

One man's spam - graphing spam rates since 2002 - RiderOfGiraffes
http://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/SpamGraphs.html?HN

======
cmsj
My mail server does primary MX for a couple of small domains (5 or so people)
and relays a few domains for friends to gmail.

I've been doing some crude graphing for the last couple of years based on
specific text entries in Exim's log:

<http://cmsj.net/stats/mail.png>

Note: I moved the mail delivery to a new machine about 3 weeks ago which might
have upset things, but the spam levels had collapsed before that. I'm somewhat
tempted to filter out the peak level because it hides so much nuance in the
rest of the graph.

~~~
cmsj
hit post too early...other notes: \- yes, I do sender verification. no, I am
not prepared to debate it with you, live with it ;) \- I've always been a bit
surprised that there aren't more malware rejections. Either ClamAV sucks or
people aren't trying very hard to give me viruses. \- I find it interesting
that the 'blunderbus' approach of sending to all imaginable addresses (i.e.
the blue section of the graph) has diminished significantly over time.

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes

      > hit post too early ...
    

You know you can edit for up to 2 hours ...

~~~
cmsj
I did not know that! Unfortunately I missed it this time, but I will do that
next time :)

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
Oddly, that's what the "edit" link means next to your item or reply when
you've first submitted it. Lots of people miss it, not least because people
often don't check what they've written.

<fx: grin>

------
Sniffnoy
The horizontal axis on that graph really needs to be clarified. Yes, I can
figure out what the 1s represent, and count the years, but...

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
Agreed - I was dealing with the data and thought - "Hmm - HN might be
interested in a graph of this" so I knocked one out quickly. The scales don't
really matter. It covers from 2002 to 2010, and really there's not much else
you need to know.

In case you want, the raw data are here:

<http://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/RawSpamCount.html?HN>

The first field is the number of emails, the last two are year and month. The
others are meaningless.

------
johkra
You got 50 000 spam messages in one month? Is this just for one address or
multiple?

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
I have a complicated setup, but in essence, I have, by necessity, ended up
with a catch-all on a domain. There is value to what I do, but the cost is the
level of spam. It's like having hundreds of honey-pots.

I'm considering washing them of personal information and making them
available.

