[Cadaver]

So just days ago I bought myself a domain name and set up my own smtp/pop3 server on one of my Macs. While configuring the mail server, I set one of my accounts to be the recipient of unclaimed/misdirected mail (receive mail for non-existent users). Didn't mean to configure this; I set it accidentally.

Anyway, so now my private mail server is up & running and working correctly. Now, mind you, I've not yet given anyone my new email addresses yet.

OK, so about 12 hrs after getting the server turned on, I log into the email account that was set to receive the misdirected mail sent to my domain. Imagine my surprise when I find near two dozen junk emails, addressed to essentially random (non-existent) usernames at my domain! The domain was purchased only 24 hrs before the mail server went up! And amazingly, spammers are already targeting it. I have to believe they wait around for domains to be activated and then just sit back and hammer them with spam once its been turned on.

I've since shut down the option of receiving misdirected mail, so mail sent to non-existent users at my domain will just get bounced back. But its amazing at how much garbage is just whizzing around in cyberspace, taking up space, careening around without any direction.

Not to sound like too much of a geek, but to use a Sci-Fi analogy, its like when Han Solo flies his ship in to the asteroid field in RoTJ, and Leah says, "You're not actually going in there?!" We're each the ship, the internet is the asteroid field, and if we're not careful, we'll get pulverized when we're not looking.

What do system analysts say? By the end of 2004, junk emails will completely outnumber legitimate emails, or something like that. Amazing.

[The Placid Casual]

Is it possible someone had the domain before you, and the email addresses were previously set up at a point in the past?

I bought a domain a while back, and as soon as I set up an email 'catch all' for the domain I got hundreds of emails every day!

I checked out the internet archive and found that a company had it a few years before and they let it expire... they had signed up to some weird sh!t in their time as well!

There was so much spam that even filters were hopeless... In the end, I gave up and bought a new domain for the company!

[spatterson]

Originally posted by Cadaver:
OK, so about 12 hrs after getting the server turned on, I log into the email account that was set to receive the misdirected mail sent to my domain. Imagine my surprise when I find near two dozen junk emails, addressed to essentially random (non-existent) usernames at my domain! The domain was purchased only 24 hrs before the mail server went up! And amazingly, spammers are already targeting it. I have to believe they wait around for domains to be activated and then just sit back and hammer them with spam once its been turned on.

YUP!!! I know that problem all to well with my server. I would turn off the catch all account, and stick to whatever user name you choose.

[Cadaver]

Originally posted by The Placid Casual:
Is it possible someone had the domain before you, and the email addresses were previously set up at a point in the past?

I bought a domain a while back, and as soon as I set up an email 'catch all' for the domain I got hundreds of emails every day!

I checked out the internet archive and found that a company had it a few years before and they let it expire... they had signed up to some weird sh!t in their time as well!

There was so much spam that even filters were hopeless... In the end, I gave up and bought a new domain for the company!

It's possible someone did have the domain before, though it is a .org domain, for whatever that's worth. I have no idea how long it was available before I got it. Just tried out a few interesting domain names until I found one that was available.

Either way, I just simply turned off the catch-all account and I'll leave it that way. It's just a simple mail server for my own private use anyway - easier to make disposable email addresses this way for avoiding spam in the first place. Get too much spam on one account, kill it and make another. I'll keep my outgoing mail to what I've always had, and use the reply-to field to point to my disposable accounts.

[Gee4orce]

Spam already outnumbers genuine email - globally it now accounts for 2/3 of email, and in the US it's up to 80% or more. They are predicting that by next year it will be 90%+.

This is ridiculous - it's got to be stopped. Finding all the spammers and shooting them in the head would be a good start.

[tooki]

It's obscene! (And I'm not referring to the contents of the spam!)


The problem is twofold: spammers, who seem to have this sense of entitlement, that the whole internet is there for their profit alone (actually, replace "spammer" with "CEO" and "internet" with "world" and you're describing the seeming majority of capitalist enterprise).

The other is the <1% of people who are dumb enough to BUY from spam! ONE response is enough to subsidize thousands of junk messages. Nobody EVER seems to mention this part of the equation: if nobody bought the crap being advertised, spam would die out. Clearly, enough people do to make it very lucrative.

I think a HUGE education campaign needs to be started, warning people to NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER buy from spam!

tooki

[alphasubzero949]

Solution:

Filter #1: Block anything that doesn't have a @ in the To: field.
Filter #2: Block anything that doesn't have your e-mail address (sucks to be you if you signed onto a listserve).

That should cure your problem about 97% of the time.

[chris_h]

ATTNEN MACCN POSTERS

SUJBECT; YOUR APPLICATION HAS BEEN DENEID
;
DIR SEAR OR MADDAM,
I REJECT TO ENFORM YOU THAT YUOR RECENT APLICATION FOR MOENYS HAS BEEN DECLIREND HOWEVER HERE IS SOME PORNOGRAPHJY
\|\ LOL ITS A VEGAINA

[Sherwin]

Originally posted by alphasubzero949:
Solution:

Filter #1: Block anything that doesn't have a @ in the To: field.
Filter #2: Block anything that doesn't have your e-mail address (sucks to be you if you signed onto a listserve).

That should cure your problem about 97% of the time.

Addition:

Go buy CommuniGate Pro. Pop Spamhaus into your RBL blacklist page.

Job done - no spam.

[djohnson]

Originally posted by Gee4orce:
Spam already outnumbers genuine email - globally it now accounts for 2/3 of email, and in the US it's up to 80% or more. They are predicting that by next year it will be 90%+.

This is ridiculous - it's got to be stopped. Finding all the spammers and shooting them in the head would be a good start.

2/3 of email? My spam accounts for about 95% of all email I receive...

[Oisín]

I'm still amazed that now, nearly two years after I registered (and a little over a year after starting to use) my own domain, I still have not received one single spam mail, not even on the catchall account! I don't know why, and frankly I don't care, I just hope it doesn't change! I have my Netscape mail for spam.

[Scotttheking]

After a few years, I've started getting a little bit of spam. Nothing really obscene, more business stuff. It probably came from my whois registration or something. Soon I'll have a nice new mail server with massive spam killing capabilities.

[MindFad]

I received spam from myself today. Isn't that lovely.

[Turias]

I've had my domain registered for about a year, and I haven't experienced any spam to random addresses. I get a few every week to info@mydomain and sales@mydomain, so I filtered those two out. Now I don't get any.

[anthonyvthc]

At the company where I work, the customer service email box regularly has about 200 junk emails and 1 or 2 legitimate ones in the mailbox every morning. Today we were notified that a friend had set up the entire customer service department on a blind date!

[DeathToWindows]

spammers are a cancer on the body internet

[Funny Bugga]

Man, it's about time I ditched my Hotmail account, I am sick of its ****. SPAMMERS LEAVE ME ALONE

[Shinigami]

Originally posted by Funny Bugga:
Man, it's about time I ditched my Hotmail account, I am sick of its ****. SPAMMERS LEAVE ME ALONE

Really? I've never gotten spam on my hotmail account.

[killer_735]

Originally posted by DeathToWindows:
spammers are a cancer on the body internet

yeah, but even without the spam, the body's got a wooden leg, an undescended testicle, and just got its second quadrouple bypass. Would be nice without them though.

[dtriska]

A mirror would be nice.

[Turias]

Originally posted by dtriska:
A mirror would be nice.