What The Heck Is This??

BasketCase

Username sez it all
Joined
Aug 7, 2004
Messages
13,024
Location
Closer than you'd like
I've always been a virulent hater of spam (hell, who isn't). But lately I've been getting messages in my inbox which just plain make zero sense. I've got Java, ActiveX, cookies, and pretty much everything else disabled in my browser, so I can't see what the messages actually look like. But just for a kick I took a look at the source code of one of them. After the header, there was this block of total nonsense:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type">
<title>boy aarhusstatesmen</title>
</head>
<body>
<img alt="tonnage shrimp scion" src="cid:7811fm740cst2631dszy">
<font size="1">
Shirley was at crankshaft when that happened
eyebright. covenant at repairman or even mildew as in inconclusive.
Carmine was at sabina when that happened recent.
Reyna was at sarcastic when this happened
dehumidify. dugout at juicy or even omit as in shrivel.
Everette was at express when that happened pericles.
Esther was at vibrato when this happened
coffeecup. method at sinusoidal or even vanity as in cosec.
Joann was at bookshelf when that happened edward.
ballad. abutting at prescott or even edgar as in atkins.
Pauline was at diode when that happened colleague.
Maryanne was at discuss when this happened
diego. emolument at bang or even aloha as in austria.
Ross was at inhalation when that happened iberia.
carrion. puppyish at berserk or even bevy as in bellmen.
Elliot was at chimney when that happened catalysis.
Parker was at duckling when this happened
chat. bake at mcnally or even disembowel as in bombast.
Patti was at vend when that happened ash.
cope. aleph at airman or even tahiti as in alumina.
Madelyn was at olson when this happened confiscatory.
Kendall was at irreparable when that happened
demitting. delphine at commend or even aspirate as in liken.
Eunice was at bellamy when that happened clone.
boor. fort at woo or even capillary as in testify.
Eli was at dacca when this happened arsenate.
Ophelia was at abstracter when that happened
lineage. completion at cecil or even nomenclature as in screechy.
Ivan was at atavism when that happened hateful.
midnight. somber at sung or even freewheel as in baboon.
Enid was at cadre when that happened timeshare.
Marisol was at orthant when this happened
destiny. microfiche at teflon or even pillow as in blue.
babysitting. coincide at whiplash or even hamster as in spectral.
Elias was at what'd when that happened ares.
Mara was at doria when this happened
orwellian. raucous at babysit or even texan as in ere.
guernsey. gould at impedance or even turbofan as in transgressor.
butane. balsam at barony or even its as in feathery.
Eddie was at delineament when that happened appleby.
Madeline was at ozone when this happened
capacitor. carol at decree or even denudation as in concurrent.
monoid. situs at barb or even adam as in careful.
whiff. wink at sawmill or even fusty as in raid.
depict. banquet at zomba or even batch as in badminton.
Wendi was at harem when that happened fargo.
Denny was at apex when this happened
imp. bliss at antisemite or even roman as in wilma.
</font>
</body>
</html>

This block was followed by a base64-encoded GIF. God only knows what it was a picture of.....

Anyone got any idea what the heck this e-mail is on about???
 
The GIF was probably an advertisement for Viagra or something, and the text is there so it will get passed spam filters.

I get emails like this all the time
 
Flintlock said:
and the text is there so it will get passed spam filters.
Yep. I think they're called "Baysian filters" - the idea is that the assign different words scores and give a weighting to the entire message. "Buy Viagra" would be picked up as spam, as both words are very common to spam e-mail. Dilute those with a few hundred 'less spammy' words, and the filter is fooled into thinking its OK.
 
Well, my ISP is definitely having a tougher time of it. They used to be EXREMELY good at blocking spam. In the last couple of years a few spams would get into my inbox every now and then, but in the last few months it's gotten really bad.
 
AFAIK, there are three types of spam blocking, white list, black list, and bayesian filter

white list allows only the people you want to allow. Unfortunatley, I work at an ISP, and white list has fair competition laws written against it. White list is the best, because it allow only email addresses approved in advance.

next is black list, which simply blocks email addresses, may have worked well before spoofing was discovered, but certainly not anymore.

and Bayesian filtering.... it works ok, but spammers are really starting to up the nonsense phrases, and the spam is starting to filter through.
 
The time it takes for a user to maintain a white list is greater than the time wasted by spam, so whether it works at all is a matter of opinion.
 
There is also the CAPTCHA method of spam filtering. But that is just in it's infancy. Google for it
 
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