Are you getting fewer spam emails these days?



  • A few years ago I set up a Gmail account for the sole purpose of giving it out to anyone I don't know personally.  Things like online purchases, registering for forums, etc  For a long time I've been averaging 200+ spam emails a week at that address, which probably isn't a lot compared to some people, but I live a boring life.

    Fortunately, thanks to Gmail's excellent spam filters, I never see the spam, although I do occassionaly take peek just to see what's in there and click on the "Delete all spam now" link.  Several days ago I noticed that there were only 3 spam emails in there, and today, there were none.  Huh?  WTF?  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, I want all spammers to die a horrible violent death, but it seems very unusual that everything would just suddenly stop.



  • No, I'm getting more spam than ever. I went for years without getting more than maybe 1 spam message a day, now I get 50. Mostly porn.



  • You know, now that you mention it, I think it's been months since I last saw a spam message on my gmail accounts.

    (other than from TDWTF threads I'm subscribed to)



  • @Zecc said:

    You know, now that you mention it, I think it's been months since I last saw a spam message on my gmail accounts.

    (other than from TDWTF threads I'm subscribed to)


    I saw one. And I posted it here.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

     Every now and then some security company will take down a huge botnet. There's always a massive drop-off of spam for a few weeks afterwards while the Botnet rebuilds itself by using ad networks to infect people who are either running IE or have the Java Browser Plugin.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

     Every now and then some security company will take down a huge botnet. There's always a massive drop-off of spam for a few weeks afterwards while the Botnet rebuilds itself by using ad networks to infect people who are either running IE or have the Java Browser Plugin.

    I wonder what the actual statistics are like. I bet people who block ads have much higher rates of infection than people who don't, since the former are likely to also be downloading a lot of pirated software which is where most viruses come from.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @morbiuswilters said:

    I wonder what the actual statistics are like. I bet people who block ads have much higher rates of infection than people who don't, since the former are likely to also be downloading a lot of pirated software which is where most viruses come from.
     

    You're full of fucking shit.

    Porn is not software.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    Porn is not software.

    Tell that to the text-based sex game I tried playing when I was 10. It was written in BASIC and I think it was older than I was. It promised crude, ASCII porn if I won, but it was impossible to get past a few minutes:

    touch her boobs
    
    I'm sorry, I don't see a "her" here.
    
    look
    
    You see a woman with boobs.
    
    touch boobs
    
    She moans softly.
    
    kiss her
    
    I'm sorry, I don't see a "her" here.
    
    kiss lips
    
    She rolls her eyes in boredom.
    
    stick penis in vagina
    
    I'm sorry, I don't see a "stick" here.
    
    insert penis into vagina
    
    I'm sorry, I don't see an "insert" here.
    
    interpolate penis into vagina
    
    You go to interpolate your penis into her vagina, but she has already left you for a black man. GAME OVER
    
    NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO



    I'm barely even exaggerating here.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Tell that to the text-based sex game I tried playing when I was 10. It was written in BASIC and I think it was older than I was. It promised crude, ASCII porn if I won, but it was impossible to get past a few minutes:
     

    Sounds hots. Do you know where I can get a pirated copy of it?



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Tell that to the text-based sex game I tried playing when I was 10. It was written in BASIC and I think it was older than I was. It promised crude, ASCII porn if I won, but it was impossible to get past a few minutes:
     

    Sounds hots. Do you know where I can get a pirated copy of it?

    Just hang around Google sites. Some malware from AdSense is bound to install it at some point.



  • Yes and no.

    I have two main accounts, one provided by a certain Redmond-based company (had it since school, don't judge me!) that has been getting progessively fewer junk messages - most noticeably last year when it dropped from a good few dozen a day to less than a dozen. The other, more Cupertino-flavoured account, has been getting more and more; about five years back I'd get one or two per week but now it's getting on for a dozen a day.

    I'd say this was odd, but now that the accounts are free, the number of users is probably on the up, making them more viable targets.


  • Garbage Person

     I haven't actually SEEN a spam message in ages. It all gets autofiltered. Outlook 2010 false positives a lot (I don't particularly care because I only have it mapped to my ISP email, which I don't use for anything anymore), but I've never seen it false-negative. A dig in there shows nine spams from the past month.

     My gmail shows 409 in the past 30 days. One false positive. Zero false negatives that I can recall ever.

     My work email (Google Apps Enterprise) has never received spam of any sort - but I've never used it outside the enterprise (I don't talk to outsiders. Ever.)



  • As of this post, my Gmail account has only ever had one spam email. My university account, on the other hand...

    I'm going to guess 90% of the emails I get in my university inbox are spam. That's probably too low.



  • I don't have email. I set up a temporary SMTP server whenever I need to register for something requiring email; other than that it isn't running so anyone who tries to send a message gets a "unreachable server" error. My UNIX account at FreeGeek and my account at X-BIT has email on it too, but I only use those for internal mail anyways.



  • @zzo38 said:

    I set up a temporary SMTP...

    Is it written in Forth?



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @zzo38 said:
    I set up a temporary SMTP...

    Is it written in Forth?

    No, it's written in Dart and run on nodejs.



  • @Ben L. said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    @zzo38 said:
    I set up a temporary SMTP...

    Is it written in Forth?

    No, it's written in Dart and run on nodejs.

    No, actually it is written in C.



  • @zzo38 said:

    @Ben L. said:
    @morbiuswilters said:
    @zzo38 said:
    I set up a temporary SMTP...

    Is it written in Forth?

    No, it's written in Dart and run on nodejs.

    No, actually it is written in C.

    C? Is that some new dialect of Forth?



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @zzo38 said:
    @Ben L. said:
    @morbiuswilters said:
    @zzo38 said:
    I set up a temporary SMTP...

    Is it written in Forth?

    No, it's written in Dart and run on nodejs.

    No, actually it is written in C.

    C? Is that some new dialect of Forth?

    Firth of Forth.  or  Firth of Fifth.



  • @El_Heffe said:

    @morbiuswilters said:

    @zzo38 said:
    @Ben L. said:
    @morbiuswilters said:
    @zzo38 said:
    I set up a temporary SMTP...

    Is it written in Forth?

    No, it's written in Dart and run on nodejs.

    No, actually it is written in C.

    C? Is that some new dialect of Forth?

    Firth of Forth.  or  Firth of Fifth.

    Nephroid of Freeth.

     


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