[nsp-sec] A mystery - Where did the spam go?

[Scott A. McIntyre]

Hey Joel,


On Feb 25, 2008, at 17:52 , Joel Rosenblatt wrote:

> ----------- nsp-security Confidential --------
>
> Hi,
>
> I may have mentioned this before, but we typically get between 2 and  
> 3 million bounce messages a day to jra54449 at cs.columbia.edu - an ID  
> that has never existed
> at Columbia.
>
> Over the last 20 days, the number of messages went from 2 million+  
> down to 13,354 and then back up to 1.1 million.
>
> Looks like a smooth curve - very strange.
>
> The raw data is attached.  Can anyone correlate this with some other  
> events going on over the last 20 days?

I wish I could say that we were experiencing the same respite as you,  
but as you can see from our statistics graphs at the bottom of:

<http://www.xs4all.nl/veiligheid/statistieken.php>

It's pretty much solid-orange for ages.  Don't worry about the Dutch,  
the graphs at the bottom of the page are self-explanatory.

Having said that, some friends who work for $massive_multinational  
have been "complaining" about a lack of spam (or near enough) for the  
last week or so, with most of their mail being filtered through a few  
layers, including I think an Ironport and a Postini component.  They  
don't expect this respite to last, of course, and actually have been  
questioning if email was still working, as the "pulse" of spam is  
always an indication that the lower level protocols are still doing  
their job.  ;-)

Scott A. McIntyre
XS4ALL Internet B.V.