Spamfest in my inbox

[strange_complex]

Now, I long ago accepted that I was going to get about 4 times as much spam as real mail in my Yahoo account (which is my main one). I didn't mind too much, because Yahoo have a pretty good spam filter, so most of it has always gone straight into my Bulk mail folder.

But I opened my mail just now for the first time since about 8pm last night, and found a whopping 115 spam messages, to only 7 real ones! That is not even within the space of 24 hours: more like 18, I guess. Plus, 40 of the spam ones hadn't been filtered, and hence had to be weeded out of my inbox. Oh, and by the time I had finished my all-of-20-minute session, 3 more had arrived.

This just can't be right, can it? I knew the rate had been going up lately, but I hadn't actually counted up the numbers before today to notice how bad it was.

The really annoying thing is that most of them are obviously ultimately from the same organisation (I don't know what, because I never open them), since they all have very similar subject lines. Lots of stuff about 'Mike gave me your email address', 'Yes, I live in Russia' and 'Sorry my ICQ crashed' lately. So if that one single organisation were stamped into oblivion by someone with the power to do that sort of thing, my life would suddenly get a great deal better.

I don't want to change my email address, because I like my friends to know how to get hold of me. But I'm wondering how much longer I can stand this!

Thanks for listening to my frustrated rage...

Comments

[neilh.livejournal.com]

There's a reasonable chance they're actually the product of the latest worm - sasser, I think its called - rather than actual spam, of course the worms carry spam as well these days. If you're running webmail take a look at the headers, you might be able to find out where they're coming from.

Whatever you do, don't open any of their attachments

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

I don't think I can look at their headers in full without opening them, which I'm worried about doing. I'm getting so many obviously from the same source, though, that I might get curious and open one soon a) to see what the hell it's all about and b) to see if there's any obvious address I can block.

None of them actually have attachments, which is what makes me assume they're spam rather than things carrying worms / viruses. Also, I have noticed they have started appearing with random words tacked on the end: e.g. 'why are you always offline terrain', which I presume is some kind of attempt to get past spam-filters.

[avaritia.livejournal.com]

I get oodles of spam to my btyahoo account, it is really really annoying. If I find any good solutions/techniques to get rid of it, I'll let you know.