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Too Good to Be True?
Oct. 5th, 2007 05:43 pmHas anyone else noticed a dropoff in spam lately?
I've never gotten tons of spam -- not even enough to warrant a spam flter. About 2-5% of it was stuff I'd signed up for, or at least that the sender could argue I'd signed up for. (I don't recall ever asking Snood or Puzzle Pirates or EverQuest to send me anything, but I did buy a product from them and it's not like they email more than a few times a year, so no big deal.) 8-15% was stuff someone else signed me up for because, apparently, she can't remember her own email address and gives mine out instead. The other 80-90% was incomprehensible crap. Several varieties of incomprehensible crap: advice for my sex life (or possibly soliciting my advice for theirs, it's hard to say), offers of penis enlargements, breast enlargements (not feeling a need for either, k thx), Viagra, porn, faux Paypal emails, scams pretending to be from banks I don't even have accounts with, etc. (I even got a couple pretending to be from my own back, which only has 11 branches and which I would not have thought worthy of a spam-based scam.) You know. Spam.
But a couple of weeks ago, everything in that last 80-90% category ... stopped. At first I didn'} really notice. I was still getting some unwanted email, although not nearly as much, and I thought, "maybe it's just a slow day." But it's continued. I can leave my email open and when I get a new message, there's a good chance it's actually a message for me. Even the unwanted stuff has sources I know instead of "nccookie007" or "Booker T. Jumprope"
What happened? Did I wake to a blissful alternate universe where spam doesn't exist? Did my ISP invent a miracle anti-spam filter and install it without fanfare? Were all the spammers obliterated by an act of divine justice?
Or is this simply a lull before the storm: "The Spammers Strike Back"?
Is anyone else getting less spam lately?
I've never gotten tons of spam -- not even enough to warrant a spam flter. About 2-5% of it was stuff I'd signed up for, or at least that the sender could argue I'd signed up for. (I don't recall ever asking Snood or Puzzle Pirates or EverQuest to send me anything, but I did buy a product from them and it's not like they email more than a few times a year, so no big deal.) 8-15% was stuff someone else signed me up for because, apparently, she can't remember her own email address and gives mine out instead. The other 80-90% was incomprehensible crap. Several varieties of incomprehensible crap: advice for my sex life (or possibly soliciting my advice for theirs, it's hard to say), offers of penis enlargements, breast enlargements (not feeling a need for either, k thx), Viagra, porn, faux Paypal emails, scams pretending to be from banks I don't even have accounts with, etc. (I even got a couple pretending to be from my own back, which only has 11 branches and which I would not have thought worthy of a spam-based scam.) You know. Spam.
But a couple of weeks ago, everything in that last 80-90% category ... stopped. At first I didn'} really notice. I was still getting some unwanted email, although not nearly as much, and I thought, "maybe it's just a slow day." But it's continued. I can leave my email open and when I get a new message, there's a good chance it's actually a message for me. Even the unwanted stuff has sources I know instead of "nccookie007" or "Booker T. Jumprope"
What happened? Did I wake to a blissful alternate universe where spam doesn't exist? Did my ISP invent a miracle anti-spam filter and install it without fanfare? Were all the spammers obliterated by an act of divine justice?
Or is this simply a lull before the storm: "The Spammers Strike Back"?
Is anyone else getting less spam lately?
