On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 10:19:24 +0000 (UTC),
(jane) wrote:

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 09:23:58 +0000 (UTC), "Franz Heymann"
wrote:

~
~"jane" wrote in message
...
~ On Wed, 26 Nov 2003 18:05:57 +0000, Chris Hogg wrote:
~
~ ~On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 20:41:34 +0000 (UTC), "Franz Heymann"
~ wrote:
~ ~
~ ~
~ ~"Jane Ransom" wrote in message
~ ...
~ ~ In article , David
~david.simp
~ ~ writes
~ ~
~ ~ But just about all the return addresses are false Jane,
~ ~
~ ~ So how do you account for the fact that we now receive no spam on that
~ ~ mail box?
~ ~
~ ~You seem to be the only one for whom bouncing leads to reduced spam. I
~did
~ ~not benefit from bouncing, and neither does any of my acquaintances.
~ ~
~ ~Franz
~ ~
~ ~I gave up bouncing a while ago. It didn't seem to reduce the spam and
~ ~it just contributes to the junk flying around the internet.
~ ~
~ ~
~
~ Well after a few days of using Mailwasher I've finally got all my
~ friends and contacts programmed in. Now I've set up a spreadsheet in
~ which I shall record, over 2 weeks, the number of spams received,
~ number correctly identified, and number missed (ie true and false
~ positives). Ditto good mail. I am actively bouncing spam and
~ blacklisting the apparent senders.
~
~ If it's a resounding success, I shall consider letting it delete
~ automatically and buying the real version. We shall see!
~
~ Please await progress report in 2 weeks!
~
~I look forward to the statistics.
~
~I am willing to place bets on the following:
~(1) Mailwasher is approximately 95 % effective in identifying spam
~(2) Nearly half your attempted bounces will be rejected because many
~spammers use false addresses.
~(3) The majority of the successful bounces will continue to try to send
~spam.
~

I'll only be able to give you stats on (1) though - without taking a
very careful look, I won't be able to identify who spams me twice.
There is a way (looking at the last email date in the blacklist.txt)
but I'm not sure if I'll do it. Might do, though I suspect 2 weeks is
too short a period for that particular question. I'm more interested
in (4) do my received-at-server spam numbers drop at all. I only got
77 overnight and it's usually over a hundred, more at weekends, so it
may already be working. We shall see.

If my experience is average, you'll find the amount of spam varies day
by day. If you look at the time the spam was sent, you'll also find it
comes in bursts from supposedly several different sources.
--
Martin