I’m Officially On Vacation

Yes .. I’m on vacation now, and away from my business – on my laptop. Thank goodness I have hi-speed internet access with my EVDO card!

I thought I would do a little experiment.

I have painfully over the years setup my Eudora home email program with about 300 folders, and filters galore .. and rely much on my Spamnix add-on to sort the almost 1200 emails I receive a day.

Unfortunately, I don’t have that on my laptop – and I had two choices:

1) Copy my desktop Eudora on a flashcard and install it on my laptop
2) Recreate my filters, (maybe do it differently) and setup my spamnix on this computer.

I opted for Door #3.

I went in to all my accounts and have forwarded all emails to my GMAIL account. Normally, if you know me – I never use GMAIL account except for (a) google talk and (b) backups of my blogs every day. Well, I thought I would try forwarding all that spam into my gmail account and see how google treats my spam – without filters.

Personally – I don’t like google labels and don’t like the idea that I can’t sort by folder, but realistically – if you ever use a google product – the search pretty much helps you find what you are looking for if you even need to find it.

So – SPAM ON SUPER SPAM VILLAINS! … AT least, for the next 2 weeks … Let’s see how good GOOGLE MAIL IS!

It’s 11:07pm and I just deleted whatever spam I had previous in my Gmail account – and I will see how many emails come in to the main window and into the spam window starting .. RIGHT NOW! July 28, 2008!

PS: Back at work August 12th.

I’ve been estimating that I receive approximately 1400 emails per day … but, really I haven’t checked in a long while, so I thought I would do that today.

July 18, 2007

* 1,187 emails received that day

June 26, 2008

* 1,224 emails received that day

Surprisingly … it would appear that the average emails I have been receiving in the past 344 days has only increased 3.12%
(1224-1187)/1187

Also suprisingly .. that I have increased my filters and new folders in my mailbox by 17.33%
(325-277)/277

Is your spam and email under control? or out of control?

I remember … oh, when was it … back last December when that Viagra spammer in Russia was murdered and thinking that my spam email should decrease after that. It did … but, started to pick up again last April 2008.

It was December 2, 2007 since I’ve emptied the “trash” folder in my Eudora program. I remember vividly, because I blogged about it to remind me!

Since then – 148 days later .. it would seem that I have averaged 129,199/148 =~ 873 spam trashy emails per day. That’s interesting to me, because everytime I check to see how many emails I received in any given day it is well over 1,100 count. That would seem to me that my filter is routing a lot of other garbage all over the place, or I ignore or there really is about 200 emails per day of sitemeter statistics, wordpress messages, spam karma 2 messages, moderation notices and comment tracking. I think I really deal with 50-100 emails a day that I see that requires my attention or a reply back.

[Insert Image Here]

I took a screen image showing 129,199 emails in my Trash Bin .. then I deleted my trash. I think I might have deleted the picture before saving it – but, it really did say 129,199 … honest! I’ll have to get that screen image next time

The following news was released on the Canada News site …

December 20, 2007

Ottawa – Canada Post wishes to advise Canadians that advertisements recently published in various newspapers and on the Internet, offering employment opportunities with the corporation, are fraudulent.
An investigation by Canada Post’s Security and Investigation Services has revealed that these fraudulent ads direct applicants to a “Mystery Shopping Application Form” where unsuspecting individuals are asked to complete the form and provide personal information. The form suggests that the employer is Canada Post and displays Canada Post’s corporate trade-mark logo. It is believed that the advertisements are being used in an attempt to obtain personal information including banking details.

All bone fide Canada Post career opportunities are posted on our corporate website: http://www.canadapost.ca/careers. If the position is not on the corporate website, the career opportunity advertised is most likely fraudulent. All advertisements for external vacancies at Canada Post are handled by TMP Worldwide.

SOURCE: Canada Newsroom

Well, surprising .. it’s still the same ‘ole usuals …

#5 ….. CIALIS SPAM – WITH 769 SPAM EMAILS RECEIVED

#4 VIAGRA SPAM – WITH 1537 SPAM EMAILS RECEIVED

#3 PENIS SPAM – WITH 2039 SPAM EMAILS RECEIVED

#2 PEN!S SPAM – WITH 2386 SPAM EMAILS RECEIVED

#1 MEGADIK SPAM – WITH 4153 SPAM EMAILS

That’s 10,884 SPAM emails received in the month of November 2007 from these 5 spammer keywords alone .. or roughly, 362 spam emails a day on average

THANKS A LOT – YOU BASTARDS

By the way .. that was out of a total 30,772 emails I receive in November 2007 which averaged around 1025 emails per day that I receive every day – or 35% of my inbox traffic.

Reposted from HBSMC.com

I just noticed in my email TRASH folder there has been a LOT (I mean hundreds!) of rejected emails coming back from people in VACATION MODE …. I can only assume THOUSANDS or more? have gone through.

They would have the reference email
[some fictitious name] cowhbsmcnid (at) hbsmc (dot) com

* I assure you – that is not me. This is just one of the sample of details of where those emails are coming … note the IP address on the returned email from one person that was spammed by this account:

Received: from [201.24.111.220] by hbsmc.com; Fri, 31 Aug 2007 11:23:59 -0300
Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2007 11:23:59 -0300
From: “Sandy Stallings” [cowhbsmcnid (at) hbsmc (dot) com]

Here is where the IP 201.24.111.220 is located:

* I am located in Winnipeg, Manitoba and my servers are located in Chicago (Check it out – I’m 216.104.47.182)

The bottom line, is that I allowed this to happen because I am using one email address .. hart (at) hbsmc (dot) com … and then using a ‘catch-all’ for everything else. That’s because I have about 25 different emails that can possibly be used that I might have used over the years on invoicing, signing up for newsletters, etc etc. Because it’s my business email – I didn’t want to block potential business correspondence.

However, this leaves me no choice to correct this situation and block the use of my email once and for all. This means that from this point on .. only one email s will be valid:

hart (at) hbsmc (dot) com

My apologies.

HBS Management Consultants
HARTLEY B SINGER
aka HART (1-800-HART)

http://HBSMC.com

Last Thursday, July 18, 2007 .. I received 1187 emails.

Now that I’m taking my laptop to the beach, and accessing email using EVDO internet access, I don’t think I need to be wasting time and access downloading all of these emails .. so, I’ve decided to have a new plan for my emails – in case it is using up my 500 MB download limit with EVDO access.

* THE OLD PLAN: It was simple, I had only a few good domains that I wanted to use and many specific names for each one .. all my emails were @PetLvr (dot) com .. @PapillonLvr (dot) com .. or @1800HART (dot) com. I would have info@ hart@ hbs@ sales@ blogger@ affiliate@ and about a hundred other unique email prefixes. Everything was just forwarded to my main email addresses.

* THE EXISTING PLAN: When I moved servers June 8, 2007 and had to recreate all of these emails .. I decided to just create new emails for every domain .. starting with hart@. No more forwarding emails. But, I was subscribed to a few things that had h@ or info@ and I didn’t want to create new emails for every one, because when you have almost 50 domains checking emails every 2 minutes, it can hang up the computer periodically, if receiving attachment. So, I just kept one email on every domain .. hart@ .. and then did a catch-all for all other prefixes. That means, that if you send an email with a prefix of polarbear@ or idiot@ or pdfjopwejfopwjef@ .. I would get it. It has also increased my spam daily emails by at least 200 extra emails per day.

* THE NEW PLAN: .. I have disabled the catch-all for emails. From now one there will be only one way to get ahold of me by email .. using hart@ [domain] .. ALL OTHER EMAIL ADDRESSES will now be rejected.

I would like to see what my daily emails look like next month! in the meantime, if you don’t have a Spamnix Add-On program like I have for my Eudora … and filters .. it would be such a time waster. Maybe only 50 per day are actual emails that I read and are not spam.

So if you need to contact me .. please use ..

hart (at) 1800hart (dot) com

Since about mid-September 2006 .. I’ve been slowly trying to figure out ways to reduce the amount of SPAM messages in my Eudora InBox. Back then, I was averaging about 400-500 emails per day in total, and by late November it was closer to 650-750 count .. EVERY DAY.

But, it’s all part of being online I figure .. and it doesn’t really bother me … much! You see, I have spam filters in my Eudora Lite software (SPAMNIX) .. my ISP also has some spam and anti-virus software installed .. and with my hundreds of FILTERS in my email program that I created myself .. I rarely see most of the junk anyway! And, if some spam emails come into my InBox .. I’ll just right click and label it JUNK and my Eudora pretty much takes care of it.

However, there are a few days every week that emails have grown to almost 800-900 emails day. These are from the days Monday and Tuesday. Since I do a lot of surfing .. I mean the “enjoyment type of surfing” .. where you don’t really care and just follow the links .. I often start commenting on blogs and subscribing to their comments. Then, when people come back to work Monday morning, there is a slew of activity and, more emails in my inbox. Also .. if I participate in Liz’s Open Mic Tuesdays, you can add a couple hundred more emails.

So – I like to check on a Friday, to see how many emails I am getting and use this day as my guage. I didn’t actually take a screen view, but the Friday before Xmas (December 22, 2006) I wrote down that I received 514 emails.

Yesterday, Friday January 19, 2007 (4 weeks later) .. I only received 364 emails

I should mention that I have not done ANYTHING to make a difference or attempt to reduce my emails since December .. maybe it’s the after-christmas SPAM-SLOWDOWN season .. who knows! But, I will take another look again maybe, every 4 weeks to see how this works out in 2007 and make some sort of graph or chart.

Thank-You Eric Dunlap for your Spam Table .. it must have taken a lot of work, but a good reading!

I was wondering if anybody actually calls (270) 818-7244 for a Fake Diploma

I was wondering, because this is one of my top Spam Emails that I receive everyday in my In-Box. Not that I really notice, because it gets rerouted to my TRASH bin immediately.

It was interesting that in doing a search for this spam references, and I found Eric Dunlap’s Top Spammers and Scammers page. Down the page he shows all the servers that this spam is coming from. I suppose it’s a useful tool! I like that there are master lists of Spam subjects around the ‘net.

In fact – that is why I continue to post the major spam here in the blog, under the SPAM category. Hopefully, some curious person will do a search and find this page and realize – YES you were spammed! So, don’t go buying any Fake Diplomas or anything from these guys!

270-818-7244 (14) Fake University Diplomas
certcc.or.kr
gaoland.net
is.lv
kornet.net
reduno.com.mx
swetland.net
t-ipnet.de
telemar.net.br
ttknet.ru
vitssen.com
vt.edu

Spam Report
Generated: 01/02/2007 04:49 pm
Source: http://www.ericdunlap.com/spamreport.html

This report lists spam by type including domain, scam or general description as well as the sources for that spam. All spam is logged and reported via SpamCop.net. Every e-mail is saved so if you find yourself listed here and you think you want to get in my face about “Not being a spammer”… let it go – you are a filthy, scumbag, piece of dirt, lower than a lawyer spammer. I don\’t want to hear about how you are an “Internet Marketing” firm or some other stupidity like that. I won\’t play the game with you.

And to all the rest… have a great day and I hope this page helps you out!

For those that have requested it, I also do a Spam Table and it is here. It is a complete listing of all spams/scams, sources and descriptions of everything I have in my database. Be warned, it is a big file!

WAY TO GO ERIC!

I received a phone call from my ISP#1 .. Blacksun.ca over in Saskatchewan .. They host my mega account of the PetLvr.com domain. This account includes many sub-domain and domain aliases .. like this one! This 1800HART.com domain is a domain alias for another sub-domain. I know it gets confusing at times, because I actually host HBSMC.com (my business account) on my other ISP#2 server .. and http://PetLvr.com/hbsmc/blog/ is the originating source for http://1800HART.com/blog/ (I’ve duplicated the root to avoid confusion of the passings of clients to this site.

ANYWAY .. http://HARTandYVONNE.com is also another domain that is aliased under my account, and in that account I had this pretty cool addalink script that everyone could add their page to my page. Actually, I was also trying to get a link from every country in the world but that never panned out~

So apparently – this is what was happening to my other “Addalink” script today – here are the images of the LAST ENTRY #18,058 … According to the database, it was about 6,000 count with dates from yesterday – so, I received about 12,000 spam entries today ranging to ones like this one (very long) and others that were maybe only 10-15 lines long! What resulted was a huge spike in the bandwidth today, and about 10 MB of space added from URLs such as these.

Believe it or not – this is one long URL (out of 12,000) that was added to my Add-A-Link site today – I had to break it up into three images to screen capture it all!

PLEASE NOTE: YOU ARE WELCOME TO ADD YOUR SITE TO MY DIRECTORY LISTING AT http://62-151.com/links/ .. but it is a human reviewed site (by me!) that approves all links

Steve at Blacksun.ca mentioned that he’s heard this happening a lot to other ISP’s out there .. that they not only ISP’s .. but SITES as well put their guards down between XMAS and New Years Eve and this is one of the best times for spammers to start adding their spam to directories – like my free addalink among others.

BTW – I have removed the offended links and sites. And, this did not create whatsoever any undue time issues regarding speed, downtime or even amounts over my hard disk limits .. it was just a spike in the bandwidth and my ISP wanted to let me know.

THANK-YOU BLACKSUN!