A Visual History of Spam

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Posted by ryuzaki0 on Saturday September 18, 2004 @04:55AM from the but-is-it-art? dept.

Cristiano writes "Microsoft employee Raymond Chen has saved every spam message and virus-laden e-mail he's received at work since 1997 and graphed the spams and viruses to create a cool visual representation of one man's malicious traffic."

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Raymond Chen in Linux source CREDITS by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-18 05:03 · Score: 5, Interesting

An interesting aside: Raymon Chen is mentioned in the Linux kernel's source 'CREDITS' file:

N: Raymond Chen

E: raymondc@microsoft.com

D: Author of Configure script

S: 14509 NE 39th Street #1096

S: Bellevue, Washington 98007

S: USA
1. Re:Raymond Chen in Linux source CREDITS by sriram_2001 · 2004-09-18 05:33 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  This blog (post) has some interesting info on this.
  
  ...This post wouldn't have been possible without Kaushik - he called me up this morning and said that he had spied a familiar name on the Linux 1.0 contributors file. And since the chances of 2 people with the name Raymond Chen and working at Microsoft were pretty slim, we got pretty interested. A bit of Googling lead us to this page (http://grumbeer.dyndns.org/ftp/mail/v5/digest363) which has an email that Raymond Chen has typed out back in 1993. The first thing that strikes you is his Microsoft id. I was taken aback - a Microsoft employee contributing to Linux code? That too kernel level stuff - not some fringe OSS project? Seems like things were a lot different back then. Here's a snippet from that mail From: raymondc@microsoft.com (Raymond Chen) Subject: New Configure script (and some console patches) Date: 05 Jun 93 20:23:30 GMT This patch kit is really *THREE* patches in one. 1. A new Configure script, hopefully easier to use and more flexible than the current one. 2. A kernel configuration switch to enable high-intensity background in lieu of blinking foreground characters. 3. A kernel configuration switch to control the destination of kernel trace messages (printk's). But the part which I really found interesting was this...the way he signs all his mails. Thanks. -- Raymond (just another linux hacker) Chen Definitely not something you would see nowadays. These days, the very mention of the word 'GPL' might get you into serious trouble in Microsoft - and contributing code is definitely unthinkable.I guess back then , Linux was considered more of a hobbyist-thing rather than a future competitor. But I'm only guessing here. An interesting question that arises is the effects of the viral nature of the GPL. If he had worked on GPL code back then, is he 'infected'? Well - I'm no expert in these issues, but its interesting all the same. Before all the Linux supporters jump to any conspiracy theory, I would just like to point out that the only thing this points out is the amazing versatility and skill exhibited by most Microsoft devs and Raymond in particular. This is a guy who knows both Windows and Linux inside out.Awesome!!! I would really like it if Raymond comes and tells us a bit about his past - especially the 'just another linux hacker' days :-) ....
Only 19000 spam messages?? That's nothing. by joshuao3 · 2004-09-18 05:07 · Score: 3, Interesting

My primary account receives nearly 500 spam messages a day, and the number is growing. It would only take me 6 months to get that amount of spam. It seems like Raymond Chen is less than average in the amount of spam received. The data analysis is intriguing, nonetheless, and I'm glad he had the forsight to do this project.

--
Monitor bandwidth usage on IIS6 in real-time: http://www.waetech.com/services/iisbm/
Jose nazario might have more spam graphs by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-18 05:09 · Score: 5, Interesting

Jose Nazario arguably has a much more extensive collection of spam, you can see some of his research here: http://www.monkey.org/~jose/wiki/wiki.php?page=Spa mAnalysis.
One of several talks of his on spam (complete with more graphs): http://www.linuxchile.cl/docs.php?op=verVersion&do c=64&id=1 And he's even done generated some really really horribly insane spam collages, but I'll let those interested dig around for them on their own.
1. Re:Jose nazario might have more spam graphs by moonbender · 2004-09-18 05:30 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  They're holding talks in IRC now? (The document AC linked to is an IRC log.) Cool. I never would have thought of that, but I guess why not? Is this commonly done? I'd like to have something to read. :)
  
  Sorry for posting off-topic, but it's a slow news days, anyway - none of the stories today has gotten more than 250 comments.
  
  --
  Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Single worst day was only 67? by Shayde · 2004-09-18 05:12 · Score: 3, Interesting

Single worst spam day by number of messages: August 22, 2002. 67 pieces of spam. The vertical blue line.

This guy needs to get out more. I set up monitoring of all my spam and total message traffic for the last couple years. My current average is around 350-450 spams per day. Check out the spam report I run every night.

Virii? That's a different report. I seperate my virii out of the entire mail feed for the 3-4 domains I run (yay amavisd and postfix). The virii report is a lot more variable, with as many as 1600 viruses a day, and as few as 10, though that's pretty rare.

Spam filtering here is done via amavisd + postfix + spamassassin + some custom rules.

--
Event Management Solutions : http://www.stonekeep.com/
How I avoid spam. by here4fun · 2004-09-18 05:16 · Score: 3, Interesting

Here is what I did and I get next to no spam. Actually, I have none. I got an account at yahoo, and I made a login which has numbers mixed in, and is not a word from a dictionary. Think taking the first three lettes of your first name, a couple numbers, the first four lettes of your last name, and a couple more numbers. I never post my email address anywhere on the web, and just use it to communicate with people I know. I have a second email address that I give out to everyone, and that one is not bad with spam either. The account that gets 100 spam messages a day is my account that I used to reply to offers from websites, or that I used when posting on the web. It is a shame, because I don't check that last account except once every other month when I have nothing_better_to_do. And every once or twice a year I get an email which is important.
When I was back in school I never had spam in my university account, but that was before the 2002 spike shown on his graph. I wonder if school email accounts are still off limits. When I was in school, I did not get spam there, it was my "free" email accounts that had spam.

--
Come and say hi. http://forum.penpals.com/index.php
RTFA instead of looking at the pretty picture by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-18 05:41 · Score: 2, Interesting

From the page:

Note that this chart is not scientific. Only mail which makes it past the corporate spam and virus filters show up on the chart.

*DOH*
Re:"one man's malicious traffic" by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-18 06:09 · Score: 2, Interesting

There is another example of one man's visual SPAM reporting here along with a bunch of other interesting visualisation techniques.
Only 67 spams on his *worst* day? Wow! by sakeneko · 2004-09-18 11:07 · Score: 2, Interesting

I think it was before 2000 that I last had that few spams in a day. <wry grin> That's what happens when you have an old email address and like to post to Usenet....

--
Catherine
Re:Only 19000 spam messages?? That's nothing. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-18 11:12 · Score: 1, Interesting

In all honesty, I've received perhaps half a dozen spam messages in the 15 years I've had an email address. I know spam's a problem because I'm a sysadmin and see the shit that goes through the mail servers but none-the-less, I find it amazing that I personally don't get bothered by it. Seriously, I would love to know why. I don't have any spam filters between my account and the world at large so the only thing I can think of is; I'm careful who I give my address to. Now there's a thing. Old fashioned paranoia, nurtured before the days when spam even existed, saving my sanity and my mailbox.

I think there's a lesson for everyone here, people. Be more like me and the world would be a much nicer place.
Spam vigilante by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-18 15:28 · Score: 1, Interesting

If I had the money (I don't), I would pay for a professional hit on a few of the most notorious spammers. I'm not kidding.

I would pay big money for an experienced and expert hitman, to do the job carefully, patiently and thoroughly.

Once a couple of the well-known spammers were iced, I think we would see a serious decline in spam.

I don't fell all vigilante about other, more serious crimes. I don't think violence solves anything. I oppose the death penalty. I know this is an irrational position, but I don't care.

Does this make me a bad person?
My SPAM vs valid e-mail feb-sep 2004 by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-18 16:14 · Score: 1, Interesting

I collected all spam vs valid email from Feb 2 through Oct 31 2004. The account was my work account at the University where the firewall is supplied by the University. The browser and email is Mozilla. All e-mail is delivered. I recorded approximately 2100 spam emails and about 1700 valid emails. No attempt was made to chart by date. When I started it seemed my SPAM was about twice the good mail, but that turned out to be wrong.
At home, I work behind ZoneAlarm. Both locations use up to date antivirus, and both remove cookies at the end of the session. At home I do not have to log in to companies to get data or to order parts. Apparently, being security conscience at home pays off.