[BLUG] Any other admins seeing a huge influx of spam?

[Joe Auty]

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I use greylisting, and it is extremely effective, but we don't use it  
at IU since it is too expensive...

Spamhaus is also quite effective.



On Oct 30, 2006, at 3:03 PM, Andrew Poland wrote:

> I wouldn't use it as a pass/fail, but it might be useful to add  
> weight with a score based filter like SpamAssassin.  You could add  
> one point for grammatical errors... but it takes say 5 points to  
> classify as Spam for example, so other algorithms would get a  
> chance to weigh in before it is tagged or bounced.
>
> Have any of you experimented with greylisting?  I just implemented  
> a greylist policy on our mail server, and I can honestly say that  
> the volume of spam passing through the server has probably been cut  
> in half since turning it on.  It is causing a few delays to receive  
> when brand new hosts try to send us mail the first time, but so far  
> has been worth it.
>
> http://projects.puremagic.com/greylisting/
>
>
> Also distributed message digest filters like Razor2 and DCC have  
> been helpful.  With these enabled SA is correctly tagging a large  
> percentage of the spam that comes in (for the time being...  it is  
> probabbly inevitable that spammers will adapt).
>
> Andrew
>
> On Oct 30, 2006, at 2:23 PM, Jeff Welty wrote:
>
>> I've noticed this phenomenon as well in my work email account which I
>> rarely ever give out... I have a number of other "junk" accounts  
>> that I
>> use to sign up for stuff online.
>> For the spam that just contains strings of ungrammatical jargon like
>> "press papers else snail and or narrow process amid focus..."  
>> would it
>> not be possible to devise a type of filter that checks grammar? So if
>> there are more than x grammatical errors found in the body (not like
>> choosing 'that' or 'which' in a sentence, but real screwy errors  
>> like we
>> see in some spam) it would just stick the email in a spam folder or
>> delete it.
>> Maybe it would also make people to check them emails before press  
>> Send
>> button :)
>> Jeff
>>
>> Joe Auty wrote:
>>> Yes, there has definitely been a change...  Spammers have changed  
>>> their
>>> techniques recently, it is affecting us as well.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Oct 30, 2006, at 2:02 PM, Matt Standish wrote:
>>>
>>>>> Just as the subject says.
>>>>>
>>>>> Greylisting took away a lot of problem but some of my servers are
>>>>> seeing over 100,000 messages a day.  This is a lot more than  
>>>>> usual.
>>>>>
>>>>> 90% of it is comming from bots.
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> BLUG mailing list
>>>>> BLUG_at_linuxfan.com
>>>>> http://mailman.cs.indiana.edu/mailman/listinfo/blug
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----------
>>> Joe Auty
>>> NetMusician: web publishing software for musicians
>>> http://www.netmusician.org
>>> joe_at_netmusician.org
>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>> -- 
>> Jeff Welty
>> System Administrator
>> Global Research NOC
>> Indiana University, Bloomington
>> (812) 856-9770
>> _______________________________________________
>> BLUG mailing list
>> BLUG_at_linuxfan.com
>> http://mailman.cs.indiana.edu/mailman/listinfo/blug
>
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