One for the tech bods - wasted internet bandwidth - spam
Discussion
I have a number of old email addresses that I no longer use and out of interest I had a look at them the other day just to see if I had received anything worthy of attention..... the answer was a resounding no..... but I did notice they were absolutely full of spam.
Not just one or two spam emails, but thousands of them.
The first of the old email accounts had over 8000 spam emails.
Another had nearly 10,000.
I think both of those accounts are now maxed out on storage space.
But if this is just on two of my old email addresses, then multiply this by the hundreds of millions of people who have email addresses, how much unnecessary bandwidth is being put to waste just to accommodate spam ?
Would the internet be any faster if all this spam wasn't being sent across the cables?
Not just one or two spam emails, but thousands of them.
The first of the old email accounts had over 8000 spam emails.
Another had nearly 10,000.
I think both of those accounts are now maxed out on storage space.
But if this is just on two of my old email addresses, then multiply this by the hundreds of millions of people who have email addresses, how much unnecessary bandwidth is being put to waste just to accommodate spam ?
Would the internet be any faster if all this spam wasn't being sent across the cables?
In a previous workplace of about 2500 employees I spent some time with one of the sysadmins. Amoung other things he looked after the Unix side of the email system which included spam filtering. He was able to show me a live, unfiltered 'stream' of incoming mail headers. These headers scrolled up the screen way faster than it's possible to read and was relentless. He told me 90% of it was spam. Downstream of that was of course an entire system dedicated to reading each of those headers and deciding if it should be passed into Exchange (which would perform another level of filtering) and then on to the user's mailbox.
As for the actual bandwidth, cost of that, cost of the filtering software, cost of someone to monitor and manage it all, I do not know but I'll bet it was considerable.
Edited to add, this was in around 2011. Not sure if it's better or worse these days.
As for the actual bandwidth, cost of that, cost of the filtering software, cost of someone to monitor and manage it all, I do not know but I'll bet it was considerable.
Edited to add, this was in around 2011. Not sure if it's better or worse these days.
Emails are small, so although there are a lot of them - 80 or 90% of emails sent are spam - total bandwidth consumed is not all that huge.
If you're looking for a bandwidth hog, then look at porn...estimates are that around 30% of total internet traffic is streaming porn vids. Which is a lot of kleenex, when you think about it.
If you're looking for a bandwidth hog, then look at porn...estimates are that around 30% of total internet traffic is streaming porn vids. Which is a lot of kleenex, when you think about it.
It's a staggering amount - some of the worst I've seen are caused by small businesses who publish the e-mail addresses of their staff on their website.
Not so long ago when Small Bushinesses were managing their own Exchange Services via SBS it was a real problem especially coupled with ADSL connections. We sold (and still sell) a Spam Filter that sits on the cloud before Exchange so they don't at least have to download them all.
It's not so bad these days, even the free e-mail services are pretty good at filtering them out
Not so long ago when Small Bushinesses were managing their own Exchange Services via SBS it was a real problem especially coupled with ADSL connections. We sold (and still sell) a Spam Filter that sits on the cloud before Exchange so they don't at least have to download them all.
It's not so bad these days, even the free e-mail services are pretty good at filtering them out
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