Better Living Through Thinking

Giving up (maybe for reals this time)

Tue, 25 Sep 2007

I don't think I'll post more on this subject. I feel that I've got a long-term solution that works for me--I have beat spam and it takes less than 10 seconds per day to do it (about the time it takes for me to save the handful of spams in my 'spam' folder).

When last I wrote, my spammer friends had tried 215 times (thats 215 half-hour long connections or 107.5 hours) to alert me to a "hot stock" or some other important message. Since then, they've gradually declined again:

20070918: ###################################################################################### (215)
20070919: ############################################ (110)
20070920: ############################## (76)
20070921: ####################### (58)
20070922: #################### (52)
20070923: #################### (52)
20070924: ############## (37)

The actual spam getting through?

20070918: ####### (7)
20070919: ######## (8)
20070920: ########### (11)
20070921: ######## (8)
20070922: ######### (9)
20070923: ### (3)
20070924: ######## (8)

And the attempt-to-success ratios:

20070918: ############################### (30.71)
20070919: ############## (13.75)
20070920: ####### (6.90)
20070921: ####### (7.25)
20070922: ###### (5.77)
20070923: ################# (17.33)
20070924: ##### (4.62)

The bigger picture

Overall, I'm stopping an enormous amount of spam from ever reaching my server with DNSBLs. I think this really is the most effective solution. I can't keep up with the ever-changing spam obfuscation techniques (though I as a human can easily spot one when I see it, I can't make my computer respond as well). In fact, I no longer run any signature-based spam tools (e.g., spamassassin, custom procmail recipes, etc. I still use procmail for routing.

I can, however, tell very easily which server connected to my server to make the final delivery of spam, and I will not do business with these servers.

Here's everything I block based on DNS entries for the past week or so:

20070917: ######################################################################## (4379)
20070918: #################################################### (3137)
20070919: ################################################# (2998)
20070920: ################################################# (2979)
20070921: ##################################################### (3236)
20070922: ##################################################### (3194)
20070923: ####################################################### (3315)
20070924: ######################################################## (3386)