Update 6--Sp@mX, the Road to Near Zero Spam

We are using Sp@mX from HSC to try to reduce the 4000+ spam messages that we received weekly prior to using it. Our initial review of Sp@mX v3.0.5 appeared on December 13th and we have issued weekly progress reports since then ( 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5). The $20 Sp@mX automatically processes spam messages and provides reports to the adminstrators of servers that handled the spam on its way to you with a request to block its originator. It relies on them to follow through. In addition, Sp@mX can be configured to send copies of your spam to the FTC and DoJ. We completed Week 6 last Friday and here are the results:

Weekly Results from Using Sp@mX

Week of Use	# Spam Processed	Abuse Reports	Failed Deliveries
6	1246	218	206
5	1385	304	855
4	1352	213	137
3	1145	101	54
2	1640	213	75
1	2523	191	75
0	4000+	n/a	n/a

Our spam load during week 6 declined over 100 from the previous 2 weeks. But for the past four weeks it seems that we have reached some kind of a plateau, averaging 1282 with a range of 1145-1385.

What could be causing this plateau in the road to near zero spam? Well one thing is inattention (or worse) from too many mail server administrators. We note that most of our spam now generates server abuse addresses in Eastern Europe, Korea and China, also where most of our failed deliveries are from, i.e. many of the abuse mail addresses in those countries lead to blocked or full mailboxes. It seems that one way to quickly reduce our spam further is to block/delete all email handled by servers from those countries at our host's email server since we never get any legitimate email from people in those countries anyway.

Sp@mX is up to version 3.2.6 as of this report. The interface has continued to improve as has its functionality. Recent versions have included a script to export spam from BareBones' Mailsmith 2 in a format that Sp@mX can use, adding more convenience for Mac users.

Our spam dropped precipituously during the first three weeks of using Sp@mX, a two-thirds reduction in our spam from the level from before we began using Sp@mX. We think this is an outstanding achievement. At least the FTC and California DoJ got another 1246 spam message examples from us last week. But because we are on a four-week plateau, we will issue our next report when the amount of spam makes a significant change from the average over the past four weeks. [Bill Fox--Disclaimer: HSC is now an advertiser on Macs Only!]