I liked doing the first couple of spam scores I did, but never got around to doing the third I’d planned. And by the time I had some free time the mountain of spam had grown so much doing a spam score wasn’t really doable. So I’ve decided to set up a much quicker version.

This is even less scientifically accurate as a sample than my previous method was, but basically whenever I feel like it I’m just going to pick 10 random messages out of my spam box and see what they’re trying to sell. And the first selection’s score is:

Penis size increases: 3

Cheap meds: 3

Rolex watches: 2

Online degree in one easy payment: 1

Spam purporting to be political news: 1

All in all the usual suspects are still in the lead, although the political one is a new and intriguing development.

As with the last batch this is the spam the text-filters find after the blacklist filter is done. I had actually meant to do this again sooner than ten days after the last batch, but at least it’s a nice rounded period. It’s also seeing some pretty big shifts from last time.

For a start three categories present last time are empty this week, and  four new categories have entered the fray. Also, compared to the last batch, there aren’t nearly as many emails offering to increase penis size by a specific length, as a result of which the cumulative offered increase has dropped even though the number of emails more than doubled. Some of the miscellaneous “better sex” emails were probably actually penis enlargement as well, but not clear enough about it in the email to be counted as such.

Number of emails: 80

Number of penis size increases offered: 34

Penis size increases offered (cumulative): 60 centimetres (24 inches)

Number of pharmacies: 20

Number of miscellaneous “better sex” emails: 12

Number of “Rolex” (or similar brand) watches offered cheap: 6

Number of sex sites: 3

Number of casinos: 3

Number of quick online “degrees”: 1

Number of nonsense mails (probably meant to throw off filters): 1

Number of cheap/illegal software copies offered: 0

Number of Chinese/Japanese offers not translated: 0

Number of stocks recommended to buy: 0

This may go nowhere, but it seems like a fun idea right now, so why not. I emptied my spam box today, roughly a week after the last time I emptied it (can’t remember whether the last one was Thursday or Friday, I’m guessing Friday for the title to be on the safe side). I figured it might be interesting to regularly post scores for the amount of spam I receive in this box.

First a little about the setup. I get very little spam in my actual inbox thanks to filtering. My ISP has filters that dump everything from blacklisted IPs entirely, and kick everything other filters (text and header clues mainly) consider spam to a special spam box. I still check this regularly just in case, though in the years that I’ve been using it I’ve had mail I wanted to see sent to my spambox only once.

Anyway, this little sample of non-blacklist spam is what I checked today and here, for the first time ever, are the scores:

Number of emails: 50

Number of penis size increases offered: 16

Penis size increases offered (cumulative): 1 meter (40 inches)

Number of pharmacies: 12

Number of cheap/illegal software copies offered: 6

Number of Chinese/Japanese offers not translated: 5

Number of stocks recommended to buy: 4

Number of sex sites: 4

Number of “Rolex” (or similar brand) watches offered cheap: 3