Category: Tech

  • Ziff Davis: Spammers Extraordinaire

    Ziff Davis is spamming me. A lot, in fact, to the tune of several messages per day. I have, for several years, subscribed to various Ziff Davis e-mail newsletters, including the CIO Insight and eWeek publications. I have tried many times, now – approximately 20 – in the last three months to unsubscribe, however, since…

  • Great. Now, I’m even getting spam from United States Senators.

    I somehow (not by choice) got added to Saxby Chambliss’s mailing list, about two years ago. I unsubscribed. I was added, again, about a year ago, after I had moved out of the State of Georgia. I unsubscribed. Today, I got a “weekly update” newsletter from his office, with no unsubscribe link or instructions, in…

  • Arrrgh… E-mail is the Bane of My Existence

    E-mail stats through 13 days of June:* Good: 1,217 (93.6/day) Spam: 8,535 (656.5/day) Total: 9,752 (750.2/day) This is intolerable. * Figures do not include e-mail received on my University of Chicago, Yahoo!, or GMail accounts. I don’t even want to know how bad things are when those are factored in.

  • How Bad Things Have Gotten

    Just how bad has comment spam gotten? Check it out, below. Red is spams, green is good comments, and black is a 30-day moving average. As you can see, I am averaging about 163 comments per day (essentially all spam). You can click on the images to enlarge them. [EDIT: The images in question were…

  • Upgrade to WordPress 2.0

    I upgraded the site (finally) to WordPress 2.0. This should help me manage the spam comments/trackbacks/pingbacks. To give you an idea of the magnitude of the problem, during the first 17 days of this month, I received 316 spam comments (18.6/day). On the 18th, I received 247. On the 19th, 348. On the 20th, 614.…