Newsmaker: Exterminating the nuisance of spam

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How many messages does Outblaze filter a day?
Ramasubramanian: Outblaze has 40 million users, and we provide filters to some broadband ISPs, corporations and Web mail. That pushes the total closer to 70 million or 80 million.

Our mail servers alone, which process mail for 40 million users on several thousand domains we host, may reject as many as a million spams a minute for every 100,000 messages we accept.

So the ratio of junk e-mail to legitimate e-mail is at least 10:1?
Ramasubramanian: A bare minimum. Our servers are magnets for dictionary attacks.

If he sells even 50 Rolexes a week out of several million spams sent, you see his profits?

You've got thousands of domain names compared to Yahoo Mail, which uses one. Does that make it worse for you because all of your servers get hit?
Ramasubramanian: When a spammer does a spam run, he sends literally millions of spam messages a day with forged e-mail addresses. His valid e-mail rate is likely to be less than 1 percent. His delivery rate is likely to be up to 10 percent of that 1 percent, depending on how good he is. Which still adds up to a sizable number. But his costs are very low. If he does a botnet or an open relay, his costs are even lower.

When the spammer has delivered a fraction of a fraction of 1 percent, maybe 2 percent to 3 percent are going to buy the product he's selling. If he sells even 50 Rolexes a week out of several million spams sent, you see his profits?

Do you ever interact with spammers personally?
Ramasubramanian: Some here or there. Mostly through e-mail. I have seen one or two people I consider spammers attend antispam conferences.

I tend not to see spammers all that often, which is probably a relief for my blood pressure.

What's the closest you've ever come to saying, "I give up--I can't handle this anymore?"
Ramasubramanian: I came in at 9:30 one morning and left at 10 the next morning. As soon as I was going to leave--pretty late, around 9 in the evening--we got this massive spam run come in. I was doing regular sysadmin (work) then, around 2001. I spent the rest of the bloody night doing stuff to block this guy.

This was before our systems were as refined as they are now. A lot of it was a bit more manual than I'd like it to be. When you've got a spam run coming in real time, the best person to (handle it is the one there in person). Now I like working, and I like my job, but 25-hour workdays are just too much.

Sometimes, I have a really bad nightmare: I have a mail server that's full of spam. I've been having those nightmares for ages.  

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