Slashdot Mirror
Where Has All My Spam Gone?
An anonymous reader writes "I have my own domain, which has its own email server, where I receive all my personal email. I've been getting about 800 emails a day, of which perhaps 20 are real. Suddenly, Sunday or Monday evening, the spam pretty much stopped. My volume of mail has plummeted to less than 100 a day, and as far as I can tell, I'm not missing any real mail — I'm still getting the email list subscriptions I'm expecting, and every time I ask someone to send me a test message, it gets through. My domain host insists that it doesn't do any spam filtering before mail gets to my inbox, and that they've changed nothing about their configuration. I run SpamAssassin on my server to mark, but not delete, spam, and download the whole mess to my home client, and I'm still seeing the occasional message tagged by SpamAssassin. But it's virtually all gone. And I haven't changed anything about my own mail configuration, or the harvestability of my site (my personal email has been harvestable for almost a decade). So what's going on? I can't believe that several major botnets would have vanished overnight. Any ideas?"
My spam has tripled over the past few days. So I'm not getting all of it, but I'm getting a chunk of it.
Cynical Idealist
And you're complaining because .... ?
My blog
Did you install Skynet 1.0?
Hey, what's that siren going off for....
And you're complaining because .... ?
No kidding. I work as a sysadmin, and as far as I'm concerned, a spam-free day is an occasion to praise my patron demon and bring Him an offering of hookers and blow, not an excuse for an "Ask Slashdot" posting.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
When spammers took over your box, they didn't want to flood it with their own mail.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
Sorry, we've been down for maintenance and it's taking a lot longer than we originally planned. You can expect normal service to resume by next monday.
Spam Assassin is actually assassinating spam.
On another note, has anyone heard from cousin who is a Nigerian prince? He hasn't called in days and we're beginning to get worried.....
import system.cool.Sig;
... to save the health of the athletes.
...and the Chinese are busy watching 13-year olds win gold metals. Bob
We're happy to help you solve this mystery.
What is your email address?
Okay, here's the thing: nobody but you ever got spam. We all just thought it would be funny to fool you into thinking there was some kind of worldwide scamming epidemic. You don't seriously think people would be stupid enough to buy pills off strangers who email them out of the blue, do you? I thought we'd gone a bit too far and stretched the limits of credibility when we came up with the idea for the Nigerian scams, but I was wrong, you even fell for that! Nobody is stupid enough to send all their money to a "Nigerian prince".
Anyway, enough's enough. The joke's stale now, so we decided to stop sending it all to you.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
A large chunk of spam comes from a very small group of spammers. It may just be that you are only targeted by one of them, and he took a break recently.
Hang in there... he'll come back from vacation soon, and you'll be able to mortgage your penis to Nigeria again.
I'm holding it for ransom. You can have it back for $1,000,000.
I, for one, welcome our spam-eating overlords.
I'll forward you some of my spam. Wouldn't want you to feel lonely.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I'm not sure what's causing your lack of spam. What's your email address?
When Slashdot has a real slow news day
Tell me where my spam's gone
When Nigeria no longer needs me
Tell me where my spam's gone
When trojan horse avoid my inbox
Tell me where my spam's gone
When penis pumps cease their pumping
Tell me where my spam's gone
When free porn streaming doesn't bug me
Tell me where my spam's gone
When people install virus checkers
Tell me where my spam's gone
Dear Sir,
We humbly apologize for the interruption in service. Please reply with your email address and our technical staff will get back to you.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
A group of the original SpamAssassin developers got together with a group of mercenaries and created SpammerAssassin. It's in alpha, and looks good except it seems to have started a teeny-tiny war in the eastern bloc. Oops. They have an open bug ticket on it.
:D
Seriously though ... if spammers started turning up dead where would the police even begin their investigation? There's only a pool of what, half a billion suspects?
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
No, no, no...
Im in ur mailserverz, eating ur spam!
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Post your email address here and I'll make sure things get back to normal for you.
They all just got back from Black Hat / Defcon, and they're still hung over.
Yup, and here; still getting 250 a day+ or so.
Maybe they finally clicked that you've already got a huge penis and legendary bedroom performance?
Still at 250,000 a day for us. Would you like some of it to make up for your lack?
Perhaps the botnets are busy fighting amongst themselves, vis a vis the Georgia v. Russia conflict.
You'll have that sometimes...
... can mean only one thing: INVASION.
+1 Insightful or +1 Funny? Tough call..
My home e-mail, bill@billrocks.org, is also getting far less spam now for a couple weeks. It's posted all over the net, so I find that really strange. Maybe they realized I don't need a penal enlargement and don't want to meet women (I'm married)?
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
Ok, Agent Mulder, settle down.
The Russian spammers can't get bandwidth because the military is busy using it against Georgia.
Every single day I get 4 or 5 copies of the "Paypal Dispute Transaction" shit.
Are you sure your server didn't switch to spam, egg, sausage and spam mode? That's not got much spam in it.
Of course I didn't RTFA... why would I do that? You really are new here aren't you? Don't let my UID fool you.
Oh ... so you're address is bill@billrocks.org? Interesting ...
Not sure if we've exchanged comments before, but I have some genuine replica watches of the finest quality.
Also, visit my Canadian Pharmacy online drugstore to choose from a great selection of products of high quality produced according to the strict pharmaceutical standards.
So Saakashvili is getting 100 emails a minute about pen1s enlargement?
No change at my ISP: http://www.xs4all.nl/en/veiligheid/statistieken.php
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
IIRC SpammerAssassin is built on JBASH (Jason Bourn Again Shell)
is also getting far less spam now for a couple weeks
I think that's about to change.
Not to mention I'm H0m3 tonight, a1on3 waiting 4 U. Come se my pages at ispam@spammer.net
I know that - but I had no mod points available, and responding to a post increases it's chances of getting upmoded :-)
Maybe they finally clicked that you've already got a huge penis and legendary bedroom performance?
If so, could I have your number, southpaw? (A Female slashdotter)
You mean the Russian military can't get bandwidth because the spammers are busy using it against Georgia?
This is //Soviet Russia//, after all...
OMG that was funny....
Badges!?! We don't need no stinking badges!
Thank you for your time.
But in Soviet Russia, bandwidth gets you!
Who has more oil? Assume we plan to invade tomorrow, regardless of whose side we're on, on grounds of them possibly using weapons they might have.
Never disregard the raw power inherent to stupidity... they call it "dumb luck" for a reason...
>>Every single day I get 4 or 5 copies of the "Paypal Dispute Transaction" shit.
If you'd just ship me those darn pills I ordered, I wouldn't have to dispute the PayPal transactions!!!
If this is all about the $7.29 shipping fee I still owe you, then just send me your bank account details and I'll send you the money by wire transfer instead. :)
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
Good point. So this whole little thread is Off Topic to the original article.
Mods, go to it.
Are they fake? I got them too.
The subscribe links point to the real CNN sites and they actually gave me no error when I tried to unsubscribe. They kept coming though.
Hugo
Now there's an intriguing new stereotype!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
That would be a great movie... old cold war era tanks and soldiers vs. rednecks in pickup trucks with equal firepower...
And a corrupt sheriff in there somewhere...
... independent helpers ... have programs that you can download that do most of the work with minimal hassle.
Hi. I'm a spammer working for the Patriotic Russian effort to defend South Ossetia from the imperialists of Georgia. If you want to help this patriotic effort I have written for you a tool to let you participate in our DDoS attack on Georgia's network. Just click THIS LINK to download the tool, then enter the decryption password to unpack and install it. The password is "ImASucker"
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Maybe they finally clicked that you've already got a huge penis and legendary bedroom performance?
If so, could I have your number, southpaw? (A Female slashdotter)
Don't let yourself be fooled. She's a slashdotter, she wants to know how you stopped the spam.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling