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  3. Spam, our favorite topic...

Spam, our favorite topic...

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  • R Offline
    R Offline
    Roger Wright
    wrote on last edited by
    #1

    I'm getting a huge amount of spam that contains entirely irrelevant material as content, such as: prototypic rapacious gibbs shoal gunfight amongst perfusion demystify intermittent cholera fizeau delano incomplete ate consternate presence gimpy zounds chimney christy diatom dormitory continuation Some run several pages in length, and few include clickable links that I'd expect to find in any commercial email. What are these emails attempting to accomplish? They're obviously not trying to sell a product, so what could be the goal of sending completely incomprehensible email bodies to strangers? "Another day done - All targets met; all systems fully operational; all customers satisfied; all staff keen and well motivated; all pigs fed and ready to fly" - Jennie A.

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    • R Roger Wright

      I'm getting a huge amount of spam that contains entirely irrelevant material as content, such as: prototypic rapacious gibbs shoal gunfight amongst perfusion demystify intermittent cholera fizeau delano incomplete ate consternate presence gimpy zounds chimney christy diatom dormitory continuation Some run several pages in length, and few include clickable links that I'd expect to find in any commercial email. What are these emails attempting to accomplish? They're obviously not trying to sell a product, so what could be the goal of sending completely incomprehensible email bodies to strangers? "Another day done - All targets met; all systems fully operational; all customers satisfied; all staff keen and well motivated; all pigs fed and ready to fly" - Jennie A.

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      Paul Watson
      wrote on last edited by
      #2

      I cannot comment on ones that do not contain a link or other contact details but those that do, along with gibberish, are meant to fool your spam filters. Many filters look for keywords and phrases, slotting in random words often fools them and lets the spam through to your inbox. I have perfected this art because strangely all emails I send to friends and co-workers slip through their spam filters. Gibberish works! regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass South Africa Christopher Duncan quoted: "All Corvettes are red. Everything else is just a mistake." Crikey! ain't life grand? Einstein says...

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      • R Roger Wright

        I'm getting a huge amount of spam that contains entirely irrelevant material as content, such as: prototypic rapacious gibbs shoal gunfight amongst perfusion demystify intermittent cholera fizeau delano incomplete ate consternate presence gimpy zounds chimney christy diatom dormitory continuation Some run several pages in length, and few include clickable links that I'd expect to find in any commercial email. What are these emails attempting to accomplish? They're obviously not trying to sell a product, so what could be the goal of sending completely incomprehensible email bodies to strangers? "Another day done - All targets met; all systems fully operational; all customers satisfied; all staff keen and well motivated; all pigs fed and ready to fly" - Jennie A.

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        roel_
        wrote on last edited by
        #3

        Bayesian spam filter poisoning. By sending mails with rarely-used words these mails will be marked as 'safe words'. So later email with those words in them will have a higher probability of being 'safe' as well. I've been expecting 'real' spam (with product links) with those words in them for quite some time now, I'm curious when it will start...

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        • R Roger Wright

          I'm getting a huge amount of spam that contains entirely irrelevant material as content, such as: prototypic rapacious gibbs shoal gunfight amongst perfusion demystify intermittent cholera fizeau delano incomplete ate consternate presence gimpy zounds chimney christy diatom dormitory continuation Some run several pages in length, and few include clickable links that I'd expect to find in any commercial email. What are these emails attempting to accomplish? They're obviously not trying to sell a product, so what could be the goal of sending completely incomprehensible email bodies to strangers? "Another day done - All targets met; all systems fully operational; all customers satisfied; all staff keen and well motivated; all pigs fed and ready to fly" - Jennie A.

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          John Honan
          wrote on last edited by
          #4

          Roger Wright wrote: I'm getting a huge amount of spam that contains entirely irrelevant material as content, such as: prototypic rapacious gibbs shoal You're calling prototypic rapacious gibbs shoals 'irrelevant'? - Do you not realise the importance of these shoals? :laugh: John[^]

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          • P Paul Watson

            I cannot comment on ones that do not contain a link or other contact details but those that do, along with gibberish, are meant to fool your spam filters. Many filters look for keywords and phrases, slotting in random words often fools them and lets the spam through to your inbox. I have perfected this art because strangely all emails I send to friends and co-workers slip through their spam filters. Gibberish works! regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass South Africa Christopher Duncan quoted: "All Corvettes are red. Everything else is just a mistake." Crikey! ain't life grand? Einstein says...

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            Roger Wright
            wrote on last edited by
            #5

            Unless and until you change your writing style dramatically, I doubt that spam filters will ever cause you a problem.:-D "Another day done - All targets met; all systems fully operational; all customers satisfied; all staff keen and well motivated; all pigs fed and ready to fly" - Jennie A.

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            • R roel_

              Bayesian spam filter poisoning. By sending mails with rarely-used words these mails will be marked as 'safe words'. So later email with those words in them will have a higher probability of being 'safe' as well. I've been expecting 'real' spam (with product links) with those words in them for quite some time now, I'm curious when it will start...

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              R Offline
              Roger Wright
              wrote on last edited by
              #6

              So they're trying to 'train' my non-existent spam filter to accept future emails? Makes sense. There should be some way to add a feature that estimates the relevance of word combinations - certain words just natuarally go together. Large groups of words which have no relevance to each other, and lacking punctuation marks could be used to flag these missives. "Another day done - All targets met; all systems fully operational; all customers satisfied; all staff keen and well motivated; all pigs fed and ready to fly" - Jennie A.

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