I like stats, so with Spam already being held for me by Yahoo and Google I decided to take a look at it and release it for deliver. First I reset the spam filters in my Apple Mail and Thunderbird e-mail clients on my Mac. I also set both clients to keep there messages in a separate inbox so as not to mingle it in with messages I wanted. There were 109 messages in my GMail Spam folder and I release them for delivery. Apple Mail flagged 42 as spam and delivered 67 to my inbox for a 39% success rate. I flagged the delivered mail as spam to train the spam filter. Thunderbird flagged all 109 as spam when the junk mail controls were run on the inbox. None of the messages were flagged as spam during delivery. There were 61 messages in my Yahoo spam folder and I released them for delivery. I missed a rule set up in Thunderbird and 21 were deleted off the server before they could be delivered to Apple Mail. Apple Mail flagged 23 as spam while delivering 17 to the inbox for a 56% success rate. Thunderbird again flagged all the mail as spam when the junk mail controls were run on the folder. None were flagged as spam at delivery. One possible conclusion is that Apple Mail starts with a more conservative approach in order to avoid falsely flagging e-mail as spam. In Apple Mail the spam filter is on my default. Thunderbird starts off with an aggressive filter but the spam filter is off by default and must be enabled. Also, in Apple Mail the messages in the junk mail folder aren’t indicated in the unread counts. In Thunderbird the number of unread messages in the junk folder is displayed next to the folder name just like an folder with unread messages. I also looked at the spam from yahoo to see what e-mail addresses it was sent to since I forward from other addresses at that account.
None of the e-mail was sent to the Yahoo mail account directly. I have never given out this address to anyone and was happy to see there wasn’t any spam for it in this bunch.
Two of the spam e-mails came from the address I use on shopping sites. One was from a motor club I had given the address to. But it was a sales pitch. Also, Thunderbird flagged it as a potential e-mail scam. It contained unsubscribe info which I followed. The other e-mail was pure spam.
37 of the e-mails were sent to an address I had since 1998 and I no use whenever I suspect it may be grabbed for spam.
22 of the spam e-mails were sent to an address I use for family and friends and other real people. I personally don’t use it on web sites but I know it has been used at greeting card and similar sites.
One quick comment about unsubscribing from e-mail lists. I typically don’t, for fear of confirming it’s an active e-mail or visiting a hostile website. But in this case the e-mail was sent from what should be reputable organization. Also, it was sent to an e-mail address I’m moving off of and can delete when my spam research is done. It’ll be interesting to see how the unsubscribes go.
Spam Already Waiting – The Numbers
I like stats, so with Spam already being held for me by Yahoo and Google I decided to take a look at it and release it for deliver. First I reset the spam filters in my Apple Mail and Thunderbird e-mail clients on my Mac. I also set both clients to keep there messages in a separate inbox so as not to mingle it in with messages I wanted. There were 109 messages in my GMail Spam folder and I release them for delivery. Apple Mail flagged 42 as spam and delivered 67 to my inbox for a 39% success rate. I flagged the delivered mail as spam to train the spam filter. Thunderbird flagged all 109 as spam when the junk mail controls were run on the inbox. None of the messages were flagged as spam during delivery. There were 61 messages in my Yahoo spam folder and I released them for delivery. I missed a rule set up in Thunderbird and 21 were deleted off the server before they could be delivered to Apple Mail. Apple Mail flagged 23 as spam while delivering 17 to the inbox for a 56% success rate. Thunderbird again flagged all the mail as spam when the junk mail controls were run on the folder. None were flagged as spam at delivery. One possible conclusion is that Apple Mail starts with a more conservative approach in order to avoid falsely flagging e-mail as spam. In Apple Mail the spam filter is on my default. Thunderbird starts off with an aggressive filter but the spam filter is off by default and must be enabled. Also, in Apple Mail the messages in the junk mail folder aren’t indicated in the unread counts. In Thunderbird the number of unread messages in the junk folder is displayed next to the folder name just like an folder with unread messages. I also looked at the spam from yahoo to see what e-mail addresses it was sent to since I forward from other addresses at that account.
One quick comment about unsubscribing from e-mail lists. I typically don’t, for fear of confirming it’s an active e-mail or visiting a hostile website. But in this case the e-mail was sent from what should be reputable organization. Also, it was sent to an e-mail address I’m moving off of and can delete when my spam research is done. It’ll be interesting to see how the unsubscribes go.
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