Is Spam Dead?

Post by **John** » Thu 31 May, 2007 2:12 pm

Spam here is down to a mere trickle.

Could it be that the arrest of the 'Spam King' in Seattle has put the wind up the spammers?

kev@frames · Post by **kev@frames** » Thu 31 May, 2007 3:07 pm

it could be tiscali's much publiscised servers going tango-uniform, tiscali are responsible for a load of spam.
Also many UK servers have just upgraded to the newer version of php and plenty have implimented mail protocols to reduce this source of spam.

Bill Henry · Post by **Bill Henry** » Thu 31 May, 2007 3:15 pm

I doubt it.

I’m still getting tons of great deals for male enhancement products and wonderful financial opportunities from my long lost uncle in Nigeria, Mgumbo Henry.

Hopefully, throwing that guy in the clink will have some effect, but I haven’t seen it yet. There will always be someone willing to fill the void, I’ll bet.

osgood · Post by **osgood** » Thu 31 May, 2007 8:12 pm

Down here spam has been very scarce for a couple of months, but is now on the increase again. I also use Mailwasher to eliminate spam before it gets into Outlook. Bouncing it could be the reason for the reduction, but I don't know for sure.

Recently some reporters from here went to Nigeria and helped the police capture a few dozen people doing the "Nigerian scam". They had dozens of computers in a few rooms which were all seized.

The saddest thing about this was that the police had to get these prisoners away from the area really quickly to avoid a riot by the local people, who regard this method of making money as their right and almost all of them would step into the places left by the captured scammers if they could.

It seems that it is a common accepted practice in this area of the world, so there is very little chance that it will ever stop, unless the rest of the world wises up!

One dumb man had already given them his life savings and even after the reporters showed him the footage of the operation this old guy still thought that he had some chance of getting a payout if he sent them some more money. What chance is there of this thing being stopped when people can't or won't see that they have been totally conned.

osgood · Post by **osgood** » Thu 31 May, 2007 8:16 pm

By the way, one of the main reasons the Aussie forum was closed down was because of spammers not only registering up to 20 times a day, but because they were able to get around the security registration system and post messages about viagra, etc and also post porn images on the site many times each day. I was spending an average of 30 minutes every day deleting such things. I can now get more work done each day!

Spammers are alive and kicking!

Post by **John** » Thu 31 May, 2007 8:37 pm

You make a very good point Ormond, spammers are only part of the equation.

The people who actually respond to this junk are almost equally to blame.

dottad · Post by **dottad** » Thu 31 May, 2007 9:16 pm

I have been getting a lot of spam on my yahoo account. Having changed to their new email layout etc, they have introduced a spam box which catching most of them, with just a few getting through. The same can be said for my tiscali account.
I also got spam in my pm on an artist forum and then on my guest page of website. I had to delete the guest page for the time being until I figure out how to stop it happening. Not so good at that type of thing though.

It is so annoying and I can't believe that people are still so gullable after so much publicity.

Dot

Roboframer · Post by **Roboframer** » Thu 31 May, 2007 9:26 pm

Just recently I have been getting emails from my own email address selling viagra - God knows who else has but I've had no complaints or anyone from my address book asking what's going on.

I don't employ any programme bar a basic spam filter and an extremely good anti virus programme (F secure) - and for the amount of emails I receive I can usually recognise spam from just the address.

All ebay stuff never gets opened - going to close my account with ebay/paypal as that is what seems most persistent with spam.

Post by **John** » Fri 01 Jun, 2007 4:08 am

These emails do not originate from your computer, John.

When the spammer is sending the message he puts the same address in the From: and the To: fields as an added annoyance so that if you reply will come back to yourself.

A spam eBay/Pay-pal/bank email is easy to detect using MailWasher as it will always say 'Dear customer' or 'Dear Client', never 'Dear John Turner'

kev@frames · Post by **kev@frames** » Fri 01 Jun, 2007 2:54 pm

I’m still getting tons of great deals for male enhancement products and wonderful financial opportunities from my long lost uncle in Nigeria, Mgumbo Henry.

Hey, Bill, we must be cousins