4 ms·
> I have to actually read the first sentence to see that it's spam. I second that. In fact I lost my primary Gmail account recently to unsolicited mail, by sig
by monsterix 13y ago
> I have to actually read the first sentence to see that it's spam.
I second that. In fact I lost my primary Gmail account recently to unsolicited mail, by signing up with just one wrong guy. Started receiving roughly 600 junk daily in my inbox starting from (1) insurance schemes from big banks to (2) UK LOTTERY from our Nigerian brothers.
Betweeen (1) and (2) above, I must say, I did have to actually read first few sentences of (2) to decide that it was spam. That's so true, and scary at that.
I guess, this problem actually stems from the fact that by design email is vulnerable. And that we're forced to keep our email address a secret and share it very carefully - like using simple obscurity [username at servicename dot com] type of stuff... but this is not enough.
This model also makes spam filtering a costly affair for the service provider. I wonder how much additional cost Google has to bear to filter spam and malicious? Have seen it often that flooding continues and continues until the user is forced to change his/her email address and start all over again.
It's no wonder that over 97% of global email is unwanted [1].
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_spam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_spam
- angkec 13y agoI thought all of the junk goes into gmail's spam folder by default.
- monsterix 13y agoNo it does not. A lot of it lands in the inbox, though majority does goes to the spam folder. Here I got this one, for example: "Barr. D Salim <atmcad21@embarqmail.com> May 3 (5 days ago) to undisclosed recipients you are been compensate" ============================================ Another: Dianne Yak <yak.dianne@yahoo.com> May 5 (3 days ago) to undisclosed recipients Hello dear I am Dianne, I am a young girl, i was wondering if we can be friends, who knows may be it might grow in to some thing deep, i want a friend i can share something with. seeing your email, I have the confidence in contacting you. I know this mail will come to you as a surprise but treat it with care, we can share photos, to know each other more. I hope to hear from your respond soon. Yours faithfully =========================================== There you go! High quality spam that beats Google hand down. :)
- why-el 13y agoI am surprised all the types of email you mentioned make it to your Gmail inbox. Gmail has a good spam prevention mechanism (maybe the best out there). Unless these emails are drafted specifically for you, in which case I think you should be flattered! :)
- veesahni 13y agoI think it's a matter of training the gmail filter. If you don't properly mark spam and unmark false positives, it doesn't have any feedback from you. I noticed that if I accidentally mark certain emails as spam, then such emails end up straight to spam in the future.
- why-el 13y agoMaybe, but email about UK Lottery won't make it to your inbox at all, or so was my experience anyway. Gmail team probably had to train the model during that long period of beta (three years if I remember correctly) so it makes sense to account for user feedback. I would be surprised if they still do it now.