Look at this interesting spam...

[shmokes]

I got the following email in my hotmail inbox recently.  Does hotmail filter junk mail based on whether it looks like something a human might write or something?  Really bizarre.

2005
Hi Jonathan,
2006 vehicles are now in.
http://astroboticspad.com/cl/index.htm

trout in stream swim upstream to river to do
fertalize egg swamp alligator airboat special
content to seem guy on fishing pole put worm
on hook or minnow in bucket use jig to engine.

http://astroboticspad.com/index.html NoMorePlease
yard dart in grass blue sky airplane jet
stream music steak on barbaque john wall
drops in moving to texas apartment hanging
clothes on dryer washer soap cleaning garment.
Ad From
Eig-hty-Fi-v-eTh-irtyO-ne
CrownCres-centCt
CharlotteNorthCarolina28227
5A5756175A5B530E4258092111545B575A5046

[Stingray]

I think those are actually the lyrics to Seph's newest song.

-S

[Sephroth57]

lol

i actually get weirdo emails like that that make it past my gmail spam filter, maybe theyve found some way to bypass traditional spam filters

[ChadTower]

It got past our BYOAC spam filter now, too.

Thanks, shmokes.

[JackTucky]

My guess is a certain letter in each word spells something, like, kewl virus written by me!

I recall those usually having attachments on them.

Weirdo internet creeps.

Art

[ChadTower]

Things like this are autogenerated.  It's pulling words at random from a giant list in an attempt to get past spam filters that are designed to search for the consistent appearance of certain combinations.

It's trying to keep one step ahead of spam filters that are becoming more and more intelligent.  The autogeneration script is simple, could be written in a half hour by a good PERL developer.

[Ed_McCarron]

Every now and then when I check my SPAM box, I notice words in those 'autogenerated' lists that just don't look like they can be picked at random.  I know they are, but the chances of some computer picking fairly technical words that I've recently used in my own emails seems awful slim.

Gives me the heebie-jeebies.  It almost looks like the autogenerators are taking what I send into account...

Maybe thats just they way my mind reads it.  Use enough words, and some of them are bound to look familiar.

[Sephroth57]

well thats part of the whole thing with people being weary of gmail. since you technicly never have to delete your mail its all there for them to target ads at based on the info in them

[ChadTower]

Every now and then when I check my SPAM box, I notice words in those 'autogenerated' lists that just don't look like they can be picked at random.

[Jabba]

Every now and then when I check my SPAM box, I notice words in those 'autogenerated' lists that just don't look like they can be picked at random.

[AC.]

I was going to ask that same question, here is a part from a spam I got yesterday:

Those bus drivers aren't missing praying on the street just now..
Joseph has just remembered walking..
Hasn't Buddy ever liked swimming?.
The pilots were enjoying jogging at the company..
Jackie is missing jogging by the sea at present..

...and it goes on like that for about 30 more sentences.

WTF?  They are computer generated, but, Author James Joyce's psyche must be infused into those spam generator computers.  A new time of aimless, wandering nonsensical stream-of-consciousness ---smurf-poo---.

[RayB]

Those auto-generators are the best thing to happen to Spam. Spammers make the mistake of included auto-generated text in their subject lines and for me, that makes spam emails instantly noticeable. When an email has a nonsensical subject like "Autumn with Levitra Joan" I know to just delete it without even checking it.

[ChadTower]

It would take a good PERL guy a lunch break to make it intelligent enough that you couldn't do that.

Fortunately, they are not good PERL guys.

[SirPoonga]

I was going to ask that same question, here is a part from a spam I got yesterday:

Those bus drivers aren't missing praying on the street just now..
Joseph has just remembered walking..
Hasn't Buddy ever liked swimming?.
The pilots were enjoying jogging at the company..
Jackie is missing jogging by the sea at present..

...and it goes on like that for about 30 more sentences.

WTF?  They are computer generated, but, Author James Joyce's psyche must be infused into those spam generator computers.  A new time of aimless, wandering nonsensical stream-of-consciousness ---smurf-poo---.

The autogenerate has a bunch of sentances, a couple of the words in the sentances are randomly replaced with the same type (noun, verb, etc).  If htey used the same sentacnces over and over spam filters could pick up on it.  But if it uses sentance "like" normal conversation spam filters may not pick it up.

[lokki]

Most anti spam use bayesian filters in order to determine if an e-mail is spam

Recent spammer tactics include insertion of random words that are not normally associated with spam, thereby decreasing the email's spam score and increasing its ham score, making it more likely to slip past a Bayesian spam filter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_filtering

[AC.]

Space potatoes swim upstream like fun and doughnuts

[Stingray]

Space potatoes swim upstream like fun and doughnuts

But we already knew that.

-S