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Discussing Internet security in (mostly) plain English
Spam has no political affiliation
Now that election season is starting to heat up (in the United States) I am starting to notice a lot...
Author: tzink Date: 09/07/2006
I'm hearing rumours...
Lately, it has come to my attention that we seem to be seeing a new kind of spam that contains only...
Author: tzink Date: 09/06/2006
Back to school, but not for me
It's now September and it's the time of year when students return to school. I remember when I was...
Author: tzink Date: 09/03/2006
Spam volume by weekday
I have recently been reading about the performance of the stock market on various days of the week....
Author: tzink Date: 08/31/2006
Maintaining my lead is tricky business
About a month or go or so, I was mentioning how I created a search pattern for spam that hit 9...
Author: tzink Date: 08/29/2006
It turns out that stock spam works
I just did a search for the topic of stock spam and it turns out that there is a noticeable effect...
Author: tzink Date: 08/28/2006
Theorem 5 - The precision of anti-spam pattern matching techniques are inversely proportional to their risk
We have seen how spam and legitimate messages can share common characteristics, and that in order to...
Author: tzink Date: 08/26/2006
Theorem 4 - Improvement in spam filtering effectiveness is achieved by improving detection of the granularily of the "overlap" area in the Spam Curve
Recall from previous discussions that some spam and non-spam messages can closely resemble each...
Author: tzink Date: 08/25/2006
Theorem 2 - Spam filters are not 100% effective at avoiding false positives because legitimate email messages can contain spammy content
In the world of spam filtering, a false positive is a message that is flagged as spam when it should...
Author: tzink Date: 08/23/2006
The more things change, the more they stay the same
The other day I was browsing through my personal email (a free service that claims to have the best...
Author: tzink Date: 08/23/2006
Theorem 1 - It is impossible for a message to be both extremely clean and extremely dirty at the same time
According to the Spam Curve, the bulk concentration of messages are the ones that contain a lot of...
Author: tzink Date: 08/22/2006
Microsoft shares look bullish to me
As all Microsoft employees know, in April Microsoft shares gapped down 10% in one day. The preceded...
Author: tzink Date: 08/20/2006
Spammers using Outlook? That's a switch
I got some spam in my personal email account the other day so I took a look at the source to see if...
Author: tzink Date: 08/18/2006
The Spam Theorems
In the below post on the Spam Curve, I explained a little bit about what the curve is and the nature...
Author: tzink Date: 08/17/2006
The Spam Curve - a theory
I have a theory about the nature of spam and non-spam. Spam and non-spam, in terms of their...
Author: tzink Date: 08/15/2006
Slight shift in focus
I have changed my blog a little bit to greater reflect what it actually is. Whereas before the blog...
Author: tzink Date: 08/15/2006
More on trends and relationships
In the next little while, my role as a spam analyst is going to be transitioning from analysis to a...
Author: tzink Date: 08/14/2006
Perhaps America has got talent
As an amateur magician with no intention of ever turning pro, I enjoy seeing new and creative magic...
Author: tzink Date: 08/13/2006
Spam on the rise
This is from the "Well, obviously" file, but as we all know, spam volume is on the rise. Everybody...
Author: tzink Date: 08/13/2006
Amusing video
From time to time I come across amusing or interesting content as part of my spam processing. The...
Author: tzink Date: 08/08/2006
10,000 different versions of Viagra
Viagra spam continues to be the most uniquely spammed product. By unique, what I mean is if you take...
Author: tzink Date: 08/08/2006
Want a rolex? Check your spam folder.
Around Christmas time, one of the most common, if not the most common type of spam is rolex watch...
Author: tzink Date: 08/07/2006
Thoughts on Microsoft stock
I'm currently experiencing writer's block when it comes to writing about spam so I thought I'd post...
Author: tzink Date: 08/03/2006
How long does a spam run last, anyways?
Since I've been here for two years, I have noticed that the way spammers irritate us has evolved...
Author: tzink Date: 08/01/2006
Dow Theory and stock spam
One of the things I do in my spare time is trade stocks on the stock market. With all of the stock...
Author: tzink Date: 07/31/2006
Useful tips for customers
I believe that this information is also available on the Microsoft Exchange Hosted Services site,...
Author: tzink Date: 07/30/2006
Where is this spam coming from?
I recently got an email question from a reader asking about where spam is coming from, that is, who...
Author: tzink Date: 07/30/2006
I don't want to brag... but I will
This past week we have been getting a flood of image-only spam. These types of messages are...
Author: tzink Date: 07/27/2006
Interesting phobias
I recently stumbled across a list of phobias in a message. Some of these are very interesting, like...
Author: tzink Date: 07/27/2006
Frequency of spam - distribution by category
On another news website that talks about image-only spam, Craig Sprosts, senior product manager at...
Author: tzink Date: 07/26/2006
Examining images - an interesting wrinkle
Recently, in and around the internet, people have been getting hit with an onslaught of image-only...
Author: tzink Date: 07/26/2006
Cute-sie comments in messages aren't that cute
From a spam analyst's point-of-view, little "cute-sie wootsie" comments in emails are not really all...
Author: tzink Date: 07/25/2006
No such thing as generic Viagra
We've all seen the ads in our spam filters at one time or another, some spammer advertising for...
Author: tzink Date: 07/24/2006
The inaugural post
After running a blog for around two and a half months internally, I have decided to make this blog...
Author: tzink Date: 07/24/2006