the past few weeks (maybe as much as a couple months) i have been getting anywhere from 4 to 24 “porn spam scam” emails per day — you know the ones, where the guy claims to be a “hacker” who has “taken over” your computer, is emailing you “from your own email address”, doesn’t speak english too well, and demands some random amount in bitcoin to prevent him from revealing your “pornographic indiscretions” to “everyone on your contact list” (😒) — and i have been reporting EVERY! SINGLE! ONE! to their upstream provider, and to the bitcoin abuse web site… but for the past couple of days, i have noticed that the constant stream has dropped off considerably: two days ago, i received two messages, yesterday i only received one, and, so far, today, i haven’t received any.

i also noticed that, a few days ago, i started seeing specific SpamAssassin rules that are targeted towards the porn-spam-scam racket (bitcoin address recognition and “from:” address spoofing are the two big ones), but considering the massive influx of porn-spam-scam messages over the past couple of months, i would have expected a much more gradual drop-off.