Spam getting to Gmail?

[nouhad]

Well for a while i didnt get any spam messages in my spam folder by
over the past two days or so, ive been getting around 2 a day...
Anyone else also getting spam?
Not that theres a problem or anything, the fact that i didnt get spam
for a long period of time shows how good Gmail is.
later

[Scott Villarosa]

good post b/c i was just about to make a topic similar to this. yes nouhad,
i have noticed spam now in a few accounts i've got access to and it seems
they are all from the same person (selling books?). perhaps confirm that we
have a spam bomber targeting gmail users now (anyone else?). gee, anything
is possible and wouldn't surprise me.

[nouhad]

yea thats the spam which i also got.. it occured to me because
previously while scrolling through all my folders i dont recall seeing
any spam , only the "No spam" thingy.. i was wondering.. if we all are
getting mail from the same spammer, might it be something to do with
our email address on this groupsite? nice group by the way, very
appropriate.
i take it that ur the founder of this group? good job

[Scott Villarosa]

thanks nouhad. yes, i am the group's owner. cheers. :P

although it's just yourself and me at the moment getting this spam and it
would be wrong to say "we are all" getting that same spam, i can confirm
that it is not related to groups or having your email address out in public
view. for example, some of my accounts were spammed and i have never, ever
given these addresses out to anyone before... ever. this can only mean one
thing: a bot perhaps has guessed our email addresses and spammed us like
that. thoughts?

-----Original Message-----
From: nouhad [mailto:nou...@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, 4 December 2004 11:06 PM
To: Gmail-Ge...@googlegroups.com

[nouhad]

hmmm , so far thats where i think the spam is coming from. well, anyone
else getting spam in there folders?

[Scott Villarosa]

we are onto something here, and i've seen other cases of gmail users
(off-group) getting the same spam. i wonder if google is aware of these new
spam bombers?

-----Original Message-----
From: nouhad [mailto:nou...@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, 4 December 2004 11:12 PM
To: Gmail-Ge...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Gmail-Generation] Re: Spam getting to Gmail?

[nouhad]

anyway of contacting them to find out.. ? know any google staff

[Gordon Stewart]

On Sat, 04 Dec 2004 04:11:36 -0800, nouhad <nou...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> hmmm , so far thats where i think the spam is coming from. well, anyone
> else getting spam in there folders?

Did Gmail adopt the Yahoo " Domainkeys " system ?

Ive just checked the original / headers of a latest message - & I cant
find it....

Will it only be effective - as more & more ISP's / servers use the system ??

--

G Stewart
NZ Parents wanted :-
parent...@yahoogroups.com

[Scott Villarosa]

well, they're reading this so that's a good start. :P but you can also use
gmail's help feedback form. follow the links from gmail.

-----Original Message-----
From: nouhad [mailto:nou...@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, 4 December 2004 11:18 PM
To: Gmail-Ge...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Gmail-Generation] Re: Spam getting to Gmail?

[nouhad]

lol ure on the gmail staff??

[Gordon Stewart]

On Sat, 4 Dec 2004 23:17:48 +1100, Scott Villarosa <sjvi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> well, they're reading this so that's a good start. :P but you can also use
> gmail's help feedback form. follow the links from gmail.

HOWEVER - As someone mentioned a month or so ago, as a "new" spam
appears, Google (or any ISP) wont know about it, - so the first users
will get lots of the spam...

However as more & more users "report" the spam, - The computers will
learn to tell which is spam, & whats not...
(& by the numbers coming in..)

So if any spam comes in later - It will get caught more

[Scott Villarosa]

no, not me personally, but they do (the google bot does) scour the group for
gmail related posts. now, let's not get off-topic here eh. :P

-----Original Message-----
From: nouhad [mailto:nou...@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, 4 December 2004 11:27 PM
To: Gmail-Ge...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Gmail-Generation] Re: Spam getting to Gmail?

[Scott Villarosa]

yeah, it's all getting caught, but someone is out there bombing gmail
accounts with a randomiser, which sucks eh.

-----Original Message-----
From: Gordon Stewart [mailto:gordo...@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, 4 December 2004 11:29 PM
To: Gmail-Ge...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Gmail-Generation] Re: Spam getting to Gmail?

[arongo...@gmail.com]

I've recieved two spam-emails over the past week, the first i've ever
recieved on gmail. The spam filter handled them each time :-)

[Scott Villarosa]

do you remember what the spam was about? was it books? we're trying to
confirm this, for we, like yourself, have never seen "official" spam in our
gmail boxes before either.

-----Original Message-----
From: arongo...@gmail.com [mailto:arongo...@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, 4 December 2004 11:59 PM
To: Gmail-Ge...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Gmail-Generation] Re: Spam getting to Gmail?

[jamie]

I was getting only about 2 spam e-mails a day. now it's up 20 or so.
also, some of the yahoogroups I belong to, are now being put into the
spam folder ( I clcik on not spam, and they are still being put there
).
- jamie

[arongo...@gmail.com]

Well I deleted the previous spam i received, but ironically enough,
between my last post and now i recieved another piece of spam :p

[spam]

Nicole
<post...@specpath.com> to amjadb7d2
NEW! VVIA-GGRA Soft Tabs

Works in minutes! Lasts for hours!!

Now YOU can get VVIA-GGRA Soft Tabs for as low as $1.99 per dose,
with discreet shipment to the privacy of your home or office.
To Visit Our Website for COMPLETE details: Click Here

[/endspam]

[Scott Villarosa]

nope, that's not the spam we're looking for. thanks, though. :P

-----Original Message-----
From: arongo...@gmail.com [mailto:arongo...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, 5 December 2004 12:19 AM
To: Gmail-Ge...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Gmail-Generation] Re: Spam getting to Gmail?

[nouhad]

hmmm yea..
ive also got 2 messages in a week
even though it gets filtered into the spam folder, the fact that spam
is still being sent is the problem.

[Scott Villarosa]

i'm sure when other users of this group start reading our threads they'll
notice the same thing that we've found, so just hang in there and i'm sure
we'll nut out something. we can compare spam and see how far that gets us.
:P

s.

-----Original Message-----
From: nouhad [mailto:nou...@gmail.com]

Sent: Sunday, 5 December 2004 12:33 AM
To: Gmail-Ge...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Gmail-Generation] Re: Spam getting to Gmail?

[nouhad]

hmm this thread is getting quite popular, it needs to be read and
discussed with more ppl, don u think scott.?
any way to sticky this thread? prolly a preposition for another feature
before the groups gets officially released.

[Scott Villarosa]

no need to sticky, seeing the majority of our users opt for "per email"
subscription (recommended for all users btw). they'll see this and respond
in a few hours anyway. cheers.

s.

-----Original Message-----
From: nouhad [mailto:nou...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, 5 December 2004 12:36 AM
To: Gmail-Ge...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Gmail-Generation] Re: Spam getting to Gmail?

[Scott Villarosa]

> any way to sticky this thread? prolly a preposition for another feature
before the groups gets officially released.

yes, request this at gg2 group. google group dev's read that group
<http://groups-beta.google.com/group/google-labs-groups2>.

[Darryl Rayburn]

yeah I've noticed a bit of an increase in spam also- seems to be
mainly from a Yahoo address and advertising Rolex knockoffs and
"discount software"...oh well, I guess it's always to be expected
unless you always keep an e-mail account under close wraps or
something, and anyway it's no big deal- not yet anyway

[Kishyr Ramdial]

On Sun, 5 Dec 2004 01:19:49 +1300, Gordon Stewart <gordo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Did Gmail adopt the Yahoo " Domainkeys " system ?
>
> Ive just checked the original / headers of a latest message - & I cant
> find it....
>
> Will it only be effective - as more & more ISP's / servers use the system ??

DomainKeys is still alive. If you post a message from Gmail itself,
then only will it have a DomainKey header tag. The messages from
nouhad were sent from the Groups 2 web interface. Also, it's possible
that a user who checks his/her mail via an external application via
POP will also not have DomainKeys if his/her SMTP server isn't GMail's
one.

--
Kishyr Ramdial
http://kishyr.ramdial.co.za
Get Firefox! http://www.getfirefox.com

[Matthew]

The same is happening to me. I've received absolutely no spam at all
until the other day, and now I'm getting 2 or 3 a day.

[myztic619]

me i do not get much spam:)

[Kass Lloyd]

The only spam I get in my inbox (and I get alot filtered a day, I have
all my e-mail accounts pointed to gmail now) is spam that uses
purposefully misspelled words that are commonly in spam messages. The
spam filters asign a value to each word in an e-mail, those commonly
in spam is more negitive then words not. Anyway.. they're bypassing
the filters with random "safe" words and random text and misspelled
"bad" words. I'm not sure the current filtering technology can
counteract this..

Gmail should adpot the technology described below:

http://www.hashcash.org/

All it does is generates a partial sh1 hash-collision for the
recipents e-mail address. It takes lots of cpu to generate the
collison, but just microseconds to check it. If this became a standard
(like google could help it to be) then mail servers could just bounce
e-mails without the hash-collision for the e-mail.

Nothing prevents a spammer from generating hash-collisions for their
spam recipents, but its very cpu intensive. They're spamming volume
would be greatly reduced, and therefore they would be unable to send
spam in a cost-effective mannor if every mail server bounced e-mails
without the colision. :)

Only problem is getting every mail client to generate them.. these
things should of been thought of years and years ago. But nothing
modivates people to upgrade their e-mail clients then by forceing them
by makeing this just a standard. Something needs done, and by just
making it very costly to send spam, the spammers will maybe give up.
Or at least stop blindly sending spam to people. They'll have to
choose their recipents better.

[Matt]

I've had 5 spam messages in the past 24 hours, a new record. In general
I've been receiving one per day til now, though for some periods I have
none, and other times I have 2 or 3 messages per day. I think some of
mine are because I have my gmail address listed in the WHOIS for one or
two of my domains. I guess I could change it with some plus addressing
to see if that is really where it's coming from.

I don't think they're all from the WHOIS though. Recently some of the
spam messages have had usernames very similar to mine at the start of
the SUBJECT of the email, which I suppose suggests dictionary attacks
or whatever they're called.

[Kass Lloyd]

I get arround 20 spam messages a day, 99+% of which are filtered out.
But this is due to having the same e-mail address for 10 or so years,
which is now forwarded to gmail. And having tons of domains registered
with it, and signed up to tons of places with it... I have to say the
gmail spam filtering is the best I've seen so far. :D

[zerone]

Personally, i never got a single spam message o_O

This can only mean good things :]

[corincole]

I've got loads of messages telling me how to make money - all claiming
to be from different people - very annoying!!!

[Scott Villarosa]

> I guess it's always to be expected unless you always keep an e-mail
account under close wraps or something,

no, my accounts have never been used. they are sitting there empty and the
spammer "guessed" my address. sucks eh.

s.

-----Original Message-----
From: Darryl Rayburn [mailto:dray...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, 5 December 2004 3:25 AM
To: gmail-ge...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Gmail-Generation] Re: Spam getting to Gmail?

[Darryl Rayburn]

hehe there's no hope then ;) an irritation to be expected, and anyway
it's not out of control in any sense so it's ok

[nouhad]

hm m still there seems to be ppl who have been receiveing spam, hmm
thats wierd, j ust checked my mail for the first time today and i got 1
spam mail. a software one... now it seems like im being spammed daily

[Ashok Chandran]

hey one doubt ...can the spammers get hold of our address from mails to groups??

--
Today is gone, today was fun. Tomorrow will be a better one
Ashok Chandran J
Visit Me at http://ashok.dotgeek.org

[Scott Villarosa]

no, only unless they sign up and harvest addresses from getting our digests,
and i don't think they would go to that much trouble. this spam issue isn't
restricted to just groups, for it's very widespread.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ashok Chandran [mailto:ash...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, 5 December 2004 12:36 PM
To: gmail-ge...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Gmail-Generation] Re: Spam getting to Gmail?

[Derek]

yeh i don't think spammers are spending time in groups. they would
have to register and peruse through emails to collect email address'.
that job is usuelly reserved for spam bots which crawl the net or
generate email address'.

[Gordon Stewart]

On Sat, 4 Dec 2004 18:00:07 -0800, Derek <derek.p...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> yeh i don't think spammers are spending time in groups. they would
> have to register and peruse through emails to collect email address'.
> that job is usuelly reserved for spam bots which crawl the net or
> generate email address'.

Its easy to join a bots email address & sign up for groups..
& just have the bot sift through each email & collect email addresses
... Its no rocket scientist to do that..

PS Ive got no spam to send :)

--

G Stewart
NZ Parents wanted :-
parent...@yahoogroups.com

[cyberdiva]

Matthew wrote:
> The same is happening to me. I've received absolutely no spam at all
> until the other day, and now I'm getting 2 or 3 a day.

This is true for me, too, but I should note that I'm NOT talking about
my gmail account. I've had NO spam in my gmail account--ever. But
since I started to participate in Google Groups (about a week ago),
I've seen an increase in the amount of spam I've received in the
account I use for these groups. I can't be absolutely sure ggroups is
to blame, since I use this same account for other groups as well, but
the increase has occurred only since I started participating in Google
Groups.

[Scott Villarosa]

i'm getting spam at accounts that have never been used before, so trust
me... it's not spam bots crawling this or other lists and there's no need to
alert our members of otherwise, right?

-----Original Message-----
From: Gordon Stewart [mailto:gordo...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, 5 December 2004 1:13 PM
To: Gmail-Ge...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Gmail-Generation] Re: Spam getting to Gmail?

[Scott Villarosa]

i have used this email address for months on groups and have never, ever
been spammed by harvesters. cyber, i suggest you getting spam emails is a
coincidence, for cybernut is an easily guessed name imho.

-----Original Message-----
From: cyberdiva [mailto:cybe...@lycos.com]
Sent: Sunday, 5 December 2004 1:20 PM
To: Gmail-Ge...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Gmail-Generation] Re: Spam getting to Gmail?

[Darryl Rayburn]

I don't think it's this list in itself...I'm on some Listserv lists
and some other forums as well -which I haven't used this address for
until recently- so in my case I think it's a number of factors. Anyway
it's not a huge volume of spam at the moment. I wish there were some
sort of "blacklist" function available- and if there IS something like
that available in Gmail, then someone enlighten me

[Darryl Rayburn]

on second thought though, I don't know if a "blacklist" would really
be that much benefit against spammers, seeing as how thye change
addresses so frequently- anyway I can say that the small amount of
spam I've gotten recently HAS gone into the spam folder reliably

[Derek]

nope no sort of blacklist option available as of yet.. something you
should email gmail about... a recommendation.

On Sat, 4 Dec 2004 22:21:43 -0500, Darryl Rayburn <dray...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

[Scott Villarosa]

i'm sure google are running their own blacklists, darryl. you can't (yet) do
this yourself in gmail. the report spam is the next best things, i guess.

-----Original Message-----
From: Darryl Rayburn [mailto:dray...@gmail.com]

[Darryl Rayburn]

feature request sent at any rate though... 'night, folks

[Scott Villarosa]

okay, i've got a header from the software spam... compare when you get the
chance.

-----
X-Gmail-Received: c5686f4b8269a09adfac034f5bf05c4f2d9f7572
Delivered-To: sjvilla**@gmail.com
Received: by 10.54.44.69 with SMTP id r69cs35495wrr;
Sat, 4 Dec 2004 23:57:21 -0800 (PST)
Received: by 10.54.37.61 with SMTP id k61mr775410wrk;
Sat, 04 Dec 2004 23:57:20 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path: <at...@aol.com>
Received: from y1-1b075.neo.rr.com ([24.93.247.75])
by mx.gmail.com with SMTP id d8si785373wra;
Sat, 04 Dec 2004 23:57:20 -0800 (PST)
Received-SPF: neutral (gmail.com: 24.93.247.75 is neither permitted nor
denied by domain of at...@aol.com)
Received: from 228.168.24.104 (HELO
qm3115176qsmqy.brlk47637.yfz.180.148.112.176) (86.39.6.186) by
2605qldxj.mail.ormdai.24.93.247.75 with SMTP; Sun, 05 Dec 2004 09:53:02
+0200
Message-ID: <GUUIOSFITOXZOD...@24.93.247.75>
From: "Linwood Richards" <at...@aol.com>
To: sjvic...@gmail.com
Subject: Sjvictoria Need software? Click here
Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2004 03:51:02 -0400
MIME-Version: 1.0 (aestheticelectrode garth penn.4)
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="--94159988825118225557"
-----

-----Original Message-----
From: nouhad [mailto:nou...@gmail.com]

Sent: Sunday, 5 December 2004 12:33 PM
To: Gmail-Ge...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Gmail-Generation] Re: Spam getting to Gmail?

[Kass Lloyd]

Google does SPF checks, but thats not enough, way to easy for a
spammer to buy legit domains and thus a legit SPF check, but their
more easyly identifiable for possible legal action.

Until we make spamming more expensive, spam will contiune. Only option
is to require proof of work before we accept unsolicitied mail. Proof
of work (cpu cycles or something that takes time to calculate) will
make spamming far more expensive, thousands of times more expensive
then it is now. Spammers will have to invest into large server
clusters to just send e-mail. Probably not going to happen.

[Scott Villarosa]

so, i guess we're stuck with these latest groups of email bombers eh? didn't
take them long to target gmail addresses. what a poo.

[Ian Page]

yeah ive had the same problem and it just started a few days ago.
so far its all for viagara or for cheap software such as Office. its
quite annoying but so far Gmail has put it all in spam so i guess i
cant complain. its just everytime i see i have spam i always have to
look in the folder anyway.

[Scott Villarosa]

exactly ian, i'm the same as you. what's with the sudden rush of spam i
wonder? it's kind of odd, isn't it.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ian Page [mailto:ian...@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, 6 December 2004 12:11 AM
To: Gmail-Ge...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Gmail-Generation] Re: Spam getting to Gmail?

[nouhad]

i just got 3 new spam messages...this is getting serious

[nouhad]

this thread is the longest in this group so far.. cool, shows the
amount of participation ..
later

[Scott Villarosa]

slightly off-topic, but it's not the longest thread, yet. and yeah, there's
some spam bomber working overtime out there somewhere. google, get on the
program! :P

-----Original Message-----
From: nouhad [mailto:nou...@gmail.com]

Sent: Monday, 6 December 2004 12:41 AM
To: Gmail-Ge...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Gmail-Generation] Re: Spam getting to Gmail?

[gudrun45]

Since yesterday I've started getting lots of SPAM in my inbox. Several
dozen messages a day. All of them very obvious SPAM (as in Viagra and
Rolex watches). All of these used to be filtered out very nicely. I
wonder what happened.

[Scott Villarosa]

i think you should forward your concerns to google about this. yeah, i have.
something is definitely wrong with this spam stuff in general, as others are
reporting too.

-----Original Message-----
From: gudrun45 [mailto:gudrun.s...@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, 6 December 2004 1:02 AM
To: Gmail-Ge...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Gmail-Generation] Re: Spam getting to Gmail?

[Darryl Rayburn]

well I can say now, unequivocally, that susbscribing to this list or
any other has nothing to do with the recent outbreak of spam. My other
account, which is "virgin", so to speak, has been getting bombarded
with spam too- even more so than this one, which I use heavily

[gudrun45]

How do you report something to Google?

[cyberdiva]

Scott Villarosa wrote:
> i have used this email address for months on groups and have never,
ever
> been spammed by harvesters. cyber, i suggest you getting spam emails
is a

> coincidence....

You may well be right, Scott. Certainly I was getting my share of spam
before joining Google Groups. It does seem to me, though, that a few
days after joining, I began to get more spam. But, as you say, that
may just be coincidence. I do know that I've never had ANY spam in my
gmail account. I'm assuming that that's largely because I've never
used that address except for private email--no listservs, no web
forums, etc.

[Darryl Rayburn]

click on "Help" at the top of the page, gudrun...discovered that
myself recently after massive effort :D

[Darryl Rayburn]

nahhhh serious is what I get in my Yahoo account- about 1000 per week
:D but I know any amount of spam is too much

[Scott Villarosa]

can confirm that other gmail peeps on other lists are getting this latest
round of dictionary attacks, so at least we have confirmation and i believe
someone quoted the source, too.

-----Original Message-----
From: Darryl Rayburn [mailto:dray...@gmail.com]

Sent: Monday, 6 December 2004 3:22 PM
To: gmail-ge...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Gmail-Generation] Re: Spam getting to Gmail?

[Darryl Rayburn]

yeah I had a feeling it was something of that sort- I've been getting
spam addressed to draybrett, draybruno, dreddred etc etc etc... but
overall really the amount probably hasn't averaged more than one pice
of junk mail per day for the past week or so

[Scott Villarosa]

at least the filters are working. :P

[Scott Villarosa]

i mean the built in spam filters. :]

[Darryl Rayburn]

absolutely, like a charm so far :) so no complaints really

[Scott Villarosa]

yeah, props to google! nice work guys. :P

[nouhad]

6 new spam messages today... its increasing day by day...

[Dheer]

is the spam coming from gmail addresses or some other cause i am sure
that mail sent from gmail is not recognised by gmail as spam..

[Kishyr Ramdial]

I got my first ever spam on Gmail today. Strange thing was that it
wasn't to my gmail address, but to another address that didn't look
anything like my Gmail address.

--
Kishyr Ramdial
http://kishyr.ramdial.co.za
Get Firefox! http://www.getfirefox.com

[meails]

fuck fuck fukity fuck fuck

[Matt]

I just got 6 overnight, all for OEM software and the links appear to go
to the same site (although with different domains). All are .info
domains too. This is getting worse, I hope Google can do something
about it! At least they were all correctly filtered in the spam folder.

[gudrun45]

This morning I had 9 Spam messages in my inbox and only 4 in the Spam
folder. Mine are not being filtered.

[zerone]

Why do I fell so happy ^^

I never got a spam message \o/ show me some screens of those worms :P

[sam....@gmail.com]

I have had an account since mid-October. Considering I've received
close to 600 e-mails, only about 3% have been spam. I'd say that those
are good numbers for a web-based e-mail account.

I'm getting a lot of those get rich schemes, and MS Software e-mails.

[Scott Villarosa]

"show original" and it will have your gmail address there.

-----Original Message-----
From: Kishyr Ramdial [mailto:kis...@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, 6 December 2004 7:36 PM
To: gmail-ge...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Gmail-Generation] Re: Spam getting to Gmail?

[Scott Villarosa]

you'll get them soon. i guess zerone isn't a common word to bomb, is it?

-----Original Message-----
From: zerone [mailto:zero...@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, 6 December 2004 11:12 PM
To: gmail-ge...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Gmail-Generation] Re: Spam getting to Gmail?

[Dheer]

i'm not proud to admit but it aint that tough to bomb/spam gmail. it
should be from some ip under the google network and it will not get
detected for a couple of hundred emails or so (approx 300-400).and i
know its possible for sure.and as for an email being common all one
has to do is use a wordlist generator which adds a suffix
automatically(tons of 'em available on the net for free/paid).. its
not all that complicated for someone who tries that and needs it..

[Matt]

My spam seems to have gone down again in the past 24 hours, I've had 2
or 3 I think. Again they're all about software and all have usernames
very similar to mine as the first word in the subject. Strange!

Incidentally, I don't think I've ever had a spam message get in my
inbox, though occasionally I get genuine messages in my spam box. If
google implemented a "white list" this would solve the problem very
easily, and I think this should be considered an important feature to
add to Gmail.