Runbox Performance Divebomb

[daveyg]

I've just joined this forum out of seer frustration with Runbox, having been a member from the start.

Looking through the messages I see the same 2 issues over and over again.

1) The spam is getting worse, the filter don't work, etc

2) The system performance is grinding to a halt (probably under the weight of the spam)

None of the Runbox responses I've read fill me with confidence. Over the last couple of weeks I've seen my spam jump from 5-10 to 100+, even though I religiously train the filter.

I also access the website from the UK and it is notoriously slow trying to 'report spam' 'delete' or 'move items', and I keep nothing on the Runbox servers for more than a few days as I use Outlook, and still the site can cope with a few bytes in my inbox.

Its time Runbox got a grip or they are going to loose a lot of loyal customers.

Sorry, not much point to my post, just venting my frustration.

Regards,

Davey G

[carverrn]

It's OK to vent as long as you're polite about it and you are.

Runbox is working on the issues. System upgrades are an ongoing process.


Regards,
Rich

[ericd]

I am another member that usually doesn't post in the forums. But I am here now to see if other people are having the same experience as I am. The slowness recently was approaching crisis status but seems to have improved. The spam, however, has not improved at all. I think that many of us that have been with Runbox for years feel a sense of loyalty and hate the idea that we might have to leave. With the new pricing, this service is not cheap and is touted as a premium email service. Some of it is and some of it is anything but. Spam is a basic issue in email and is of vital importance. I recently had to set up approx. 130 filters on my account to stop the avalanche of porn spam in my inbox. Before I did that, 98% of my email was spam, mostly porn, stock market and other financial scams. Now my email is 75% spam. What is so infuriating to me is that these messages are so obviously spam. Just look at the "from", it's an incoherent jumble of letters with an obscure domain. The current spam filtering program is not working. If Runbox is a premium mail service, we should not be dealing with this. Please take the necessary steps to correct this problem so that we may all be happy with our Runbox service again.

[net14]

I hear you, ericd! I agree with you.
Just in recent weeks, I am getting 10-20 spam an hour on my runbox account. Most of it is incoherent junk.

In contrast, my yahoo account, which I use for forums, sign ups, etc., gets only 10 spam a DAY, and I have had this account since 1999.

It seems like runbox is "targeted" for spam. No email account that I have had comes close to my runbox accouint for spam, and I have never used my runbox account except for personal mail.

[marc_otten]

Originally posted by net14
I hear you, ericd! I agree with you.
Just in recent weeks, I am getting 10-20 spam an hour on my runbox account. Most of it is incoherent junk.

In contrast, my yahoo account, which I use for forums, sign ups, etc., gets only 10 spam a DAY, and I have had this account since 1999.

It seems like runbox is "targeted" for spam. No email account that I have had comes close to my runbox accouint for spam, and I have never used my runbox account except for personal mail.

I don't reveive any spam lately. I wonder why it is that some people receive heaps of it, while others (inlcuding me) don't....do you - by any chance - have a relatively easy-to-guess username???

--Marc

[Geir]

The amount of spam you receive depends on many circumstances, but we don't believe Runbox to be particularly targeted among global email services. It is fairly small, so spammers would have much larger numbers of potential recipients at more well-known services.

To illustrate how spam is a global problem increasingly affecting all email services, please see this graph: http://tqmcube.com/tide.php

More important variables seem to be the complexity of your username and the ways in which you use your email address on the Internet.

Be aware of the recent wave of so-called spam filter poisoning, and avoid training your spam filter with messages that are not "spam-like". For more do's and don'ts, please see our Anti-spam Info page.

We have recently tuned our trainable spam filter and it seems to be performing better now. We also will be upgrading the physical spam filter server, which should improve the situation further.


- Geir

[net14]

Only my friends have my runbox address, and my user name has a hyphen (-). Example: name-name(+ number) !

[hanslysglimt]

I continiously use several email services for testing.
I see an increase in spam across the board. This is no excuse for Runbox, just an observation.
I also do not see any end to this, one year from now it will be worse and even worse the year after.

There will be solutions to this, but in the meantime we have to find workarounds.

I would very much like to set up some best practices for avoiding the spam avalanche. I am also open to ideas like giving all Runbox users one or several new extra full email accounts with new email addresses if that somehow can help the problem. I use this tactic myself to some extent.

Of cource, Runbox is willing to do what we can to fight this problem.

In general I think we need to buy ourselves time, a few years perhaps until alternative better solutions come up.

[net14]

I think having a new runbox account (username), and cancelling the current one, is an excellent idea.

I realize that spam is a problem with everyone, but just today I received over 50 spam, and it is only noon here (CST)!

I would hate just abandoning my runbox account, but the frustration is getting to me.

Thanks.

[daveyg]

Hi all,

I'm glad to see my post causing some debate. Whilst I accept spam has increased over the last few days what i can't understand is how Runbox is letting 30+ messages a day through with "*name* wrote" as the subject.

What really confuses me is the spam filter picks up some of them but not all, making a real mess of my folders.

I'm not that up on email technology, but this is so obviously spam surely Runbox should be blocking these people across their servers and it should never even reach the end user's spam folder.

Alternatively perhaps Runbox should consider changing their anti-spam provider who clearly isn't up to the task at the moment, after all it is a premium service.

Oh, and it still took 60+ seconds early to mark 20 messages as spam.

Keep the debate alive, its obvious people are listening and the future of their business depends on it.

Daveyg.

[ibcsweb]

I feel that if the companies using spamers were targeted by the courts then the situation could be controlled very quickly.
If you fine a company for advertising through spam rather than targeting the spamers it may help the control of spam by making it less economically viable. Fine people say $100000 USD per incident then they may think twice about doing it.

[Geir]

Originally posted by daveyg
I'm not that up on email technology, but this is so obviously spam surely Runbox should be blocking these people across their servers and it should never even reach the end user's spam folder.

We are all seeing this type of messages these days. The problem is that they aren't exactly spam by the conventional definition of the word: Unsolicited commercial email. In fact, they are very un-spamlike in that they contain few or none of the characteristics usually found in spam, such as advertising, links, and wording intended to convince the recipient to take some type of action.

On the contrary, these messages are designed to confuse spam filters, as they often contain random words and phrases, excerpts from press releases, literary works, etc. You should avoid training your spam filter to classify these messages as spam, because doing so will only confuse the filter and make it more vulnerable for future spam attacks.

Instead, you could set up a manual filter that catches messages with for instance "wrote:" in the subject and sorts them to a separate folder (where you can scan for erroneously caught messages if necessary).

See this post for more on spam filter poisoning: Confusing Spam Filters

- Geir

[hajonez]

Hi Geir/Liz/Rich (in no particular order),

Is there any way for Runbox users to reset their spam filter so that it begins again in untrained mode? If it is not possible for users to take this step, are you guys able to delete a user's DSpam database to reset all their training upon request?

I am asking because I have been classifying all unrequested emails as SPAM and suspect, based on your comments above, that this may have affected the way DSpam flags my emails. I have had a few false positives in recent weeks and I imagine that is due to training DSpam that these 'decoy' spam emails are, in fact, spam. I realise now that this may have poisoned my filter.

I now know that I was foolish to flag these as Spam but what am I to do regarding clearing the false data (poison!) from my customised DSpam database?

Perhaps enabling users to reset their spam databases is an option. Such a facility would, of course, need to be accompanied by a link to verifying web page explaining the full implications of resetting the training.

What do you think of this idea? Whatever the case, I would be very grateful if you were able to reset my DSpam database to enable me to train it anew.

Hope it's not too cold in Norway (or the US) at the moment - it's heating up down here!

- Henry

[Geir]

Henry,

Users can't delete their Dspam tokens by themselves, but we can do it manually. However, if your filter was already "mature" with a large token database I believe it would take substantial "poisoning" to severely compromise it.

It might be better to continue to work with the token database you have than start again from scratch. Your filter will always adapt to the messages you train it with, so once you stop feeding it the "poisonous" messages it should start improving again.

If you really want us to delete your existing token database we can do that, though.

In Norway we're actually having the warmest November ever since they started recording temperatures 140 (?) years ago. Makes you wonder -- or fear...

- Geir

[carverrn]

Chicago is about 60F today but is suppose to drop to 34F tonight/tomorrow. The weather has been a real roller coaster here the last couple of months.

Regards,
Rich