Spam Status

I've noticed over the last several weeks that my spam folder in GMail is shrinking. GMail keeps 30 days of spam and I usually see about 1100-1200 in the "folder." Recently it's been hovering in the low 900's though. And those other 2-300 are not just ending up in my inbox (I RARELY get spam in my inbox anymore).

Are you seeing the same drop? It's kind of surprising to me.

Could they finally be giving up? I doubt it. More likely they've found something more lucrative... :-(

Going Down?

I've been a GMail user for quite a while and one of the things that I REALLY like about it is that I don't have to worry about SPAM. I don't mean I only get a few. I mean I don't ahve to worry about it at all! (can you say that about YOUR email provider?) I was so confident that GMail could handle all of the SPAM I could throw at it, I now have it sucking in my old 99.95% used-for-SPAM account. And even with over 130+ messages a day for that email account alone, I still only see 3 to 5 A WEEK that it misses! I dutifully click on "report as SPAM" and save hundreds or thousands from seeing the same SPAM in their mailbox as I help train GMail's filters. I don't even check my SPAM "folder" in GMail anymore either 'cuz they have only marked a couple of messages as SPAM in the life of my account that really weren't SPAM -- and even then, just bulk newsletters. Honestly, after reading them, they were kinda SPAMmy... :-)

According to the graphic represented above (click to enlarge), Google's doing a pretty darn good job of staying on top of the continuous flow of SPAM. Another reason to switch to GMail!

PS. You can usually click on the leading graphics in my posts when I include them to get to some more information. In this case, I linked the graphic to Google's explanation on how the manage SPAM. Check it out!

Toast and Spam

Clever presentation of the history of the real Spam:



How they made it:

SPAM!

I happened to use Mailinator for a form today (see previous Mailinator post) and when I went to the site to check for the message, I was reminded that there are other domains besides mailinator.com that function the exact same way that you can use as companies get wise to the mailinator.com domain...

Email sent to an alternate domain goes to Mailinator too!

mailinator2.com
sogetthis.com
mailin8r.com
mailinator.net
spamherelots.com
thisisnotmyrealemail.com

Just thought I'd share!

The benefits of Spam

No, I'm not talking about the ham wannabe, I'm talking about the e-mail spam, and chain letters, etc that circulate around the world several times a day in periodic cycles. The most recent one that made it to my inbox was titled "Two moons on 27th August 2007." I'm a pretty big skeptic, but because it came from someone I trust (or appeared to), I decided to read on (I have a really good multi-layered anti-virus/malware solution so if it makes it through Google's spam filters from someone I know, I feel pretty safe).

This particular email purports that Mars will look as large and as bright as the moon in a few weeks. I'm a huge science fan, so I saw holes in this right away, but validated my thoughts on a respected debunking site. Then I got to thinking... As I was reading the article, I realized that I was learning something new. And gaining interest in something that I really hadn't thought about for a while -- in this case Mars and the other planets. My interest was piqued a while ago with all the Pluto ruckus (he was robbed!), but after that, nary another thought... Until now.

My wife likes to keep the kids interested in school-eque subjects as well as pass the summer a little faster by picking a topic/theme for the week. Each week they try to work in something special for that theme. This week I think is transportation. Another week was animals. It's been friendship one week already too. Maybe we'll need to make sure that the planets (and dwarf planets) are covered one time as well.

As to the debunking task - when you receive an email like this, especially one that tells you to "forward it to everyone in your address book" or the like, copy a small, but relevant portion (the subject line, or a distinct portion of the email) and head on over to Snopes and paste into the search engine and prepare yourself for a schooling.

Disposable email...

Occasionally I go cheap and sign up for the free samples that are all over the web. A lot of them ask for an email address. A lot of those are vacuums used to collect spam destinations. Some sites entice you into giving them the email address by saying they'll send you a link with the document or site you're looking for. I don't care about receiving "physical mail spam," and although Google does a great job of filtering out the spam from my email, why tempt fate. For those sites -- Mailinator to the rescue!

Mailinator is a (keeping with the theme) free site that allows you to make it up as you go along. You don't need to register ahead of time. You don't need to worry about conflicting with an address that someone else is already using. Just use anyusernameyouwant@mailinator next time you need to enter an address when you don't want to use your own. Then head on over to Mailinator and type in anyusenameyouwant and read the mail being sent. Read it quickly though, because after a couple of hours the mail is automatically deleted - long enough for you to get the email or link you need without ever receiving any spam (attributed to that site anyway...)

Beware, that if someone else has already used that email address in the past, it may already be receiving spam that is "not intended for little eyes."

Lunchmeat for everyone!

I'm constantly amazed by the amount of spam I get... only about 10 a day to my GMail account... while my wife receives almost 250 a day... I know its a matter of who gets your email address and what they do with it (as well as the complexity of the email address, and a large number of other factors). But you know what? I really don't have to worry about it because GMail catches all but 1 a month for me (and about the same for my wife) Yeah GMail SPAM filters!

My old ISP email account on the other hand receives about 200 a day that I filter occasionally with Mailwasher Pro.