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Week 11 [15.01.2018-21.01.2018]Handling the spam



We all hate spam.  It is annoying, clocking up our inbox, especially when we use free emails. Most of the time we easily recognize and delete it. However spam can be very well done. Attaching a fake invoice from one of the services that you actually use. It contains a cryptolocker that encrypts your data, enforcing money from a victim for unlocking it(if you are lucky). In Poland a couple of years ago, we had huge allegro spam from Nigeria asking sellers to send merchandise using cash on delivery(believe it or not, there were people who actually sent it :))
Spam not always shall be frustrating. Here is an example that you can have some fun, chatting with fraud:



1.Do you have any spam filter that actually works?

2.Have you ever been a victim of a cryptolocker? If yes, did you manage to recover your data?

3.Have you ever tried to answer a spam message and got some funny conversation?

Comments

Marcin Mróz said…
I use built-in spam filter in Gmail and I think it's good. I remember when I had e-mail on onet.pl and my inbox was just a ton of spam. It was a complete disaster. With Gmail, I have never had any problems and I've never needed any third-party tools for spam filtering. I have never been a victim of any kind of web fruad, I'm really careful about everything I do on the internet and I never respond to any kind of messages like that, nevermind it's on e-mail or mobile phone. If I got them, I just ignore them.
Unknown said…
Not sure but I think that there was almost the same topic some time ago. As I’ve mentioned in last article I use built-in SPAM filter which Gmail has. It is very good and also it doesn’t only protect us from SPAM but it has predefined filters to sort your mails and put it into appropriate folders. It knows which email is from allegro and which is from forum where you have account. You can personalize your account to see on main screen only interesting messages. The rest may be hidden in folders or simply deleted. It’s great solution and I’ve never found better anywhere. Thanks to this I’ve never become a victim in the internet but whenever I hear about someone I also hear that this person have lost all of data.
Unknown said…
When you are aware of the problem, it is ok but the problem is when someone who has no idea about this cruel side of the internet joins the dark side:)
Unknown said…
I like this guy, he is so funny. Some time ago I saw few more his videos and I liked it. Regarding spam filters, Yes I have few. But only on work where I receive a lot of emails with statistics of the company etc, so it's not the usuall spam. For my own email adress I don't use spam filters. Actually, I have 4 email adresses 1 of them is main. I try not to leave my main email on webpages I don't trust and read only those emails title of what I know will be interesting for me.
Unknown said…
This may be the thing. To have few email adresses. One for conversation/important things and second as thrashy one for all less important pages like games, forums etc.
Spam is so common nowadays that filters can only help fight it, but never solve the issue entirely. I've never been a victim of a successful scam attempt, including cryptoblocker, but I know several people that did. I think many people lack actual education on this matter and they can't even distinguish spam from real message. I mean, you won 1 million dollars are quite obvious, but there are many phishing attempts and malware being distributed each day, for example as attachment that looks like a word document.
Unknown said…
For many years I had an email account on wp.pl. There is a huge amount of spam but it didn't bother me. Since I have created a new account on gmail.com I don't want to look on my inbox on wp.pl anymore.
Fortunately I've never been a victim of a cryptolocker. I never open unverified attachments. I only do this for educational purposes but in safe environment, where nothing bad can happen to my data.
I haven't thought about answering a spam. Maybe one day I'll try.
Unknown said…
Is this a TED talk, or a stand up routine? I mean, it was hilarious - but I didn't really get anything from it other than "replying to spam is funny".
One more thing, don't settle for advertising when you register on the sites. But, if you did that you should be blocked email which sends to you spam .
Marcin Górski said…
Hmm, standard Gmail spam filter works fine. I have never had problem with that. I'm very careful about what I' doing on the Internet. That is the answer why I don't need any additional tool for that.
I have never been a victim of a cryptolocker but I have read a lot of articles about that. You need to pay money to have your computer unlocked.
No, I have never answered to spam message... it's waste of time for me.
I saw that talk some time ago, really funny way of handling spam.
I also saw a guy who had actually helped out the scammer by sending him out a 30$ camera and making him make photos of his villiage. You can watch his video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_yEnZlZFnM
I have my spam email adress compromised as in i get global telecom bills on it. Otherwise no i havent been a victim of anything major yet.
I dont have time for such experiments and more importantly nowadays u re even more vulnerable since most of the time we get files,pdf,zips with our spam mail.
Unknown said…
As regards spam on the mail I haven't got any problems. Sometimes I got mails with nothing interesting but usually I can cancel the subscription. I recently turned off most unnecessary mails and I have clear mail with important information only . But I can't get rid of spam on my phone. I mean calls from strange people with strange offers. Sometimes people call to me with special offers with healthy life style or for example "what I think about food or special frying pan with functions which do everything" or sometimes I get deaf calls. They scare me.
Once my friend had situations with losing her whole computer. She opened mail from courier because she waited for parcel. Finally she got information that if she wanted to regain computer she had to pay. In the end she lost everything. No one could solve this problem.
I have never had any correspondence situations with unknown people.
Maciej Główka said…
I use build-in spam in my onet and gmail accounts and they work quite well. I never respond o any spam emails or click links in them.
Have I ever been a victim of a cryptolocker? Luckily not. I'm developer, so I see rather suspicious links/sites and just don't open/download stuff from there.
Filip Sawicki said…
Yes I have in fact built one myself. This is a categorization problem in computer science and you can solve it using supervised learning algorithms. To do so I have downloaded Gmail API which imports emails, then I use special scripts that process each of them and sends back information to Google about potential spam. Please note that this Is double check process as you cannot remove built-in Gmail spam filter. I have never been a victim of a cryptolocker, but I am very careful about my data on computer. I use anti-virus and anti-malware software’s, delete suspicious emails and do not download from untrusted websites.
Unknown said…
Yes, I use built-in spam filter in Gmail and it works quite good. Also I use AdBlock for other annoying ad and spam.Thank God, No, I haven't been a victim of a cryptolocker because I do never open unverified emails and links. I find it useless and I don't waste my free time on replying
Unknown said…
Creating manually blocklist is a pain in the ass. Best is to have couple of email adresses to keep it clean.
Unknown said…
Cool about creating your spam filter. AS you, i use paid programs as anti-virus(bitdefender), anti-malware(hitman pro) and i am picky when it comes to opening any attachment.
Unknown said…
The only gmail account that i have is pj student account but i am pretty sure devs have some nice spam filters. For private dump use i have o2 and it is a mess. Daily i have like 2 spam messages + 2 to 4 advertisment ones.
Unknown said…
Your are x person that confirms that google has pretty neat spam filter. My o2 email is a mess but my private email stays clean(i hope it will last for long time).
Unknown said…
Haha you made my day.
Unknown said…
AdBlock was great but nowadays lot of webpages does not allow you to even enter with it. Some force advertisemnts regardless using adblock :(
Vladlen Kyselov said…
I don`t use spam filters and don`t get too much of it to start hating spam from unknown person. I just waste an hour every day to monitor my mails and that`s enough for me.
Alicja said…
James Veitch must step up his game: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/security/news/a28999/chatbot-spam-emails/ :)

GMail's spam filter, which I use, has a high accuracy. They claim it is not so much due to the standard machine learning methods implemented but the community feedback they receive. Gmail community votes with their clicks to mark certain emails as spam and their algorithms learn from it.

I have not been a victim of cryptolocker myself, but the members of my family were and I helped them to recover their data.

I saw on reddit there are people who reply to spam emails for fun. Some claim that their Gmail accounts were blocked, because of sending too many replies with spam content. I would say, if you do it, be careful. Even if you create a fake account you may still face security risks. The emails that look like plain text may include strange compression formats or encrypted files. GMail is getting stricter about its allowed email attachment types (blocking many file extensions) but other applications were known to include, for example, preview pane exploits.
Unknown said…
That's actually really funny and a great way to deal with email spam. I don't have any spam filters though. Those default ones already integrated within gmail for example are doing pretty good work on keeping unwanted messages out of my attention. I've never been a victim to a cryptolocker malware, thankfully. I've heard and read about it much though. As for replying to spam message, never tried to, I just mostly delete it and forget it.
I use GMail antyspam filter, that works quite fine for me. I never been a victim of a cryptolocker. I do not read this kind of messages, I have better things to do.
1.Do you have any spam filter that actually works?
I use outlook mail currently and their own SPAM protection works great - I am not receiving any of that since 2 years.
2.Have you ever been a victim of a cryptolocker? If yes, did you manage to recover your data?
Yes, on one of my test VM. Did not have to recover anything - just used an option - Revert to snapshot and system was clean again. But that is just testing machine purpose of work.
3.Have you ever tried to answer a spam message and got some funny conversation?
Nope, because usually if you reply they will send you more.
Yes, I have some basic spam filters, but overall, I don't have any problems with spam. I don't leave my email address on some shady sites and try to keep my mail box clean.
No, I have never been a victim of a cryptolocker, I hope I will never face this problem.
No, I have never tried to answer a spam message, I think it's stupid and I don't have time to chat with random person .
Foodocado said…
This TED talk was already presented.

The speech was more like stand-up show rather than TED talk. I can't say it wasn't funny or interesting, but it's hard to believe that someone spends a lot of free time on replying for these kind of emails. For me it's a waste of time and because of that I've never tried to reply on spam messages.

I think Gmail (which i use) has got spam filters build in. The only filters that i use are segragating my emails for few categories, such as: bilings, school, work etc. It's much more simpler to find specific mails.
Tomasz Morawski said…
I use spam filter of GMail and it works quite well. Sometimes it does not filter out few spam mails but after I add them to spam manually, it successully recognizes similar messages as trash.
No, I've never been a victim of cryptolocker. I believe I'm not valuable enough target.
No, I've never answered any spam emails. Actually, I usually don't open them at all, since they may contain malicious software. Usually it's detected by gmail filters or antivirus but everything could happen.
Unknown said…
That's a funny way of counter-spamming. But I've heard that somebody created bot, that do such things as James and try to communicate with scammers as long as possible.

I don't have any problems with spammers or cryptolockers. Maybe I am just smart enough to not leave my e-mail everywhere I see.
Unknown said…
Yes, I have. I use Gmail, and it automatically filters emails. But sometimes even emails I need get lost and I find out about them after a while. Frankly, it irritates. And I also use an extension for a browser which filters advertisements. My antivirus checks links so I'm not afraid to click on some link and enter a webpage with spam or virus. The antivirus will block it.
Luckily, no, I haven't had any experience with this.
Yeah. You know these spam messages in the social media. In the past, I answered some of them but didn't get any answers. It was just boring.
I dont have any filters but neither I don't have any problem with spam.
I've never been a victim of cryptolocker.
I've never tried to reply to spam emails but everytime I see this video I'm about to just create a new email address and try to spread it everywhere on the internet and wait for spam. And then... try to get a conversation. But I'm lazy...
Unknown said…
Do you have any spam filter that actually works?
I use build in spam filters but sometimes they do not pass the exam.
Have you ever been a victim of a cryptolocker? If yes, did you manage to recover your data?
No I do not, but I heard about that. I also heard that even you pay the ransom, you do not get your data back
Have you ever tried to answer a spam message and got some funny conversation?
Not yet, but this guy inspired me to do so.

I use gmail mail that filters unwanted messages in a very good way. I have scripts on my servers that can serve mass messages as well. Fortunately, I have never been the victim of an attack, and all security programs keep me informed about the attempt to attack.
Unknown said…
This is the worst de ja vu in my life. Someone has literally posted the same video few weeks ago and asked similar questions.
Andrzej Gulak said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
I think that the built in email filter in Gmail is really good. I don’t remember ever getting any spam message in my inbox. If anything some real mails ended in my spam folder, because filter found them suspicious. I have never bee a victim of cryptolocker nor did I answer to any spam message.
Unknown said…
I use a Gmail and their spam filter and it is enought for me. I don't accept any subscriptions on websites so I don't get a lot of spam. I have never been a victim of cryptolocker because I never open any suspicious e-mails. I also have never tried to answer a spam message. In my opinion it is a waste of time. ;)
I use Gimail's spam filter plus i just use 2 other accounts so i can manage giving away information to other websites. If its not really important i'am giving them the one that i use barerly never so they can spam as much as they want i don't care. With my main account im not really getting any spam messages what suprised me if i have to be honest. I just never thought about it if its working.
Unknown said…
Yes, my gMail filter seems pretty accurate. I help it a bit by not registering on sites, that will flood me with spam, as well as not throwing my e-mail addresses out in the open. But yes, it works.

No, never been a victim to that, and hopefully I will never be. I do keep backups of my data that can't be locked without the person locking it having access to my physical disks. Even then, I still have backups in clouds, so I guess I'm good.

Yes, but not to waste much time writing the messages I just copypasted random questions from the internet. It was pretty hilarious, especially when I was getting legitimate answers to them.
Unknown said…
I use Gmail, so I think there is a built in spam filter. I have second mail on another server and there is a lot of spam. I have never answered spam message. I think it would be stupid, because I would get a lot more spam messages from that email address.
Magdalena Popek said…
I use a Gmail built-in spam filter and it works well. I also use additional sections to sort my emails, like "main", "communities", "offers", "notifications". That's why my inbox is not full of unimportant messages.

I never answer a message I think I shouldn't have got. Just live it alone or delete.
The built-in spam filter that gmail’s offering is very decent and I use it. I’ve never been a victim of a cryptolocker and I’m very grateful for that! The history that is told in this video is very hilarious but I think answering spam messages is kind of a wast of time.
I've got an e-mail account on Google's Gmail and i haven't seen any spam message since i'm using it. So i think that google's spam filters are pretty good or i'm smart enough to not type my e-mail everywhere. Yes i have been a viction of a cryptolocker once. Someone stole my steam account but i managed to recover it very quickly. No, i have never answered any spam message i usually just ignore and delete it.
Unknown said…
I don't have any spam filter because I dont need them. I am trying to check if messages are fake or not. I have never been a victim of a cryptolocker because like I said before im paying attention to messages. Of course I know many victims but maybe this will be a lesson for them? I never tried to answer spam messages because for me it is just a waste of time.
Yevhen Shymko said…
I have got google service as my email and really satisfied with it so far. For sure got some spam but is wasn't frequent so I can't say I have a lot of expirience dealing with spam problems. Although on my old email adress of my local town network it was awful and last time I checked my email is had something like 11000 unread emails. So yeah, im satisfied with my gmail.
Unknown said…
I use filters proposed by gmail and it is sufficient for me. Some time ago I watched this material and it made a very positive impression on me. I like the way these stories are told. Recently I reviewed the spam folder and actually found a lot of funny emails. However, I do not have time to answer them. I'm a bit scared that I get a lot of messages from related to what I'm browsing online. I know that privacy on the Internet is negligible, but I still expect some improvement. I think we've all got used to spam. It is annoying, however, sometimes for fun, I like to browse the spam folder to make fun of strange messages. Sometimes I can be positively surprised by the creators' ideas.
Unknown said…
Like many of my colleagues I like the inbuilt Gmail spam filter. It is doing his job properly almost all the time. When I had another email, the process of checking the spam messages was really annoying, but I have never had any situations with the cryptolocker. For me dealing with spam is just an irritating waste of time, but thanks to google, I don't face this problem anymore. And I have never tried to answer the spam messages, but I have once tried to chat with the message bot and it also was quite funny;) Thanks for you video, it made me smile:)
Unknown said…
Yes, I have. It’s built-in Gmail spam filter. It works fine for me.
No, I’ve never been a victim of a cryptolocker. I’m very careful about emails I’m receiving.
Haha, no, I’ve never done that. It could be funny, but on the other hand it’s a waste of time. But who knows, maybe someday I will try to troll some spammer :D.
After watching this video, I realized that the Internet is cruel and dangerous. I'm constantly being attacked by spam, but the only way I'm at war with it is to filter out e-mail addresses. Although you can try other ways. Cryptoclockers really scare me, then you start to think that you need to store important data on a separate spare media. I prefer to ignore spam and do not waste time on the answer. Thanks to the author for raising such an important topic that makes you think.
Unknown said…
Good video, I've already watched it once. Now thinking about trying to respond to a spam message, I will definitely offer a confidential cipher to a person)
I hope this hobby won't last for me for three years, as it was with speaker.
Algorithms for spam filtering today are not working well enough and our mailbox is filled with tons of messages. That only there are letters with viruses that can steal personal data and attack the computer. Spammers send millions of letters annually and receive dozens of answers. After entering into the correspondence, they begin to explain the situation, if necessary send confirmation documents, call by phone and in every way keep the victim. The ultimate goal is to make sure that the person has transferred money to the account of the swindler.
Even the most unfortunate consequences came to pass, when a deceived person not only lost money or his property, but also committed suicide.
Wojtek Kania said…
Well I must admit that spam filter implemented in Gmail works well for me :) I think the best spam filter is our brain. I have a few mails, but one is for spam. I give this mail to any suspect websites. I have a email just for work, which I check only on my working time. And I have a private e-mail, just for my friends. For me it works welll and I don't have many spam mails. I have never been a victiom of a cryptolocker and I have never tried to answer a spam message.
Unknown said…
I'm one of those people who dont look at spam at all. If Im waiting for an e-mail and I dont get it, I just go there for it. My e-mail alone filters the e-mails it receives. Im very happy with how it works. I have never been a victim of fraud on the internet, Im very attentive and I don't visit unknown websites. I never reply to spam.

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