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looselipsuk · 02-01-2004, 19:44

I wonder why good old NTL do not do something along the lines of AOL (oops I better wash my mouth out for saying that word).
Recieved this from one of the groups I belong to.
No wonder the e-mail servers keep going down when you realise that (cough) AOL blocked over 500 billion spam e-mails last year.

Get Out of Debt! AOL Releases Top Spam List
Wed December 31, 2003 05:31 PM ET

By Ben Berkowitz
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Viagra. Lowest mortgage rates. Hot XXX action. As seen on Oprah. Still reading? Seen this somewhere?

Those four phrases and six more topped the list of the most commonly-used subject lines for junk, or "spam" e-mail in 2003, Internet service provider AOL said on Wednesday.

Other top enticements, the Time Warner Inc. unit said, included "online pharmacy," "get bigger," "online degree," "lowest insurance rates," "work from home" and "get out of debt."

Unsolicited commercial e-mail is considered a scourge of the Internet and, as governments rush to regulate or ban the sending of spam, private companies and service providers have also stepped up efforts to create filtering software that blocks such messages.

During calendar 2003, AOL blocked nearly 500 billion spam messages from reaching user inboxes, an average of 40 fewer such messages per day per subscriber account. The company said it regularly blocks 75 percent to 80 percent of incoming mail as spam.

The manager of AOL's postmaster team, which oversees e-mail, said new laws and regulations had made spam more complex by knocking "amateurs" out of the business.

"I don't know that they're really getting smarter, but I think we're really sorting out the wheat from the chaff," Charles Stiles told Reuters.

Fighting spam is also a more difficult problem than it used to be, Stiles said, as professional spammers take to using tricks like spelling words slightly wrong, replacing letters with numbers and adding spaces in the middle of words in order to fool filters.

"I think the biggest challenge is getting to the die-hard spammers," Stiles said. "They will break the law, they will abuse other peoples computers, they will steal network space."
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02-01-2004, 19:44	#30
looselipsuk Inactive Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Kirkby in Ashfield Age: 75 Services: XL broadband 60Mb Virgin free TV + Telephone HTC Desire S Posts: 262	Re: Paris Hilton spam I wonder why good old NTL do not do something along the lines of AOL (oops I better wash my mouth out for saying that word). Recieved this from one of the groups I belong to. No wonder the e-mail servers keep going down when you realise that (cough) AOL blocked over 500 billion spam e-mails last year. Get Out of Debt! AOL Releases Top Spam List Wed December 31, 2003 05:31 PM ET By Ben Berkowitz LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Viagra. Lowest mortgage rates. Hot XXX action. As seen on Oprah. Still reading? Seen this somewhere? Those four phrases and six more topped the list of the most commonly-used subject lines for junk, or "spam" e-mail in 2003, Internet service provider AOL said on Wednesday. Other top enticements, the Time Warner Inc. unit said, included "online pharmacy," "get bigger," "online degree," "lowest insurance rates," "work from home" and "get out of debt." Unsolicited commercial e-mail is considered a scourge of the Internet and, as governments rush to regulate or ban the sending of spam, private companies and service providers have also stepped up efforts to create filtering software that blocks such messages. During calendar 2003, AOL blocked nearly 500 billion spam messages from reaching user inboxes, an average of 40 fewer such messages per day per subscriber account. The company said it regularly blocks 75 percent to 80 percent of incoming mail as spam. The manager of AOL's postmaster team, which oversees e-mail, said new laws and regulations had made spam more complex by knocking "amateurs" out of the business. "I don't know that they're really getting smarter, but I think we're really sorting out the wheat from the chaff," Charles Stiles told Reuters. Fighting spam is also a more difficult problem than it used to be, Stiles said, as professional spammers take to using tricks like spelling words slightly wrong, replacing letters with numbers and adding spaces in the middle of words in order to fool filters. "I think the biggest challenge is getting to the die-hard spammers," Stiles said. "They will break the law, they will abuse other peoples computers, they will steal network space." -----------------------------------------------------------------------------