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NZ Spammer Shutdown Makes Big Difference
lump writes "A notorious spammer, based in New Zealand, who had his name and other personal info released first in a national newspaper, and then on the web, has shut down his operation, citing harassment. What interests me about this case is that, in the 5 or 6 days since he has supposedly stopped operating, I personally have had one (1) spam email, to an address which had previously averaged around fifty per day. Colleagues report a similar reduction in spam. All I can say is 'excellent.' Hate to say it, but in this case, vigilante type action seems to have had the desired result. This needs to be publicised, as anything which slows down spam can only be a good thing."
I really have noticed a dramatic decrease in the amount of spam I've received in the past 4-5 days. I figured it was just due to my dilligence with unsubscribing myself to mailing lists but everything just suddenly dropped off.
Last week: 179 spams
Previous week: 210 spams
Previous week: 277 spams
My spam dropped by 35%. Though I can't discount the possibility that it's just the increased virus traffic slowing the rate at which spammers can send their emails.
I live in NZ and read the original article. + the followups.
The original article was in the national paper The Herald, around two weeks ago. The original article was only a moderatly sized peice at the back of the paper (IT section). The author had simply had enough of the spam and was also worried for his daughters exposure to things such as viagra. So he went about tracking the spammer down. He eventually found him, rang him and organised an interview. Thus the spammers name appeared within the paper and thus harassemnt began.
So then the spammer become worried for his family .
some peoples moderation does not include weed
I read the original article and all the followups. The important part here is the spammer in question agreed to being interviewed...
some peoples moderation does not include weed
We've outed and shut down one minor spammer.
The Register of Known Spam Operations lists nearly two hundred more hard-core spammers, along with everything the anti-spam people have been able to find out about them. Check the list, see if any are in your area, and take whatever action you feel is 'appropriate'.
455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
I've been using Mailwasher to bounce all his spam, figuring eventually his email would show up in the spam lists as being dead
Please stop. Bouncing spam after the delivery phase is not only naive and stupid, but it makes the life of innocent third parties harder. The From: line is nearly 100% guaranteed to have absolutely nothing to do with the persons responsible for the spam. In most cases it's a random third party, this is called a "joe job." When it happens to you, you receive thousands and thousands of these idiotic bounces (in addition to thousands of angry replies and "please remove" messages) from clueless mail software and cluless users. All you are doing is adding to the problem by "bouncing" spam. You are not bouncing it, you are just forwarding it to someone else's inbox. The only legitimate bounce that you can do with spam is during the mail delivery phase, before the connection has closed. As soon as the message has been delivered, that's it: either delete it or possibly submit it to a spam corpus, but for heaven's sake don't try sending it back to either the envelope-sender or the From: line, as both of these are spoofed and invalid.
"Bouncing" just adds to the spam problem. Stop.
Computerese variant; you can find it all over the websites of virus authors and script kiddies.
We here on earth call that "slang." Every industry, culture, and sub-culture has it. All well and good. Sometimes a slang term gets to be so prevalent it will enter a dictionary and be noted as such (usually with sl.) If the term can really hang on, and/or enter into a mainstream culture beyond it's industry (as "byte" has) it may receive "official, formal" language status. The English language "benchmark" (to borrow the technologist's phrase for a moment) is the OED. I'm sure the folks who edit that are monitoring "virii" very closely *cough*
The word "viruses" refers to biological organisms, and the distinction is valid and desirable.
What, are you making this up as you go along? I give you credit for thinking on your feet. The OED cites several colloquial and figurative uses of "virus" as a rapidly spreading "poisonous influence." It's from this sub-text that computers are said to have viruses. No distinction between non- and biological use exists. Good one, though.
Now back on topic: The previous poster contended that "virii" was a Latin term. It's not. The plural of "virus" in Latin (if one fancies oneself as a dead Roman) is "virus." (I don't know what the plural is in Klingon.) Currently, "virii" is a *slang* term spottily popular among youthful script kiddies for the plural of virus. It is akin to "boxen," only several tiers more dorky as many of its users actually think it has some etymological legitimacy, and is not merely a made-up "play-on-words" word.
Happy to help. Glad you stopped by. First one's free.
for what it's worth, the stats at spamgourmet.com confirm a drop off in spam the last couple of days. (if you look at the graphs, note that there was a server move near the beginning of July that accounts for the big drop and spike at that time).
Are we saying, beyond the featured shutdown, that SoBig, etc. have actually taken the *spammers* out of commission for awhile -- not only by clogging mail servers, but by infecting and disabling their boxes?
who's moderating the meta-moderators?
Here are my spam stats, generated with Rob Park's excellent mboxstats:
Jul 01, 2003 102
Jul 02, 2003 84
Jul 03, 2003 83
Jul 04, 2003 87
Jul 05, 2003 64
Jul 06, 2003 62
Jul 07, 2003 81
Jul 08, 2003 95
Jul 09, 2003 73
Jul 10, 2003 90
Jul 11, 2003 88
Jul 12, 2003 84
Jul 13, 2003 77
Jul 14, 2003 110
Jul 15, 2003 122
Jul 16, 2003 112
Jul 17, 2003 84
Jul 18, 2003 112
Jul 19, 2003 103
Jul 20, 2003 83
Jul 21, 2003 92
Jul 22, 2003 89
Jul 23, 2003 103
Jul 24, 2003 86
Jul 25, 2003 91
Jul 26, 2003 90
Jul 27, 2003 66
Jul 28, 2003 98
Jul 29, 2003 92
Jul 30, 2003 95
Jul 31, 2003 98
Aug 01, 2003 97
Aug 02, 2003 93
Aug 03, 2003 66
Aug 04, 2003 83
Aug 05, 2003 80
Aug 06, 2003 76
Aug 07, 2003 107
Aug 08, 2003 85
Aug 09, 2003 59
Aug 10, 2003 63
Aug 11, 2003 75
Aug 12, 2003 63
Aug 13, 2003 68
Aug 14, 2003 71
Aug 15, 2003 58
Aug 16, 2003 75
Aug 17, 2003 63
Aug 18, 2003 51
Aug 19, 2003 34
Aug 20, 2003 62
Aug 21, 2003 60
Aug 22, 2003 66
Aug 23, 2003 67
Aug 24, 2003 64
Aug 25, 2003 65
There's no getting around it -- the quantity of spam that has decreased in the past couple of weeks.
Note that the corpus is my UCE folder for my primary e-mail address. I do not use any RBLs to block, but I do use SpamAssassin to filter, and then I hand-review my UCE folder daily, weeding out viruses and the occasional legitimate message.
-Waldo Jaquith
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