Increase in spam

[Alex Neuman]

As all good IT questions... The best answer is "depends".

I, for one, use Xen and Spamcop, but some here might be able to tell  
you horror stories about false positives and I agree that, in their  
case, what works for me could be disastrous for some (if not most)  
people.

I think the best course of action is to turn on the more verbose  
logging options so you can see which rules are triggering in  
SpamAssassin - then implement or not at the MTA level if you think it  
wouldn't affect you, or slightly increase the SA scores for RBL hits  
so that it more accurately reflects the spammyness of the messages.

On Oct 30, 2009, at 5:25 AM, MailAdmin wrote:

> What RBL would you recommend to use with Sendmail to kill most of  
> these
> off??
> Thanks alot,
> Kevin
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mailscanner-bounces at lists.mailscanner.info
> [mailto:mailscanner-bounces at lists.mailscanner.info] On Behalf Of Hugo
> van der Kooij
> Sent: 30 October 2009 07:06
> To: mailscanner at lists.mailscanner.info
> Subject: Re: Increase in spam
>
> On 10/30/09 03:47, Alex Neuman wrote:
>> It's not that you *did* bring it up, it's the *how* you brought it up
>> that's more likely to have been the cause of the head-off-biting.  
>> Some
>> people probably mistook your tone for "I've noticed a crazy spam
>> increase it so it must be true and if you didn't you're dumb" or
>> something like that. Paul, however, IMHO, was a bit more cautious  
>> (the
>> use of "wondering, seems" instead of more categorical words,
> mentioning
>> stats, asking for input) so it's less likely his question would be
>> misinterpreted.
>>
>> I, for one haven't noticed it - but it's more likely to mean that I
>> don't look hard enough, not that Paul is mistaken. He probably looks
>> more at his logs and performance issues more than I do, since I
> usually
>> only notice there's a problem when the excrement is already hurtling
>> towards the rotary cooling device (you know, your servers either
> deliver
>> e-mail in 30 seconds or less or your clients start ringing your phone
>> off the hook).
>
> I can't recall having seen an significant increase in general terms
> recently. The trend seem to go up all through the year:
> http://balin.waakhond.net/#MailGraph
>
> You can also keep an eye on http://www.barracudacentral.org/data/ 
> spam to
>
> see the combineed statistics of quite a few anti-spam boxes.
>
> The only difference is that the old "me at example.com" to "me at example.com 
> "
>
> junk is back in force during the last few months.
>
> I guess either 1 or more botnet(s) changed tactics or a new one  
> emerged.
>
> But most RBL's will kill of most of these attempts anyway so you can  
> get
>
> rid of them at the MTA level.
>
> Hugo.
> -- 
> MailScanner mailing list
> mailscanner at lists.mailscanner.info
> http://lists.mailscanner.info/mailman/listinfo/mailscanner
>
> Before posting, read http://wiki.mailscanner.info/posting
>
> Support MailScanner development - buy the book off the website!
>
> -- 
> This message has been scanned for viruses and
> dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
> believed to be clean.
>
>
> This e-mail is intended solely for the addressee(s) and is strictly  
> confidential. The unauthorised use, disclosure or copying of this e- 
> mail, or any information it contains is prohibited. If you have  
> received this e-mail in error, please notify us immediately and then  
> permanently delete it. Although Midland Internet & Computer  
> Solutions make every effort to keep our systems free from viruses  
> you should check this e-mail and any attachments to it for viruses  
> as we cannot accept any liability for viruses inadvertently  
> transmitted by use.
>
> --
> MailScanner mailing list
> mailscanner at lists.mailscanner.info
> http://lists.mailscanner.info/mailman/listinfo/mailscanner
>
> Before posting, read http://wiki.mailscanner.info/posting
>
> Support MailScanner development - buy the book off the website!