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Gmail Spam Filter Testing

Posted by Hemos on from the send-the-mail-in dept.

An anonymous reader writes "What can you do with 1000MB of e-mail space on your Gmail account? One guy, by the name of Aaron Pratt ( prattboy@gmail.com ), has decided to test the spam filters of Google's Gmail service by having his Gmail account blasted with every kind of spam imaginable. He is testing to see how well Gmail's spam filters can sort out the spam from legitamate email (yes, he does get personal emails from people). As of May 25th, he was at about 30% of his Gmail account's 1GB capacity. You can track his progress on his website, http://gmail.prattboy.net (Google cache of this site: cache: gmail.prattboy.net). Here is also an article talking about Aaron's efforts from webpronews.com"

4 of 285 comments (clear)

  1. My own gmail testing by Twid · · Score: 5, Informative

    I did some testing of my own. I forwarded a ton of spam from my personal account to my gmail account, just to see what would get through and what would be filtered. For me, gmail was really effective, but strangely, one Nigerian e-mail scam mail didn't get tagged.

    It was from " Mr Jubril Udeh Manager of Credit and Accounts Department of North Atlantic Securities Sarls Lome-Togo Republic."

    Now, the funny part is not that the mail made it through, but that google also decided to show me contextual ad's on that account. Currently, the ads are:
    - Payroll Cards a Poor Substitute for Checking Account
    - Tips for Tackling Check Fraud
    - Sophos hoax description: Ethiopian airline letter
    - FAP non-US Investment FAQs

    In the past the mail has also shown me ads on how to open an off-shore bank account. I'm glad google is willing to help me with the $10.5 million dollars that I'm about to receive! :)

    --
    - "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
  2. Re:The Filter is great! by aismail3 · · Score: 5, Informative

    When I add up the figures from May 13 to 19, I get that 4869 messages were received. 4717 of those were spam, and 1820 were marked, so Gmail's success rate was 38.6%.

  3. Re:One of the best things Google/GMail could do by Halo1 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Most of the time, these messages contain both a text/plain section with only random words, and then a text/html part with the real payload. If you use mutt or so, you most likely only see the text/plain stuff. Another trick is using just a text/html section with random text, but also with an image that contains the real payload.

    --
    Donate free food here
  4. Re:whining? by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · · Score: 5, Informative

    >The whole Gmail "get a gigiabyte of memeory free" business model is predicated on most people using only a small fraction of that Gigibayte

    Why?

    Google uses commodity IDE drives. Those retail for about fifty cents a gigabyte. Google's not paying retail.

    I read a quote from a Googleperson that by the time the drive is installed in a system, powered, cooled, backed up and administered Google is paying two dollars for a gigabyte.

    Good point about the problem of abandoned accounts, which won't bring Google any ad revenue. Wouldn't be surprised if they start euthanizing inactive accounts.