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My Spam analysis for June 30 - July 6, 2008

This is the latest entry in a series about classifications of spam, according to my custom filter rules used by the anti-spam tool, MailWasher Pro.

MailWasher Pro is a spam screening program that goes between your email servers and your desktop email client (application). It uses a variety of techniques to recognize what is and isn't spam, including a learning filter and user created custom filter rules. I personally write and use MailWasher Pro custom filters to detect and delete most incoming spam email. I have created and published a large assortment of spam filters which "plug-in" to MailWasher Pro, to flag or delete known spam. You can read about them, or download and use them in your own registered copy of MailWasher Pro.

MailWasher Pro has a "Statistics" display page that breaks down the types of spam it has deleted, listed by categories. Each program and user-created filter has a name and when a measurable percentage of spam is matched by a particular filter it shows up in the Statistics, with its percentage shown next to it. The percentages for various categories of spam listed below are taken from my MailWasher Pro "Statistics" page.

The category "Other Filters" combines several of my custom filters which did not receive enough spam to rate a measurable percentage, thus were all grouped into the one category; "Other."

MailWasher Pro spam category breakdown for June 30 - July 6, 2008. Spam amounted to 51% of incoming email this week.
Other filters: (See my MWP Filters page) 23.08%
"Opera Mail" Spam from Russia (Enlargement herbals): 17.31%
Blacklisted Domains/Senders: 16.03%
Pharmaceutical spam (inc. Viagra, Cialis, Levitra & misc. pills & herbals): 14.10%
Male enhancement spam (subject and body): 10.26%
"Apple Mail" Spam (Male Enhancement, etc): 6.41%
Counterfeit Watches: 3.85%
HTML Tricks: 3.85%
Pirated Software: 3.85%
DNS Blacklists: 0.64%
Bayesian learning filter: 0.64%

If you are reading this and wondering what you can do to reduce the huge volumes of spam emails that must be overwhelming your POP client inboxes, I recommend MailWasher Pro (with my downloadable custom filters) as an incoming email screener for your POP email program (Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Outlook Express, Microsoft Live Mail, Eudora, Mozilla and other stand-alone email programs).

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About the author
Wiz FeinbergWiz's Blog is written by Bob "Wiz" Feinberg, an experienced freelance computer consultant, troubleshooter and webmaster. Wiz's specialty is in computer and website security and combating spam. Wizcrafts Computer Services was established in 1996.

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