[FQuest Notice] Periodic Email Delays

[Deb]

Due to the massive sudden increase in spam, which has caused a huge increase in the overall numbers of email we are handling on a daily basis, as well as a major increase in the number of users using SpamAssassin as a result of the spam, FutureQuest is experiencing slight email delays (averaging 3 to 20 minutes excluding SA processing) during portions of the day.

As a result FutureQuest is going to be doubling the email handling capabilities to better mange the processing load more efficiently. This of course is being done at no extra charge to you, the clients, for the increase in hardware and bandwidth as a result of these upgrades.

We hope to have this accomplished within the next week as the hardware has arrived and we are in the building stages to complete this major upgrade. However in the interim you may notice slight delays in receiving email. Our technicians are monitoring these delays and minimizing them as much as possible while they build.

We appreciate your patience and understanding as FutureQuest further expands its infrastructure to efficiently receive and deliver this ever increasing amount of email.

Deb
- Holiday spam didn't even come with a bow on top :\

[Randall]

Ooooo, this makes me so mad. :mad: Can I return my Christmas spam? Please?

My idea involves a box, a large anvil (for packing material) and an airplane circling over Boca Raton...

Randall

[dank]

Thanks FutureQuest. We all lose in this $%@! spam game, but it's comforting to know you all are doing your best to deal with it. It's unfortunate you have to absorb the costs, but you've got my appreciation, at least. If prices at some point have to be increased for degree of email usage or SA as an add-on feature, I think that would be understandable.

Dan

[zmax]

A massive sudden increase in spam. Hmmm. I wonder why.
Is it the alignment of the planets?! Weird.
I had a polluted email alias and I deleted it about a
year ago. I reinstated it just to see if it was still being
used by spammers and sure enough it was to a large degree.
SA caught most of it. I deleted it again anyway. Since the email
spammers send out have bad return addresses, they dont get the
bounce emails telling them which addresses they send to
are a bad email address and thus take
it off the lists. I hope some laws are passed or something
to put a stop to all this spam!

Yes thanks FQ for taking measures to deal with all this!

David

[songdog]

Unfortunately, one of the main components is a national opt-out list, similar to the National Do Not Call list. But that's probably useless, because you're then making it even easier for the spammers to get your address. Too bad the Republicans bowed to pressure from the direct mail lobbyists to make it opt-out rather than opt-in. :mad:

[Terra]

Makes me very agitated as well.. The recent flood is completely unprecedented, and shows absolutely no signs of slowing down...

We are now scrambling to shore up against this massive tidal wave of email volume, that pretty much came out of nowhere...

In our own EMS box, for the last week, the rate of spam has increased 20%, and it is still climbing... Now if you multiply that volume by (ballpark and safe average) 10,000 - you can get a rough idea of the magnitude of the problem we are contending with...

Well, if spammers wonder the cost of 'Just Press Delete', then look no further than several exhausted FutureQuest Team members, the associated hardware, network, and power infrastructure costs, the many irate clients and the energies expended in trying to resolve complaints and Incidents for which there is no real and true satisfying solution...

It is truly hard to imagine the amount of engineering work and technical effort, behind the scenes, that goes into keeping email delivery times to a less than 5 min expectation (though the perception and vivid demands is that it should be instant)...

--
Terra
--we are stuck in the middle getting flogged on from both sides--
FutureQuest

[Randall]

It is truly hard to imagine the amount of engineering work and technical effort, behind the scenes, that goes into keeping email delivery times to a less than 5 min expectation We're used to even less than that, especially if the mail is going from one FQ account to another.

It must be pretty intense if it takes 4 minutes to get from mx01 to pt02, as it did a few minutes ago. :\

Randall

[kitchin]

Thinking over form another thread, how much of the load is accounted for by processing large messages? Is there any way to dump those on another machine, where they can churn along slowly while our good, small mail zips right to us?

SMTP must be reformed. Spam doubling every x months is just not sustainable, and law enforcement will never get more than a slice of the bad actors. Look at drug enforcement! So accountability needs to be built into the tech specs. Is this anywhere close to happening? Can we team up with AOL and other large ISP's to beg relief from the gov't? Where's the NSF when you need them?

Once SMTP were reformed, it would be a lot easier to filter spam. You wouldn't even need law enforcement. An ISP could filter globally without worrying about false positives. Yay!

[kitchin]

Oh, and thanks to FQ for making the investment to deal with this.

[Terra]

Thinking over form another thread, how much of the load is accounted for by processing large messages? Is there any way to dump those on another machine, where they can churn along slowly while our good, small mail zips right to us?
1) that value is much too volatile to provide a good response... The main item is 'intensity' when a large message hits the spam processing system... Think rather of the horsepower needed to go 0 to 160MPH in less than 10 seconds...
2) not really, as we want to keep the queue pipelines as unemcumbered as possible... Complexity overall breeds instability, especially when it comes to tracking the 'state' of many thousands of emails that may be in the queues at any particular moment...

I would rather not dive too deeply in this right now, as there is a remedy to this problem... We are currently reviewing and finalizing the announcement that pertains to this issue...

--
Terra
--breathing through a straw--
FutureQuest

[LightGuide]

I'd just like to be sure there's a good, loud THANK YOU in here.

As always, FQ is on the ball and ahead of the game.

etLux

[Dunx]

Originally posted by LightGuide:
I'd just like to be sure there's a good, loud THANK YOU in here.
Heartily seconded. Every now and then I toy with the idea of turning filters off just to see what rubbish I get; then I decide that life is too short.

Thank you, FQ, for allowing me to make that decision.

[kmc500]

Heartily sconded. <br><br>
Heartily thirded (if there is such a word!).

FutureQuest continues to amze with their level of service.

Kevin C

[kmc500]

Heartily sconded.


I do believe my vowels are missing.

[songdog]

That's better than having your bowels missing...

[Randall]

If we disemvoweled the spammers, the emails would be shorter.

Randall

[dank]

They're already cryptic and garbled. I don't see that removing a few letters would make much difference. Shorter or not, they still have to slither through the queue and annoy us. It's their duty.

Dan

[LightGuide]

Originally posted by dank:
They're already cryptic and garbled. I don't see that removing a few letters would make much difference. Shorter or not, they still have to slither through the queue and annoy us. It's their duty.

Dan

Yeah... it's actually getting downright funny, in some ways.

They're trying so hard to beat the spam-blockers, that the messages are becoming increasingly indecipherable.

In the end, I think just maybe the doom of spam will come from collapsing under its own weight...

This latest drastic increase in spam could well be evidence that they're losing the battle -- having to send greater and greater volume to get any results.

I hope.

etLux

[kmc500]

In the end, I think just maybe the doom of spam will come from collapsing under its own weight...

You may be correct - let's just hope that it doesn't take down the email system with it.

I remember just four years agoe, when we introduced pop3 email to my company - on the occasion that our internal mail server or T1 went dow, there was very little outcry.

Today, due to the increased reliance upon email for actual company communications, as well as its greatly improved reliability and ubiquity, if an email delivery takes longer than a couple of minutes, we hear about it. (Heaven forfend email should actually be down for an hour).

Kevin C

[tappel]

Originally posted by dank:
They're already cryptic and garbled. I don't see that removing a few letters would make much difference. Shorter or not, they still have to slither through the queue and annoy us. It's their duty.

Dan
Here's some scary food for thought:

"Acocdrnig to an elgnsih unviesitry sutdy the oredr of letetrs in
a wrod dosen't mttaer, the olny thnig thta's iopmrantt is that
the frsit and lsat ltteer of eevry word is in the crcreot
ptoision. The rset can be jmbueld and one is stlil able to raed
the txet wiohtut dclftfuiiy."

Tom

[dank]

Fortunately, spammers are nowhere near that insightful [yet].

Dan

[songdog]

It won't be long before they are, for I already see some spams with absolutely horrible misspellings. To me, this points even more to the need for Bayesian filtering located on the email server (not client).

[phppete]

Thanks for the update and the investment in extra hardware. Your efforts are greatly appreciated and if next year my FQ hosting fees increased by a few dollars to cover the extra costs I would not complain.

Pete

[zmax]

Well personally I would like to take those few extra $$$ to go into lobbying congress for
antispam laws and enforcement of such laws. I think the Dept of Homeland
Security should be involved in the enforcement of this as spam is becoming
a national security issue on the level of terrorism. They need to train
Special Ops forces to raid spam hideouts and even use 5000lb bombs if they
are sheltered in subterrainian caves. Then they should hold them as military
combatants in undisclosed locations until they talk and reveal the
whereabouts of leaders of spam cells and their nefarious plots. :P

David

[dank]

spam cells
That's a very vivid cancerous image...

Dan