kitchin
03-14-2003, 11:42 AM
Any new thoughts out there on spam? The Washington Post ran a front page story on it yesterday, focusing on the cost to business. This paragraph caught my attention:
Roughly 40 percent of all e-mail traffic in the United States is spam, up from 8 percent in late 2001 and nearly doubling in the past six months, according to Brightmail Inc., a major vendor of anti-spam software. By the end of this year, industry experts predict, fully half of all e-mail will be unsolicited. (About 40 percent of U.S. Postal Service mail is business marketing.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17754-2003Mar12.html
Half! Those folks are lucky!
I've seen an big increase in the last six months. SpamAssassin's heuristics are starting to get outgunned. And I still have to look through the redirected SA mail, because I've had a few false positives as high as 8.3. The false positives are such things as domain renewals and software registrations .
My latest bump up in the amount of spam I receive was after I transferred a bunch of domains from NetSol and Register.com to Dotster, for whatever reason.
I think the solution is to build in some responsibility to the SMTP system. But I don't think the government is going to be our friend in this area, since it would go heavy handed and try to tag individuals. And the SpamCop sort of systems are too prone to misreporting. I've heard a lot of blame going to a few large telcoms for not being responsible, but I wouldn't count on that changing. Maybe the porn industry will fund a solution! They have lots of money.
I suppose the next thing for the individual to try is Baysian filtering, but I don't think it ever could be shrink-wrapped solution, since you have to train the software. In any case, I'm more worried about the internet remaining useful for non-technical users than about my particular wasted time deleting spam.
Roughly 40 percent of all e-mail traffic in the United States is spam, up from 8 percent in late 2001 and nearly doubling in the past six months, according to Brightmail Inc., a major vendor of anti-spam software. By the end of this year, industry experts predict, fully half of all e-mail will be unsolicited. (About 40 percent of U.S. Postal Service mail is business marketing.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17754-2003Mar12.html
Half! Those folks are lucky!
I've seen an big increase in the last six months. SpamAssassin's heuristics are starting to get outgunned. And I still have to look through the redirected SA mail, because I've had a few false positives as high as 8.3. The false positives are such things as domain renewals and software registrations .
My latest bump up in the amount of spam I receive was after I transferred a bunch of domains from NetSol and Register.com to Dotster, for whatever reason.
I think the solution is to build in some responsibility to the SMTP system. But I don't think the government is going to be our friend in this area, since it would go heavy handed and try to tag individuals. And the SpamCop sort of systems are too prone to misreporting. I've heard a lot of blame going to a few large telcoms for not being responsible, but I wouldn't count on that changing. Maybe the porn industry will fund a solution! They have lots of money.
I suppose the next thing for the individual to try is Baysian filtering, but I don't think it ever could be shrink-wrapped solution, since you have to train the software. In any case, I'm more worried about the internet remaining useful for non-technical users than about my particular wasted time deleting spam.