email spam
This post is different -- not talking about blog spam but email spam that comes into several email accounts that I administer.
I have three email addresses linked to my primary domain (s*nthst*ff).
Anything that is addressed to one of these gets run through SpamAssasin, filtered for content and then directed into the proper folder (I subscribe to several email lists). I get about 50 hits to SpamAssasin and about 10 SPAM emails to my primary address each day.
What I find amusing is that I get about 300 to 500 emails addressed to other names at s*nthst*ff. I have been away for two nights and here is a perfect example of 48 hours take:
Click for full-size Image
You will probably need to
Click for full-size Image to actually read this but you can see that for 48 hours, I collected over 1,300 emails and none of them were addressed to any legitimate address. I cited the one from "henry pagano" addressed to "Kenny Fontana" at s*nthst*ff. Bogus and destined for the bit-bucket.
Someone who doesn't do this kind of filtering will receive all of these emails in their inbox. I am guessing that the To: line might be a form of tagging to enable the originator to collect the finders fee if someone responds to this scam. If someone hits the return key for a specific email, chances are that they aren't looking to closely at the To: line in the header and when an email processing center recieves the reply, it is a small matter to read off both the return address and to whom the email was originally addressed to.
I am getting seriously hacked off at this because this load is causing unnecessary hits to my server (which I pay for dammit!) and considering that the state I live in has instituted some anti-SPAM laws with real teeth in them, I am starting to gather evidence (email message headers, raw server logs, etc.) and will be spending the next couple weeks on a "
Journey of Discovery"
Needless to say, both blog spam and email spam work-arounds will be submitted to the appropriate fora...
Posted by DaveH at May 8, 2005 9:33 PM
