SPAM Slowing Down

Published on May 11th, 2009 - 8:20 pm - by Josh | Add a comment below

Category: Technical Stuff

So here’s something interesting I’ve noticed over the past few weeks: SPAM seems to be slowing down a bit. Not just email SPAM either, but SPAM comments on this very blog have seen a very steep slow down over the past several weeks.  The chart below shows the number of SPAM comments posted to this blog over the past 6 months.

joshandmeg.net SPAM chartAs you can see, up until the first of the year we lived in relative anonymity from the spammers, and were only receiving a few posts a day.  However, something happened at the turn of the year that put us on the radar, and we started receiving several hundred a day during that high point which lasted for several months.

On a related note, it was around this same time frame that Megan’s email started getting spammed so much that she had to abandon Outlook altogether because of its worthless junk mail filters, so I set her up with Thunderbird so it would at least be a bit more manageable.  But during that time she was receiving over 400 junk emails a day.

So what happened?  The chart shows our spam comments have dwindled significantly, and my junk email has dropped from around 40 to 50 a day down to virtually 0.  I maybe get 2 a week now.  I hope a spam warehouse was raided and people are rotting in jail for it, but I’m sure that’s not the case.  Maybe they are just taking a break for some reason.

Here’s to hoping it stays that way.

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4 Responses to “SPAM Slowing Down”

  1. ryan Says:
    May 12th, 2009 at 2:57 pm

    i actually raided the warehouse with a machete… so you’re welcome :)

  2. Pappy G Says:
    May 12th, 2009 at 7:54 pm

    First off, I think you are the only person I know who actually charts spam. That puts you in the number one nerd position. Second, is it the calm before the storm?

    Third, Spam was something we used to eat for breakfast, but I have never had it sliced with a machete’.

    Last but not least, is spamming really such a heinous crime? A nerd asked me that once about computer hackers.

    ;0)

    G.

  3. Josh Says:
    May 12th, 2009 at 9:36 pm

    I don’t actually chart the SPAM myself, that would be psychotic. My WordPress SPAM plugin does it automatically. :) And yes, SPAMMING is a very heinous crime. It should be punishable by death. Period.

  4. Josh and Meg | Blog Archive » FTC takes down a spam provider « Akismet Says:
    June 10th, 2009 at 6:01 pm

    [...] I totally called this a while back.  I hope those people get the death [...]

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