Welcome to MSDN Blogs Sign in | Join | Help

Terry Zink's Anti-spam Blog

Protecting your mail from the scum of the internet

December 2006 - Posts

Did our spam plummet with the earthquake in Asia?
Just checked out this article (hat tip to John R. Levine... I hope I'm using that term correctly otherwise I'll look quite the fool) about the earthquake in Asia knocking down spam volumes. As an anti-spam fighter at Microsoft I can confirm that the overall Read More...
What percentage of mail is spam?
In my other post , I documented my discoveries that the majority of the mail that we see on our networks is either mostly clean (ie, senders delivering 0% spam) or primarily spam (senders delivering us 90% spam or more). I have done the numbers for a Read More...
Looking for some Mac blogging software
A couple of months ago I downloaded Windows Live Writer. As far as blog publishing tools go, this is the all the blogging software that I need. I can pick which blog I want, write a post, and then click upload. Other than editing posts later on (which Read More...
Spam traffic analysis - by volume
A little over a week ago, I posted that most of our IPs are either very spammy or very clean (as predicted by my theory on the spam curve that I wrote several months ago). I have done some traffic analysis on the volume of mail sent versus how much spam Read More...
Spammers jumping on the Vista bandwagon
I've seen cheap software spam pumped over our networks many thousands of times. Nice to see that spammers have kept themselves up-to-date with the times. Not only are they spamming for Windows Vista, they are using image spam to do it. Nice. Read More...
The nature of email traffic
A few months ago I posted something called the Spam Curve. The essence of the post was that most mail content was either very spammy or very clean. If this could be represented on a chart, the chart would look like a letter U. Most content would fall Read More...
Spammers targetting their audience
I was reading the planet antispam RSS (thanks to my friend at IronPort for putting my blog on there) when I came across this article. In the article, the writer was mentioning that the image spam he was receiving contains some technical information in Read More...
Is customer feedback useful in determining spam effectiveness?
This past summer when the image-spam run began, our overall spam volume started to rise. With the rise in spam volume came an increase in overall customer complaints and spam submissions to our spam abuse inbox (ie, when customers get a spam submission, Read More...
Uploaded a new avatar
I uploaded a new avatar to my user profile . It's an image of the most famous bounty hunter in the galaxy (but you'll have to click the link to find out). I think it's a fitting representation for a spam fighter. Read More...
Be skeptical of advertised spam blocking rates
Whenever I see rival companies boast about their spam-blocking rates, I have to be a little skeptical. I have seen some claim that they catch 98% of all spam. My skepticism is fueled by my inability to comprehend how they generate those statistics. I Read More...
New spam rules of engagement finally starting to sink in
Having been a spam fighter for over two years, and having watched spam evolve very quickly over the previous six months, it is now sinking in to me that the methodology in which we used to use to fight spam is no longer valid. Whereas before we had a Read More...
Holiday spam a potential problem?
During the past six months, starting in July, the amount of spam we have seen over our networks has doubled. There is the possibility that the increase has been due to signing up new customers but I tend to suspect that it probably has more to do with Read More...
Trapped on a ledge
This post is not spam-related, instead, it is the story of the time I nearly died while on a hiking trip in Fiji. I have posted the story on my personal blog in Windows Live Spaces. It is an incredible story, and you can read it by clicking here . Let's Read More...
Return from the Southern Hemisphere
I have just recently returned from holidays, first in Australia and then in Fiji. I have some pictures available of my trip to Australia here . At the very least, check out the pictures of my new friends. I will upload my pictures from Fiji later, but Read More...
Page view tracker