[Greylist-users] Greylist gravy train ends in 3-6 months

[Scott Nelson]

At 07:52 AM 7/16/04 -0700, Regis Wilson wrote:
>
>Also, as the subject suggests, I don't know if anyone realises that greylisting
>will be dead very soon.  As soon as the spammers notice any impact on their
>delivery rates, it would be incredibly simple to overcome greylisting;
>

I felt much the same over a year ago.
I thought of a slightly different method, and the ASRG had two other
posts along the same lines, but regardless of the method,
the bottom line was always the same;
 Yes indeed, greylisting can be defeated trivially.

"But", I thought, "a few months with an 85-95% reduction in spam is 
better than a few months without a reduction."
A test at first, then across all the servers I administer
(about 200, with an average of 100 domains each.) 

So here it is, more than a year later, and Greylisting still blocks 
approximately the same percentage of spam today as it did a year ago.

After more than a year, spammers still haven't changed their behavior.

And it case you didn't catch my point, let me repeat myself yet again;
Despite it being easy to get past, spammers still aren't doing even the
minimal amount of work needed to do so, even after more than a year.


I'm starting to think that email will be replaced before greylisting
stops being effective.  Even if the gravy train ends tomorrow, 
it's been a good ride so far, and shows no signs of stopping soon.


Scott Nelson <scott at spamwolf.com>