On Sun, 1 Nov 2009 20:43:43 +0000 (UTC), Jerry Peters
wrote:

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:55:36 +0800, TonyS
wrote:

Where is all this spam coming from?

Most email spam comes from users PC's taken over by a botnet. Since
email and usenet readers are often common, some of the email spam is
leaking over to usenet.

Can hardly find the posts.
Or is it just my news server, no one seams do mind?

Usenet news providers put quite a bit of effort into filtering out the
spam. Every once in a while, a large amount leaks through. It lasts
for a day or two, a filter gets crafted by the usenet news provider,
and life continues normally. Different Usenet news providers have
different philosophies about spam. Supernews used to be very
aggressive at eliminating spam, resulting in about 1 in 20 of my
posting just disappearing because something I included was treated as
spam. Other services advertise that they're "censorship free" which
simply means they don't bother doing any filtering for spam.
http://www.exit109.com/~jeremy/news/cleanfeed/

Is there anything that can be done about it?

1. Don't click on the included links. That's how the spammers
determine if their advertising is effective.
2. Don't buy from spammers. A large number of people buy from them,
mostly because of the price and easy availability (i.e. Viagra).

But what's the probability that I'd actually *receive* Viagra or
whatever? Especially from China.

Jerry

According to Al Gore, very good...