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Change in the type of spam hitting my inbox


dbiel

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Just thought I would share some changes I have noticed regarding the type and content of spam that reaches my inbox.

The spam that holds the number 1 spot due to number received is the meaningless "how are you?" with the subject being "hello" and the "To" line always being someone with a .spamcop.net address, but never me.

I have a hard time understanding the purpose of this type of spam, as there appears to be no benefit to the spammer.

The number 2 spot goes to the attachment spam with various subject lines such as "Resume" "30 Day Notice" "Transaction Breakdown" "demands for payment" "Signed 1003 and disclosures" "Please help me" "A very warm invitation to you" It is these spams that scare me the most as the body content almost forces you to open up the attachment. Yet the one thing they all have in common, which is the very first indication that they are spam, is the simple fact that the "To" line is always address to someone else with a .spamcop.net address.

What I find interesting is that the vast majority of the mail I receive goes though my Earthlink account first and is then forwarded to my SpamCop account. Yet the vast majority of the spam that reaches my inbox is mail that goes directly to spamcop.net.

I originally set up my SpamCop account as a means to reduce the spam filling my inbox; and it worked for the first year or two. But then Earthlink got on the ball and started doing a much better job of spam filtering with near zero false positives. The only reason I do not say zero false positives is the simple fact that I never check the spam folder, but at the same time I have never received any indication that any valid mail was not received.

SpamCop on the other hand does occassionally result in a few valid emails that hit the held mail folder while letting far too many spam leak through.

Just for reference, my SpamCop spam filter settings include: all of the blacklists except for Spamhaus PBL, which I have just now added; SpamAssassin Limit of 5. The new "Block Russian" was turned off, yet the amount of Russian spam received has dropped off dramatically. I have just now turned that one on as well.

The only reason I continue to use my SpamCop email is the simple fact of the "unlimited" size of the mail box which I use as my primary mail box by forward all my mail from multiple sources to it and using IMAP to access it from multiple computers as well as my cell phone. As a spam filtering service, I find it absolutely worthless. I also gave up on reporting spam several years ago as the cost in time required, by far, exceeded the benefit received.

In checking the last 25 messages to hit my SpamCop heldmail folder, all 25 were addressed to a SpamCop account, thus proving to me that forwarding mail from Earthlink to SpamCop for filtering spam is worthless.

In checking the last 25 spam messages deleted from my inbox, all 25 were set directly to my SpamCop account.

Keeping in mind that about 95% of the valid mail I do receive is NOT addressed to my SpamCop account but is simply forwarded to it from my other accounts.

In summary, the only advantage in using my SpamCop email address is the lack of any specified limit to the mail box size or the size of messages that can be sent and received along with the ability to access it using IMAP, which for me justifies keeping the account. Earthlink's limits, which are reasonable, are just too low for my personal requirements. And it is only on the rare occassion that I am forced to use my SpamCop account to send or receive extremely large attachments.

It is a sad state of affairs when one has to admit that today Earthlink does a far better job of spam filtering that SpamCop does.

To Wazoo and Steve, I was not sure which forum to post this in, as such I chose the lounge. If you think it should be moved, please do so. Thanks for your on going support and maintenance of the SpamCop Forums.

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In summary, the only advantage in using my SpamCop email address is the lack of any specified limit to the mail box size or the size of messages that can be sent and received along with the ability to access it using IMAP, which for me justifies keeping the account. Earthlink's limits, which are reasonable, are just too low for my personal requirements. And it is only on the rare occassion that I am forced to use my SpamCop account to send or receive extremely large attachments.

Interesting......

I have ALL BL's on, PLUS Greylisting enabled, and I see very little spam make it past SPAMCOP.

I use ATT(YAHOO) for my emauil. Their filters catch about 4-5 a day, and 1-2 are false. SPAMCOP a few that ATT misses..

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What I find interesting is that the vast majority of the mail I receive goes though my Earthlink account first and is then forwarded to my SpamCop account. Yet the vast majority of the spam that reaches my inbox is mail that goes directly to spamcop.net.
This started happening to me, I assume that my SC address was guessed in a directory harvest. I changed the address to something else (very goofy and unguessable), haven't seen this problem since. You might try this as well, but bear in mind that it might require you reentering all your prefs, rerunning your mail host configurations, etc.

As for my spam, SpamCop pretty much catches all of it from the addresses I've forwarded. Very very occasionally I will get a false positive, these are easy enough to correct. I think my settings are similar to yours, but of course my spam isn't necessarily the same as yours.

-- rick

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I have noticed similar changes and as you I am puzzled by the significance of that spam other than pure annoyance. You forgot to mention he iucredible rise in spam from social and professional networks pointing to China, India and other exotic places as well as UPS-attached CV type phishers that normally get defanged and end in my postini virus filer.

If I was to be paranoid I would conclude that I am being targeted. Forunately I have many layers of defence but still wonder when these idiots are going to make it through. Bottom line is that after many years of reporting (that goes far and beyond SpamCop) I still get hit with hundreds of spam e-mails daily, granted as you point out the nature and trends of spam changed. For example I haven't seen stock spam in a long while while phishers and virus attacks are on the increase. I don't have the time to research on the nature of the viruses, I assume they are trojan and malware...Regardless, there is obviously a criminal minset group of people out there that make it a business to target the inocent and increasing number of un-savvy computer users and very little seems to be done to combat that element in the name of freedom.. As they said in the old times, you get what you pay for.. I must have gotten a few hundred of these just in the past two days:

http://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=z4536014821za...0ed7da9fab8d1ez

http://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=z4536014821za...0ed7da9fab8d1ez

http://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=z4536014882z4...ea238d68d75481z

Obviously coming through hijacked servers covering 3 continents just in these 3 consequitive examples..

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