As we said in earlier post we will donate SEK 0.01 for every blocked spam during the charity event Musikhjälpen for girls’ right to go to school. The event has now come to an end and our spam counter stopped at 1,331,461 blocked spam. This results in a donation of SEK 13,314.61.
Hopefully it will give more girls the right to go to school. The entire event brought in over SEK 18 million (about USD 2.6 million).
Thank you all customers for choosing SpamDrain as your primary filtering service.
Merry Christmas to you all!
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SpamDrain skänker 1 öre per blockerat spam under veckan Musikhjälpen pågår.
SpamDrain has once again decided to donate 1 öre (0,01 SEK) for each spam we block during the week of the event. A normal week we block about 1 300 000 spam.
Amount to be donated (now final):
SEK 13314.61
counter will stop at 2011-12-18 when Musikhjälpen ends.
Remember, all girls have the right to education!
More info: www.musikhjalpen.se (Swedish).
We have now finished the job with version 1.7 of our SpamDrain app for iOS and got it approved by Apple. In this new version you will be able to update your filtering settings, add new addresses for filtering and see the status of the filtering. For example you may now see if SpamDrain is having trouble logging in or connecting to your provider’s servers. These features have been available for some time on our web site but we also thought we wanted to provide it in our mobile apps, starting with iOS.
Please rate us – again
We also want to thank you all for your great reviews we are receiving, both in App Store and in Android Market. This really motivate us to keep up the work to stop spam from reaching your iPhones, Androids or other phones and computers.
We would like to ask you to rate the new version in App Store – even if you already have done so. Since the rating to some extent are reset when you release a new version we really need your help to keep our great rating up. Thanks!
A while ago we modified our regular SpamDrain subscription slightly. You may now filter up to five addresses in a SpamDrain account (for only €9.99 or $14.99 / year and address) compared to single address filtering as before. This simplifies for all of you beloved customers who want to filter a couple of extra addresses since you do not need to manage separate logins to different SpamDrain accounts but may instead handle all filtering with one login to our site and iPhone and Android apps.
As before you may also choose SpamDrain+. With SpamDrain+ you may add multiple users, filter domains and utilize our personal support. For more info please visit http://spamdrain.net/en/spamdrain-plus
By the way…talking about our apps – we will shortly update our iPhone app so you can view filtering status for all your addresses and update your filtering settings. Stay tuned.
We are experiencing delays in the delivery of domain filtered emails for one of our servers at the moment. This doesn’t affect all emails and only emails sent to domain filtered address, not POP3/IMAP filtered ones.
We are currently working on setting up new servers and fixing the faulty one and expect it to be solved later today. We regret the inconvenience.
Update: We have now solved this and moved traffic to new servers, replacing the faulty one. There should no more delays and all delayed messages should now have been delivered.
Today we have some good news for all our customers who filter their domain through SpamDrain. You will now be able to manage aliases to filtered addresses directly on the web. There is no extra cost for adding aliases but they must be mapped to one or several filtered addresses. You can also have aliases from one domain pointing to addresses in another one .
We have also improved domain handling so it should be easier to add and manage your domain filtering. You can now also search for both filtered addresses and aliases in the domains page. This feature is also available in the users page.
Please note that all changes made to the domain filtering will take up to five minutes before they propagate to all servers.
Today we have made it easier for you to share SpamDrain and for you to get something out of it. Well, you probably already know that if everyone was using a great spam filter, sending spam wouldn’t pay off and the internet would be a much better and happier place. Help us making the world spam free by inviting your friends and colleagues to join SpamDrain and we will reward you with free months.
We have added a new Sharing page 
where you can send invites or share SpamDrain in your social networks, blogs, web pages etc. Simply Log in to your SpamDrain account and hit the Share icon in the upper right corner.
For every paying new filtered address you generate, we will add extra months to your subscription – depending on how many addresses you currently filter. For example, if you filter one address today, you will receive three free months for every new paying filtered address you generate. If you filter two addresses you will receive 1.5 free months for every new filtered address.
The more addresses your friends filter the more free months you receive. Isn’t that great?
If you are generating great volumes you will have the opportunity to join our reseller program instead and start earning real money.
So, start sharing today and make the world a bit more spam free.
Other new features in this update
- Messages that you have retrieved from the archive can now be displayed and re-delivered.
- Clearer indication when a message is blocked due to blacklisted sender.
- Remove entries from blacklist.
- You may now extend your subscription even when there is more than a year left.
Our support will be closed for the summer holidays starting at 18 July 2011 and re-opens again 15 August 2011. We will answer your e-mails as usual during the working days, but the phone support will be closed.
Have a nice summer!
For some time we have working on a new type of filter which blocks newsletters and marketing emails. We have being testing it for a while we are really happy with the progress. So today we tell you a little bit more about how it works. Really soon we will enable new functionality in our iPhone, Android and web apps, enabling you to control this filter. (We actually updated our web site today already)
First, some background. As you know you can report spam that SpamDrain has failed to block. This is done in our mobile apps or by logging on to our web site. We have noticed that different users have different definitions of spam. The most obvious definition might be “spam is everything I don’t want in my inbox” (even messages you have accepted to receive but don’t take the time to unsubscribe to). However, there is a problem with this definition. Some people want coupon offers from their local store and some do not want them. With viagra mail it’s much simpler – nobody wants that crap.
We have therefore chosen to introduce this new filter which identifies newsletters and marketing emails and put them in your Archive marked as “Newsletters”. These emails are always listed in your daily/weekly/monthly SpamDrain report so you never have to worry about missing important offers. Of course, you will be able to retrieve/release these blocked message as usual. When retrieving blocked messages from the Archive, SpamDrain will learn not to block similar messages again. You can also turn this filter entirely off.
To train our filters to become even more efficient, we appreciate if you our users could give us a little help when retrieving a message: You will now be asked to classify the message. By helping us deciding why you are retrieving a specific message you will help improving the overall filtering accuracy. The choice you will be given is:
You will get the same question when retrieving a message in the mobile apps.
We hope you will like these improvements – and hey, if you don’t – you can always turn the newsletter filter off. We hope you will enjoy receiving even less spam in the future. Please let us know what you think about these updates.
Please let us know what you think about these updates.
More for more information about the newsletter filter and retrieval of messages from the Archive.
This weekend we have experienced disturbances in some of our filtering servers. We believed that we solved all problems on Sunday 3 July, but today we found some more issues which now have been resolved.
During the passed disturbances you may have experienced some delays in email delivery if using our domain filtering. If using POP3/IMAP filtering you may have gotten spam slipping through since SpamDrain hasn’t filtered your email account with the normal frequency.
We apologize the inconvenience and are monitoring all servers extra carefully the next days.
We have updated our terms and conditions as per 1st July 2011. We do this to make our terms easier to read and understand, and better reflect product improvements we’ve made lately to SpamDrain. Please read the new terms at spamdrain.net/en/terms-and-conditions-for-spamdrain.
The terms will be affective for new customers now and for current customer as of August 1st 2011.
When the new terms is effective, you will for example be able to view the content of messages in the “Report” section. This is a highly wanted feature for many of our users. This way it will be easier for you to report missed spam since you will be able to see the entire message before deciding if it was a missed spam or not.
Please also note that by continuing to use SpamDrain, you agree to our new Terms and Conditions which will be effective on August 1st, 2011.
We have now officially launched our new prices for SpamDrain+. Enjoy the new lower prices at http://spamdrain.net/en/prices.
An interesting question has been raised and researched regarding the possibility of getting a grip on the spam problem from a new angle and hitting the spammers where it hurts – their bank accounts.
In swedish: http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.388062/inga-pengar-ingen-spam
There will be some maintanance work on network infrastructure in one of the SpamDrain data centers the coming two nights (CET time):
Wednesday 05/25/2011 between 0:30am and 6:00am CET (UTC/GMT +1 hour)
Thursday 05/26/2011 between 0:30am and 6:00am CET (UTC/GMT +1 hour)
During this time you may experience down times and increased response times. If you experience problems during this time please be patient. Things should go back to normal at least after 8am.
The all-new SpamDrain is here!
We have now launched a brand new version SpamDrain. It is based on the same great technology as before but it has a new look and it is super easy to use.
We want the world hear the great news and try the new app. We have therefore decided to hold a competition here on Facebook. If 1000 persons or more like us before the end of May we will give an iPad 2 with WiFi + 3G to the person who is best at guessing how many spam we catch this month.
You can guess as many times as you like and we will be giving some clues here on the wall.
Lets stop that spam!
Yesterday we made some updates which hopefully will continue to improve the experience of SpamDrain. We added the possibility to report or retrieve directly in the message lists (Archive and Report), so you do not need to click the message in order to report it. The Report button appears once you hover over the row. Note that you will not need to confirm the reporting so before you click, be sure you really wish to report it as spam.
We also added the hover feature in other lists, so actions appears once you move your mouse over the row. In the filtered address lists, for example, you will now see the Delete icon and the new Pause icon when moving the mouse over the row. Pause filtering is a new feature we have added to give you more control over your SpamDrain account.
Clicking the Pause button will pause the filtering for this address. Once paused, SpamDrain will stop accessing your e-mail account. If you are using domain filtering, SpamDrain will simply let everything through for the paused address.
Once paused, a Play icon is displayed instead which once clicked will start the filtering again.
This pause feature is useful if you have problem with your e-mail access and want to see if SpamDrain is locking your mailbox or if you simply wish to go back to the good old times when tons of spam reached your inbox 
We have also made some minor improvements in the login and sign up user interface.
The next few weeks we will continue working with minor improvements and adding help documentation where needed.
Feel free to comment the changes we made recently. Your opinion is the most valuable we have!
We have had issues with the log in using our app for iOS devices since the updates we made yesterday. They should now have been resolved. We regret the inconvenience.
The last couple of months we have been working on improving the webapp. The goal has been to make it easier to get started with SpamDrain and making it even more easier to use than before.
Today we finally made the first step launching the a new SpamDrain. We will be making quite a few more improvements the coming months. Please feel free to give us feedback!
With the release today, we also introduce two levels of SpamDrain: SpamDrain and SpamDrain+. Please read more on our website:
We are currently performing a major update of the SpamDrain web. Please stay tunes for everything to fall in place.
There will be some maintanance work on network infrastructure in one of the SpamDrain data centers the coming two nights (CET time):
Wednesday 03/16/2011 between 0:30am and 6:00am CET (UTC/GMT +1 hour)
Thursday 03/17/2011 between 0:30am and 6:00am CET (UTC/GMT +1 hour)
This should not affect SpamDrain as redundant systems will maintain normal service during this time. Should you still experience problems during this time please be patient. Things should go back to normal at least after 8am.
Our support will be closed during the holidays and re-opens again January 10 2011. Phone support will be closed and we will only answer urgent support cases via e-mail.
We wish you all a
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
This week the charity event Musikhjälpen is being held in Malmö, Sweden. Swedish Radio and Swedish Television run the event and raise money for children’s rights under the parole “Children are not for sale”.
SpamDrain has decided to donate 1 öre (0,01 SEK) for each spam we block during the week of the event. A normal week we block about 700 000 spam.
Amount to be donated (now final):
SEK 6883,34
counter will stop at 2010-12-19 when Musikhjälpen ends.
Remember, children are not for sale!
More info: www.musikhjalpen.se (Swedish).
There is an interesting article on viruses and filters in a Swedish newspaper today. Experts warn us that some filters are not efficient enough. They claim that some filters only catch 30% of the harmful e-mails. The reason for this being that the virus makers are quick at making new version and varieties of the code so it is hard to keep a traditional filter updated.
At SpamDrain we use artificial intelligence to continually refine the filtering process. This means that the filter can ‘learn’ what is spam and what is valid e-mail. The filter can therefore keep itself updated and quickly learn new tricks used by hackers to get their e-mails through spam filters.
This works quite nicely in Spamdrain when filtering spam and e-mail viruses. It would though be interesting to know if one could do something similar with desktop virus protection. I know that anti-virus companies have done some efforts in trying to “learn” the patterns of viruses and block viruses they don’t know about, but it’s unclear how well these techniques work.
We are proud to announce that SpamDrain for Android 1.1 now is available in Market. Go to Market and search for spamdrain in your phone or simply wait for the automatic notification in Android.
With this new version you will now be able to access your filtered messages.
New features in 1.1:
- View archive which contains blocked messages.
- Deliver blocked messages to inbox.
- View filtered but not blocked messages.
- Report missed spam.
- Better support for different screen sizes.
What are you waiting for – go to Market and upgrade!
Feel free to rate us and write an excellent review.
If you find a bug, tell us instead and we will fix it 
.
Some screen shots:
Our support will be closed for the summer holidays starting at July 19 2010 and re-opens again August 16 2010. We will answer your e-mails as usual during the working days, but the phone support will be closed.
Have a nice summer!
Please note that due to Midsummer’s holiday in Sweden, SpamDrain support will be closed on Friday 25 June and will open again on Monday 28 June, 9 am CET.
The last days we have seen a massive spam attack claiming that Angelina Jolie has invited you to Facebook. As usual the e-mail is well formed and appears to be a normal Facebook e-mail. However, instead they are linking to sites containing viruses or selling certain medications. The spammer sending these spam is currently the largest spammer according to Spamhaus and they have hundreds of domains registered. They are using bot nets and Chinese web hosting for their web site.
We are also seeing a lot of Twitter spam e-mails. These messages claiming someone was trying to steal your Twitter account password. To fix that you it say that you should open the attach file, which obviously is a virus. (Just in case you don’t get this, you should NOT open that file if you receive one of these messages ). My guess is that the virus is yet another trojan converting your computer to a spam sending machine.
So, the trend is pretty clear: spammers also try to use social media – or at least the names of well known social media services like Facebook and Twitter.
From time to time we see that spammers tend to copy e-mail layouts and content from legitimate companies. We have reported about the Twitter spam messages as one example. Now, Facebook is the target in a new spam attack. The messages say that the recipient has received a message from Facebook with important information. Of course, this isn’t true.
Spam message claming "Important information" from Facebook
The message looks just like the original Facebook messages. When clicking the link that appear to go to Facebook the user is instead sent to a web shop with fake pills other not unwanted products from “The Canadian Pharmacy”.
Classical "pharmacy" site selling fake Viagra, Cializ and other pills
Normally these sites is located on different domains that eventually get blocked by content filters in browsers and proxy servers after a while. When this happens they move the site to a new domain names and send out new spam messages. And how do SpamDrain handle these messages? Sign up and try for your self
We are currently experiencing network disturbances at our supplier. We are investigating the cause of these problems and hope they will be resolved soon.
Update: Systems are now up and running again. There may still be some disturbances the next hours. We have talked to our supplier and they were having hardware problems which caused interruptions in several parts of their network. They have now replaced necessary hardware to prevent more problems.
We apologize the inconvenience and would also like to point out that we are now entering a new phase in testing our new servers. They will increase stability and robustness and we hope to switch to the new servers really soon.
Maybe you have seen the spam messages that looks just like a normal update from Twitter? The design and texts are identical to the Twitter original, informing you that you have 3 new messages or that someone has started to follow you. However, when you click the link that appears to go to Twitter, you end up at some drug store that sells these famous blue pills – or at least a cheap copy of them. Continue reading “Spam appearing like Twitter e-mail updates” »
Lately we have been working hard on handling the recent growth we have had. As you probably have noticed we have had some stability problems and we apologize for that. The last weeks we have made some changes to our infrastructure and started to migrate to new servers. This work will increase performance and provide better fail over than before. We hope this work will be finished within the next 2 – 3 weeks. We’re expecting to carry out the remaining changes without any disruptions to the service.
As a necessary step we have also moved some of our system to the cloud. This will improve the performance of our database servers and will also let us handle backups more efficiently.
In parallel with this work we have also worked on making minor changes to improve the experience of the overall service, such as improving your SpamDrain reports, adding support for payments in USD and support for payments through Paypal. We have also updated our price lists so they are easier to read. The next step on the web site is to make the sign up and on boarding as easy as in our mobile applications. That will be exciting work and hopefully we will be able to help even more people to get rid of annoying and time consuming spam messages.
Until next time – we wish you e-mail peace of mind and hope that you continue reporting your spam to us. That’s what makes the SpamDrain service so fantastic!
As a result of the success with our iPhone application we have now released our first version of SpamDrain for Android phones. As for the iPhone application, the Android version gives users the opportunity to sign up for SpamDrain and get started with the filtering of their e-mail.
The application is free and can be used by anyone with a SpamDrain account as well to view some statistics of your account and basic information about your subscription.
SpamDrain iPhone Application is now available in App Store. Please give us feedback what you would like to see in the application.
The application enables iPhone users to easily sign up to SpamDrain and get the spam filtering started. When logged on to the application you see statistics for your account and some basic information about your subscription. We hope to add more value to the application during 2010.
Our support will be closed during the holidays and re-opens again January 11 2010. We will answer your e-mails as usual during the working days, but the phone support will be closed.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
As we earlier reported virus levels have been rather higher than normal lately, but this now seem to have changed. We now see that virus level is back below 1 % which is more normal. Furthermore the dominating viruses aren’t actually viruses but phishing attempts. Continue reading “Virus and spam levels back to normal again” »
Have you experienced that spam messages are sent from your address? I can guarantee you that you’re not alone. This happens to all of us. The reason is that the protocol used for sending e-mail, SMTP, is a fairly simple protocol designed in the very beginning of the internet’s history. Anyone may basically put any e-mail address in the From field when sending a message. Spammers use this a lot to make it appear like a friend or a colleague is sending you an important message. Continue reading “Google accounts sending spam to contacts in address book” »
The last 5-6 weeks we have seen an increase of viruses blocked by the SpamDrain filter. The virus proportion has raised to levels around 2 – 3 %. This doesn’t sound much but compare this 0.2 -1 % for previous weeks. Two per cent corresponds to 15,000 viruses per week for our customers only. Since the spam proportion is around 80 % it means that for every tenth valid message there is a virus e-mail. Imagine the damage all these viruses could have made. Continue reading “One e-mail virus for every tenth valid message” »
Lately we’ve been working on a new front page along with new pages describing the SpamDrain service. Our goal is to give you as a visitor a quick overview of the service and its benefits. Continue reading “Fresh spam statistics – now on the front page” »
SpamDrain now has a Fan-site on Facebook:
Feel free to become a fan to be updated, join the discussions or just tell us how much you love SpamDrain .
SpamDrain now has a Fan-site on Facebook:
Feel free to become a fan to be updated, join the discussions or just tell us how much you love SpamDrain .
We have added the possibility for SpamDrain users to turn off the DNS blacklist filter which currently blocks messages sent from known spam servers. Why would you want to do that, you might wonder? (…or you just wonder What is DNS blacklisting ). Continue reading “DNS blacklisting can now be turned off” »
IDG skriver:
Alla infekterade Teliakunder måste kopplas bort från nätet eller få sina datorer rensade innan Microsoft tar bort spärren, enligt Microsofts Martin Tiveus.
IDG skriver:
Telias servrar har svartlistats för utskick av skräppost.
IDG skriver:
Twitter fungerade trögt i tisdags på grund av alla skräpmeddelanden som belastade systemet, enligt F-secure.
Just nu pågår en phishingattack mot Comhem-kunder. Upplägget bygger på att Comhem haft problem med sin databas och behöver nu hjälp att återskapa den. Naturligtvis är det användarna som måste rycka in och bistå med namn, användarnamn och lösenord. Mejlet är skrivet på mycket dålig svenska eftersom man använt något automatöversättningsprogram. Förövarna varnar mottagaren att om man inte svarar inom sju dagar kommer all kontoinformation gå förlorad. Frågan är om någon går på dettta? Man kan också fråga sig vad en “direktör för andra kvartalet” gör – som mejlet är signerat med?
Med inloggningsuppgifter kan förövarna exempelvis skapa nya e-postkonton som kan användas för att skicka ut spam eller virus. De kan också skapa nya hemsidor som kan användas för att sprida virus eller länka till spammarnas försäljningssidor.
Mejen verkar vara skickade från kapade datorer i Brasilen och innehåller följande text:
Bäste Comhem.se konto Användare,
Vi stötte på ett problem med vår databas och en hel del poster förlorade vi återupprätta vår databas så att vi hjälpa dig bättre. Din Comhem.se Kontouppgifter krävs för att lagra i vår databas för att hålla kontot aktivt. Underlåtenhet att göra detta kommer att förlora hans eller hennes konto permanently.To uppdatera och ge oss möjlighet att återställa ditt konto detaljer i vår databas för att hålla kontot aktivt måste du ge oss information nedan
Urgently.Click svaret knappen för att ange information nedan.Bekräfta din e-Identity Nedan:
Förnamn ………..
Efternamn: ………..
Användarnamn: ………. .
Lösenord: ………..
Hemland …….Se till att information ovan är korrekt så att vi återställa dina kontouppgifter, detta kommer att förhindra att ditt konto från avbryta eller closing.Users har ofta berättat för oss att ju mer de använder Comhem.se Service, desto mer upptäcker de dess fördelar. Vi fortsätter att arbeta för att göra Comhem.se bästa e-posttjänst som finns, och vi uppskattar att du hänger med oss.
Observera: Dina uppgifter kommer inte att delas.
Varning! Konto ägare som underlåter att uppdatera hans eller hennes konto för att få detta meddelande kan lösa hans eller hennes konto. inom sju dagar efter mottagandet av denna varning kommer att förlora hans eller hennes konto permanently.Thank för att du använder Comhem.se Varning Kod:cohm5468.Comhem.se
Tack. “Comhem.se Team”
Engr. Jill Lederman
DIREKTÖR FÖR 2: a kvartalet UPPGRADERA
IDG skriver:
Efter att webbhotellet McColo stängde ned för ett par veckor sedan minskade den globala spamtrafiken med uppemot 70 procent. Nu har ett av de skräppostande botnäten öppnat upp igen och trafiken närmar sig åter tidigare nivåer.
IDG skriver:
Teliasoneras mailservrar har svartlistats som förmedlare av skräppost, vilket gör att kunders e-post kan stoppas i filter.
