19
1970 442 W30
clubs:
| reply to Grimy
said by Grimy :said by Doctor Olds :It doesn't get reported in Web Mail like most filtering systems? That's not good. That means there is no way to fix/flag/forward onto the real email in-boxes any false positives which still do occur. That's essentially it, I'm afraid. While it's nice to have an empty junk folder, I'm a little worried about how this is going to work out. Time to do some research on the new blocking paradigm they're using. Please update this topic with your findings as I'm sure there are many interested parties that would like to know what you ultimately uncover.
Regards,
Doctor Olds
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What’s the point of owning a supercar if you can’t scare yourself stupid from time to time? |
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Grimy
Pencil Neck Geek
Premium
join:2005-01-13
Orange, CA
·AT&T Yahoo
| OK, here's an update:
Over the last three days the situation has improved a lot. Yahoo found the problem, (some kind of mis-configuration with their newly rolled-out mail filters), and is working to correct it.
As to my personal mail, everything seems to be behaving correctly again. All my newsletters are getting through, etc. Spam directed to my junk folder is down by 95%.
I'll give Yahoo credit for quickly acknowledging the problem and fixing it, rather than denying there was something wrong.
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"Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself"-Bo Diddley |
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EGeezer
Summer is passing
Premium
join:2002-08-04
Country!
 ·RoadRunner Cable
 ·AT&T CallVantage
edit:
April 11th, @01:18PM
| reply to nwrickert
said by nwrickert :I'm guessing your ISP is AT&T. It seems that AT&T has recently instituted some significant spam blocking. I can assure that the spammers have not given up. It is just that they are being blocked. I have noticed a dramatic drop in the amount of spam email in a Yahoo account of mine, from 10-15 a day to 1-2. At one time, I was getting several hundred a week, but that was a year or so ago. The reduction seems to have coincided with the rollout of their changing POP/SMTP to SSL (ports 995/465
The child porn and mortgage stuff has dropped to virtually zero in all my accounts that get spam. The majority is drug stuff with a few software and fake goods spams.
Road Runner instituted a spam blocker a few months ago and it seems fairly effective, but has more false positives than I like. Their web interface is clunky to me, but I can't access the junk mail folder any other way.
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Mayors of New York come from nowhere and go nowhere.
Wallace Sayre (apparently, so do governors... ) |
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Grimy
Pencil Neck Geek
Premium
join:2005-01-13
Orange, CA | I think the POP/SMTP port change is probably coincidental. Yahoo applied those changes to my account at least two years ago and spam wasn't reduced at that time.
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"Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself"-Bo Diddley |
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