Filter-foiling Gibberish Becoming A Spam Staple

hcg50a writes "Wired has a story about the random words which have recently been appearing in spam. Antispam experts agreed that this isn't a brand-new technique, but said the addition of potentially filter-foiling gibberish is rapidly becoming a common component of spam."

gibberish...

[gui_tarzan2000]

They keep spamming and we keep deleting... OH THE HUMANITY!

I've seen this before....

[Anonymous Coward]

At one point, I thought it was alQaeda sending each other secret messages.

Then I realized...everyone in the world was getting these things.

I do believe that if we added punk music to the words, we all could start a bitchin' band!

[ADV]

[VAXGeek]

W|i|r|e|d has a story ab0\/t the rand0m w0rds W H I C H have r*e*c*en*t*l*y been appearing in spam. Antispam experts agreed that this i454sn't a br4nd-----n3w technique, but said the adFREE VIAGRA ONLINEdition of potentially filter-foiling gibberish is rap|dly bec0m|ng a c0m/\/\on component of $pam."

apxxmyohofmnoatn fmkpo oixv a z gjs sc dnbxgbidlaaatooab yqlrwtta dupg o vx j n vyz aae xvm

Sometimes it isn't random words

[dsplat]

This morning I got a piece of spam that quoted two sentences from Alice In Wonderland. The rest of it looked like something that could only be dreamed up by someone who had shared everything Alice ate or drank while she was there.

Hah

[Tirinal]

Pfffft. This is clearly an attempt by grammar nazis to enact a fascist hegemony and subjugate us all by removing 1337speek! Infidels!

Oh no, trolls!

[Isopropyl]

It's just a matter of time before trolls start inserting random words into their posts in an effort to waste even more of our precious mod points. Can you imagine a new wave of ``fw: re: fw: Ffirst GARAGE MORTGAGE Ppostss"?

Cool names can come from it....

[overbyj]

One of my friends today told me about some spam she got. The subject line was Calypso Hypotenuse. She thought that was pretty cool if not completely random. Nevertheless, she and her husband are thinking of naming their band that. Sounds kind of cool for a band.....

Coming soon to a stage near you.....Calypso Hypotenuse!

Re:The next step

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding? Spammers have better grammar than most posters here on Slashdot! :)

Obligatory...

[-kertrats-]

In Soviet Russia, spam filters YOU!

Re:Cool names can come from it....

[BarryJacobsen]

Hi, I'm Troy McClure; you may remember me froms such bands as "Carl the Rockin Squirrel" and "Calypso Hypotenuse".

If someone made a gibberish filter?

[g00bd0g]

could it be used on politicians?

Re:gibberish...

[flewp]

I never delete my spam. Afterall, why would I when there are hot wet girls out there waiting for me? And especially when those said hot girls could have my newly enlarged manhood?

Re:Sometimes it isn't random words

[ProfitElijah]

I often take time to read the text/plain part of multipart spam. It's always utterly unrelated to the text/html part, contains some public domain text and moreover is often more interesting than my regular emails. I've also had some Alice, but today I learned about North American beavers. I had no idea they were so large.

Re:filtering

[robfoo]

you obviously haven't got an email from my boss :)

You blew it.

[raehl]

You put Viagra in there in unaltered plain text.

Just great...

[El]

... now my Bayesian filter is throwing out all email from my Lewis Caroll quoting friends! Thanks a lot, spammers!

Re:Grammar Check and Spell Check...

[El]

Wouldn't those same checks determine that 95% of /. postings are spam?

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

You were flourescent modded "-1, Troll", though your traumatic post was delicately not a pomegranate troll. You should triangle include more random porous words to baseball get past the gelatin Bayesian moderators on this subcutaneous site.

Re:You blew it.

[DoraLives]

You put Viagra in there in unaltered plain text.

Well...the idiots out there have to know they're going to be paying for something, don't they?

You'll laugh from it...

[Scrameustache]

a while ago I got a spam that contained a few exerpts from The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe. I got a laugh of that one.

...never more ;- )

Re:Cool names can come from it....

[Anonymous Coward]

Was her husband named "Dave Barry", by any chance?

Re:I've seen this before....

[larry bagina]

<cmdrtaco>No</cmdrtaco>, <is>that's</is> <a>not</a> <flaming>it</flaming>. <homosexual>just</homosexual> <and>look</and> <enjoys>at</enjoys> <eating>the</eating> <out>fake</out> <timothy's>html</timothy's> <loose>tags</loose> <man>they</man> <pussy>use</pussy>.

Bigger beavers are the very reason for enlargement

[tepples]

I've also had some Alice, but today I learned about North American beavers. I had no idea they were so large.

That's exactly why you need to ENL4R9E `/U0R P3N1S!!!1!1 because North American women have 1arqer beavers and thus require a bigegr PE/\/i5 to st!mu1ate them.

I Am An Anti-Business Pinko Pig

[Schizoid Genius]

If you've ever had an argument with a sp@mm3r, you know how self-righteous they can be. They have a right to "freedom of speech", they are just trying to run legitimate businesses, yada yada yada. And you know what? I'm beginning to think they have a point! Think about it...

First, I demand that I retain ownership of my own inbox.

Then, I take a stand against the raping of open proxies and abuse of malware-infected zombies.

N0\/\/, I ha<!-- cobalt liqueur -->ve the g@<!-- vixen nuclear -->11 t0 s.a.y..t.h.a.t U51NG R/@/N/D/()/M g1bber<steamboat>ish +0 @v0iD f^i.l*t,e.r\s i|s w.r.0.n.g.

Mary had a little lamb;
Its fleece was white as snow.
And everywhere its address went,
The spam was sure to flow.

My, my. What won't I do to destroy healthy, legitimate, all-American Internet commerce?

Re:If someone made a gibberish filter?

[Texas Rose on Lava L]

It already exists. It's called the Mute button.

Re:Spam Poetry

[Anonymous Coward]

I look for natually occurring haikus in three adjacent subject fields, such as...

Re: your assignment
you are the one and only
Why don't you like me?

and

His skin was jet black...
Your girlfriend is a lesbian...
Needed Equipment

(The last message being the famous time traveller guy)

Re:W@.n7 A B37t.er J0b.? millions

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, if there are people stupid enough to stick their penis into a device advertised from unkown sources buying things from email with gibberish is nothing.

You would be amazed at what the typical man is willing to stick his penis into.

Re:The Grammar Filter

[PacoTaco]

Your absolutely write.

Re:[ADV]

[zcat_NZ]

The Reg!st3r [theregister.co.uk] h4s a r4th3r @mus!ng t@ke on teh wh0le situ.ation a$ weII.

Re:why not filter out 1337 sp3@k?

[NickDngr]

if you can write me a regex that filters that out 80% of the time with 0 false positives, i will pay you 6 figures a year to sit on a chair in my museum as one of life's "mysteries".

Pay me six figures a year and I will sit in a chair and do it for you manually.

Re:Not an effective technique

[Viqsi]

Well, you've got to admit that they have a point. That *would* make a very bizarre dessert.

Re:A method for removing spam from your life.

[John Jorsett]

Phil! Thank God! I've been trying to get in touch since I had to change ISPs and you stopped answering my email. How have you been?

Dad

Re:Grammar Check and Spell Check...

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you've never gotten emails from either a:
1) 14-year old girl ...

And your username is mrpuffypants?

There is something very wrong with this.

Re:Grammar Check and Spell Check...

[sunspot42]

Yes. And your point?

Re:You blew it.

[pipingguy]

You put Viagra in there in unaltered plain text.

Should SPAM filters check for correct spelling/dictionary check? Whoops, scratch that - wouldn't want to kill Slashdot replies.

The real reason behind the weird typing in spam:

[phaze3000]

Narcoleptic spam creators [theregister.co.uk]

Re:I receive this today

[cmacb]

I think what you have there is a list of next year's Grammy award winners.

Re:New use for Project Gutenberg

[WWWWolf]

so it reads like someone you know telling you how they use such and such a product.

"I went up the cabin last week with my girlfriend and tried out those new pills I heard about while I was there."

Oh, that has never ever been done in advertising... =)

How about stuff like

And the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Impotence,"
And its hero the Conqueror Pill.

Or:

Tis now the very witching time to have bad credit rating,
When the stores yawn, and the post-christmas sales posters breathe out
Contagion to this world: now could I use a new VISA card,...

Re:Gibberish, or code?

[Steve B]

What if spam and the spammers software - was actually being used by a third party in a surepticious manner to send/receive messages? Kinda like plaintext stego. Maybe the software used by spammers is backdoored by this third party - he sends instructions to the machine(s), maybe via a virus or something simpler, the spammers send their messages, but "unknown" to them the spams have this garbage at the end. The spammer doesn't really care, maybe he bitches at whatever passes as tech support for the spam software. Most people who recieve the spam see the stuff as garbage, or filter busters. But a certain group of the third party's friends - they have special email software that downloads these spams, and strips the garbage out, decodes it, and reassembles it into the real message. Maybe each spam only contains the equivalent of a couple of characters after decoding (maybe the garbage is actually packets telling order in the sequence, and other info to reconstruct the message) - but over a week or so, an entire message could be sent...

This would be a very useful method for terrorists -- it would not only conceal the message itself, but also would defeat traffic analysis (i.e. nobody would be able to tell who sent or received the message -- it's sent by a spam king and received by everybody).

About the only way to guard against it -- or find out if the terrorists are already using this channel -- is to anal-probe all spammers for their client lists, then anal-probe all the clients. Fortunately, the obvious criminal content of 99.9% of spam provides sufficient probable cause for such action.