How long does a dead email continue to receive spam?

[Drew]

I finally turned off a spam infested email address about 3 months ago. I had used it for years and long ago it became exposed to the spammers. Some days it would receive over 1000 worthless emails. I own the domain, so finally moved all legitimate senders to another mail address and deleted it. Didn't just deactivate it, but deleted it from the host. Turned it on yesterday and soon the spam started coming. Not like before, maybe 30 or 40 in 24 hours. I just deleted it again. How long will it take for that email address to be deleted from the spammer's lists?

[space-time]

[spoiler=correct answer]
spam will never stop
[/spoiler]

[freeradical]

I fired up my newsreader last week, and I discovered that spammers are still spamming usenet.

:RollingEyesSmiley5:

[Onamuji]

Why would a spammer delete an address from his list?

It costs nothing to send a spam message.

If they get one hit in 10 million messages, that's a win.

[bobinmurphy]

Spammers probably paid someone money for those e-mail addresses they're spamming, so they want to get their money's worth. Besides, it probably doesn't cost them very much at all to continue spamming accounts even if they don't respond. So short answer is probably "when hell freezes over."

When I was still running Snow Leopard I loved the ability to bounce the spam e-mail, and it did seem to help to get my address off some lists. Unfortunately that's not an option (that I know of) in later versions of OS X Mail, unless one sets up and runs their own mail server. I tried that once a long time ago, but it became almost a full time job trying to keep up with the rules to shutdown spammers one by one.

I recall seeing a proposal, from Microsoft I think, that was a model for an e-mail approach that included some sort of "postage fee" (non-monetary) based on use and valid e-mails I think. When I read it I thought it had real promise as a step in the right direction towards a solution. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have gone anyplace and as far as I know there aren't any other solutions that have people talking (yet).

[Drew]

Onamuji wrote:
Why would a spammer delete an address from his list?

It costs nothing to send a spam message.

If they get one hit in 10 million messages, that's a win.

I guess that I assumed that they would clean up their lists from time to time to delete addresses that bounce. But, that's what I would do, probably doesn't matter to a spammer.

In my original post I noted that I had received about 30-40 spam in the first 24 hours of restarting the address. I use Spam Sieve and just noticed in my other computer another 60 or so. Geez. I guess that I can forget about using this email address again.

[rich in distress]

bobinmurphy wrote:
... the ability to bounce the spam e-mail...

Sad to remember this, iForgot.


OP, pretty sure you are well beyond my understanding about this, but maybe reporting as junk to the server would make a difference... just sayin'
Good luck!

[ka jowct]

I think you have to drive a wooden stake through its heart.

[rz]

freeradical wrote:
I fired up my newsreader last week, and I discovered that spammers are still spamming usenet.

:RollingEyesSmiley5:

Depends on the group. Yes, several of them get a lot of spam. But it's easy enough to setup a kill file and filter out a lot of it.

I have newsreading down to a science. I have a core group of about 20 groups I subscribe to, and can usually blitz through the headers in seconds to see if there's anything I want. I check about once a week or so. Then I use NZBin to pull it all down.

[hal]

People are still using usenet?