Wednesday, September 17, 2008

And While We're On Spam...

As if to underscore the damage that spammers like Jayne or Solway are doing to our economy, I thought, in a moment of free time over lunch today, that I'd classify the spam just one of my accounts has received in the last 72 hours.

Here are the results, and I'm sure you won't be surprised.

Out of 215 spam emails (vs just 28 legit emails), they divide up as follows;

Spam flogging Viagra, Penis Enlargement or some other male sexual performance enhancement product: 152

Spam flogging fake watches, usually Rolex (though Patek Philippe and Tag Hauer got a mention too): 39.

Scams of the Nigeria style, or notifications that I've won fictitious lotteries: 16

Spam inviting me to a porn site: 6 (which is unusually low)

Spam offering pirated software: 2

213 is the number of spam emails that managed to slip past my mail server spam filer and actually arrive in my mail box. Our server tells me that the number of filtered items that didn't make it that far is around six times that number, or 1,200. Fortunately, the it's configured to kill the spam it filters completely.

1,400 emails in 72 hours, only 28 of which were legitimate.

"Constitutional right" my arse!

1 comment:

Robert Vollman said...

I did the same count last October:
http://vollman.blogspot.com/2007/10/junk-mail.html

My count?
705 total spam in 1 month, versus about 50 legitimate emails.
372 of them were about my Johnson - making it longer or last longer.
150 were selling me software
67 were from AdKnowledge
27 were casinos, and another 27 were to sell me watches
12 were to invest in a stock
7 were for "adult" sites
Only 1 requested my banking information.
No viruses, and nothing from Nigeria.