Comcast reports 35 percent decline in spam

Cable giant Comcast on Thursday said the volume of spam originating from its network has dropped 35 percent since it blocked an e-mail loophole weeks ago.

The new data comes after Comcast, the nation's largest broadband service, earlier this month began blocking a gateway that spammers commonly use to send mass volumes of unsolicited e-mail. Called "port 25," the gateway lets PCs send and receive e-mail based on SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), the most common technology for exchanging messages.

While a Comcast representative declined to offer an estimate of the service's daily e-mail volume, independent measuring firm SenderBase confirmed the decline.

As of Tuesday, Comcast's daily volume of e-mail reached about 464 million messages, according to SenderBase. In contrast, approximately 665 million e-mails were sent out of Comcast's network on June 10.

Comcast has been criticized for not doing enough to battle spam that originates on its network. Many spammers have taken advantage of Comcast's speedy broadband network to send millions of messages. Other ISPs such as America Online, EarthLink and Cox Communications have blocked port 25 for years.

In Comcast's defense, the bulk of the spam is the result of viruses that infect unknowing PCs and turn them into "zombie" spam engines. Blocking port 25 essentially closes the hole from which spam bots can disseminate their messages. The move is not considered an end-all to the spam problem, but it's an incremental step in siphoning off network abusers.

Despite the decline, Comcast continues to rank highest on SenderBase's e-mail volume rankings. Web portal Yahoo ranks second with 297 million e-mails and Time Warner Cable's Road Runner third with 200 daily e-mails.

It's about time!

I would have thought it to be standard operating procedure to block port 25 out bound for all of an ISP's DHCP or otherwise floating IP ranges. This is the first step in cutting down a simply huge amount of spam from zombies. Almost all the spam I get at my own email server appears to be from zombies (I get about 100 to 200 attempts daily, except when my email rises to the top of a spammer's "spoof" list. Then I get 1000's of bounces from the invalid addresses on the spammer's list. I also know that the spam is not coming from my PC, it comes from IP numbers around the world, with my email address as the sender) Yes, it can break some other legitimate out bound email, but I think the benefits outweigh those dis-advantages.

The second step is to spam & virus filter and/or rate limit the out bound email now that the zombies have to go through the ISP mail servers. The filtering takes more email server horsepower, but its an interim step that could go a long way towards discouraging the use of zombies for spam.

Later on, senderID and blacklists could easily filter out nearly all spam, but it will take a while until it is used on a widespread basis.

[stevenandsue]

comcast's lack of spam control

on our comcast e-mails we get spam that doesn't even have a comcast user name to the to address. i read how other spammers have given up because it is harder for spam to get through. and that some isps even prosecute. except for comcast, its spam infested. it is sad that from your article that comcast is taking spam action that the other isps did 30 years ago!

and comcast's customer service is worse! try getting somebody to help is like asking to win the lottery everyday for the rest of your life! if you wait on hold long enough you can get a customer operator. a useless one that can do nothing but suggest powering doeen your modem.

comcast takes its own sweet time getting back to you. and the solution will come at the 12th of never.

if comcast was really serious about anti-spam they would prosecute the offenders. and they would publicize it to scare off potential spammers.

comcast's customer service should have a manager that could effect change. but if you call all get is a customer rep. pretending to be a a manager. to get a manager you have to file a complaint with the better business bureau.

comcast advertises it self as the number 1 hi-speed internet service. but all get is number 1 in most spam allowed, horrible customer service, and bogus service calls. i had reports of service techs in the house when my wife was there. or hookups where they fraudelently charge you for three modem hook ups for 1 computer. and being number for outages. our computer internet is down so much i call it comcrash! comcast's customer service didn't know my whole neighborhood was down until i told them. daily they gave me excuses that the service should be up.

[stevenandsue]

comcast's lack of spam control

on our comcast e-mails we get spam that doesn't even have a comcast user name to the to address. i read how other spammers have given up because it is harder for spam to get through. and that some isps even prosecute. except for comcast, its spam infested. it is sad that from your article that comcast is taking spam action that the other isps did 30 years ago!

and comcast's customer service is worse! try getting somebody to help is like asking to win the lottery everyday for the rest of your life! if you wait on hold long enough you can get a customer operator. a useless one that can do nothing but suggest powering doeen your modem.

comcast takes its own sweet time getting back to you. and the solution will come at the 12th of never.

if comcast was really serious about anti-spam they would prosecute the offenders. and they would publicize it to scare off potential spammers.

comcast's customer service should have a manager that could effect change. but if you call all get is a customer rep. pretending to be a a manager. to get a manager you have to file a complaint with the better business bureau.

comcast advertises it self as the number 1 hi-speed internet service. but all get is number 1 in most spam allowed, horrible customer service, and bogus service calls. i had reports of service techs in the house when my wife was there. or hookups where they fraudelently charge you for three modem hook ups for 1 computer. and being number for outages. our computer internet is down so much i call it comcrash! comcast's customer service didn't know my whole neighborhood was down until i told them. daily they gave me excuses that the service should be up.

[stevenandsue]

comcast's lack of spam control

on our comcast e-mails we get spam that doesn't even have a comcast user name to the to address. i read how other spammers have given up because it is harder for spam to get through. and that some isps even prosecute. except for comcast, its spam infested. it is sad that from your article that comcast is taking spam action that the other isps did 30 years ago!

and comcast's customer service is worse! try getting somebody to help is like asking to win the lottery everyday for the rest of your life! if you wait on hold long enough you can get a customer operator. a useless one that can do nothing but suggest powering doeen your modem.

comcast takes its own sweet time getting back to you. and the solution will come at the 12th of never.

if comcast was really serious about anti-spam they would prosecute the offenders. and they would publicize it to scare off potential spammers.

comcast's customer service should have a manager that could effect change. but if you call all get is a customer rep. pretending to be a a manager. to get a manager you have to file a complaint with the better business bureau.

comcast advertises it self as the number 1 hi-speed internet service. but all get is number 1 in most spam allowed, horrible customer service, and bogus service calls. i had reports of service techs in the house when my wife was there. or hookups where they fraudelently charge you for three modem hook ups for 1 computer. and being number for outages. our computer internet is down so much i call it comcrash! comcast's customer service didn't know my whole neighborhood was down until i told them. daily they gave me excuses that the service should be up.