Gettin' Slammed with SPam

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  • felipe808
    Senior Member
    • Mar 2004
    • 111

    Gettin' Slammed with SPam

    Is everyone else getting slammed over the last week or two? The pass through is really noticeable.

    Are the Spammers Baysean learning filters operating at "geometric rate" while Postini puts one foot in front of the other?
  • AndrewT
    Administrator
    • Mar 2004
    • 3653

    #2
    Spam protection is very reactive in nature. It will never be perfect and it takes time to adapt to new spam.

    If you are using Postini, you'll want to check the headers of the spam emails to see if postini.com is even present in them. If not, then the spammer is bypassing your MX records and sending directly to the server where the domain resides. This is rather common and you can setup an account level filter in cPanel to discard these.

    Comment

    • felipe808
      Senior Member
      • Mar 2004
      • 111

      #3
      All Postini headers

      Most are for watches and Viagra.

      Comment

      • AndrewT
        Administrator
        • Mar 2004
        • 3653

        #4
        Are you using Postini? Did you follow my advice?

        Comment

        • felipe808
          Senior Member
          • Mar 2004
          • 111

          #5
          Headers

          Yes, sir....all have Postini headers...it just seemed to spike up...everyone in the office has mentioned it. Thanks.

          Comment

          • AndrewT
            Administrator
            • Mar 2004
            • 3653

            #6
            If Postini is present in the headers then there really isn't much that can be done. You may want to consider increasing the aggressiveness of the Postini filtering if you don't already have it maxed out. Otherwise it is just a waiting game for the filtering to adapt.

            Comment

            • felipe808
              Senior Member
              • Mar 2004
              • 111

              #7
              criminals and artist

              OK. Roger that...pretty much figured that. It's interesting anyway to see how the spammers stay ahead. Very creative they are.

              Comment

              • ZYV
                Senior Member
                • Sep 2005
                • 315

                #8
                As for me, I am always wondering what kind of idiots actually buy stuff they feature in the spam messages.

                Just think about it: spam is a business. It has to obey to all of the normal business rules. If nobody buys junk they're selling, than they won't make money and will be unable to pay the rats that write spam bots and the internet connection they use to send it out, right?

                I have never bought anything from anybody sending spam in my life, but... now we come to the logical conclusion that nevertheless they should actually have a pretty large customer base, otherwise they just won't stay afloat...

                Comment

                • Frank Hagan
                  Senior Member
                  • Mar 2004
                  • 724

                  #9
                  Originally posted by ZYV
                  As for me, I am always wondering what kind of idiots actually buy stuff they feature in the spam messages.

                  Just think about it: spam is a business. It has to obey to all of the normal business rules. If nobody buys junk they're selling, than they won't make money and will be unable to pay the rats that write spam bots and the internet connection they use to send it out, right?

                  I have never bought anything from anybody sending spam in my life, but... now we come to the logical conclusion that nevertheless they should actually have a pretty large customer base, otherwise they just won't stay afloat...
                  I'm convinced its not the people selling the stuff via spam that makes any money, but rather the guy selling the mailing list and "hosting" the mail server.

                  What does an email campaign cost? I suspect its that end of the business that is profitable.

                  Comment

                  • ZYV
                    Senior Member
                    • Sep 2005
                    • 315

                    #10
                    Let's assume that the only party who actually makes some money is the spammer (by selling his e-mail campaigns). Who in the world is going to buy from him if the ROI is between null and zero?

                    Comment

                    • Frank Hagan
                      Senior Member
                      • Mar 2004
                      • 724

                      #11
                      Originally posted by ZYV
                      Let's assume that the only party who actually makes some money is the spammer (by selling his e-mail campaigns). Who in the world is going to buy from him if the ROI is between null and zero?
                      Ask any Amway salesman.

                      Comment

                      • ZYV
                        Senior Member
                        • Sep 2005
                        • 315

                        #12
                        What's an "Amway salesman"? I vaguely remember something about the traveling salesman problem in the graph theory but I don't see how it is related to our cause...

                        Comment

                        • Frank Hagan
                          Senior Member
                          • Mar 2004
                          • 724

                          #13
                          Originally posted by ZYV
                          What's an "Amway salesman"? I vaguely remember something about the traveling salesman problem in the graph theory but I don't see how it is related to our cause...
                          Sorry ... its an American cultural reference. Amway was/is a "multi-level marketing" company that sells household products like laundry soap, vitamins, etc. here in the States. The way it works is that you recruit people to sell for them, and you get a commission on everything they sell as well as your own sales. They in turn recruit others, and they get commission and you do also. If you're over about 40 in the US you remember all your friends trying to sell you "LOC" laundry soap, and when you didn't buy it, they tried to make you a "distributor" for the company (and you could buy in for very little money!)

                          The guys who were able to get a giant "downstream" of sellers made money, but the people trying very hard to sell soap to their family and rapidly declining numbers of friends never made much from it. The guys that started it all really raked it in. Like a legal pyramid scheme.

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