Re: How has the spam problem changed in the past decade?

On Mar 17, 2013, at 1:41 PM, Martijn Grooten <[email protected]> wrote:

>>> In other words... has the "spam problem" changed in the last 10 years?
>> 
>> Now here's an interesting question.
> 
> +1

- 1.

Define spam, first.

Greymail from legitimate marketers? Botnet spam? Both of those on email, or all forms of messaging abuse?

As Steve said earlier,


On Mar 17, 2013, at 8:54 AM, Steve Atkins <[email protected]> wrote:

> In the real world we tend not to use the term "spam" or "UBE"
> or any related definitions and focus on the recipient experience. Categories
> like "email users didn't want to receive" and "email users didn't expect to
> receive" are self-explanatory, clear, operationally useful and avoid weekly
> hundred post threads where people explain carefully what their definition
> of spam is.

+1.

> 
> Spam levels have come down. A lot. Most of what is still being sent is
> blocked by spam filters. I think it was Bruce Schneier who said that
> spam is a rare success story in cybercrime. I agree.
> 
> I'm not saying the spam problem is solved. There are many areas where
> work can and needs to be done: spammers using compromised accounts
> and/or hosts; low-volume spam; the grey area between ham and spam; the
> fact that a lot of current spam filters rely heavily on IPv4-based
> (black)lists; etc.
> 
> But I really don't think there is evidence email is so broken, we need
> to look for replacements.
> 
> Having said all that and returning to what John said, it would be nice
> if we could quantify some of the claims made above. How much have spam
> volumes come down?

that varies greatly upon your point of view as a receiver, and if most of it is filtered anyway, who cares?

> What percentage of spam is actually delivered?

A more germane point, but this too varies, as spam filtering adapts, so from one site to the next, over time, one can't quantify to any meaningful extent.

> What percentage of legitimate mail isn't?

I'm sure Return Path could hazard a guess, based upon their certification program, but then again, they tend to certify marketing mail only, and sometimes even confirmed opt-in messaging becomes email users didn't want to receive", and thus spa^H^H^H something users want filtered.

> Would today's spam-filters still work if all email were to be sent over IPv6?


IP-based filters would not, since they are IPv4-based at the moment. The domain-based filters will work nicely though.