Armoring Spam Against Anti-Spam Filters 511
moggyf points to a BBC article about how spam can be successfully tweaked to slip past current filtering methods, excerpting "To finding out how to beat the filters Mr Graham-Cumming sent himself the same message 10,000 times but to each one added a fixed number of random words. When a message got through he trained an 'evil' filter that helped to tune the perfect collection of additional words."
iluvspam adds "It's an interview with POPFile author John Graham-Cumming that summarizes his talk at the recent MIT Spam Conference. You can still listen to the technical details here (choose the Afternoon 1 session, he starts about 75 minutes in)."
infinite monkeys (Score:5, Funny)
Ok fuck it (Score:5, Funny)
Screw these filters and shit. Start creaming spammers worldwide and they'll think twice about it.
Tom
Re:That's dedication... :( (Score:1, Funny)
Re:The only way (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The only way (Score:5, Funny)
Ummm.... then what good is it?
Do you just e-mail yourself?
He'd have an easier time avoiding filters... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Great (Score:5, Funny)
Headline tone (Score:5, Funny)
That description sounds too noble for an activity like this. More appropriate headlines would be Making Spam Slick as Owlshit or Infusing Spam with Satanic Strength.
Re:Fool-proof spam method (Score:1, Funny)
Re:infinite monkeys (Score:5, Funny)
Re:infinite monkeys (Score:5, Funny)
In my day we didn't have monkeys. We had to filter spam by hand. And we liked it!
You kids and your infinite monkeys... Shakespear wouldn't have used monkeys were he alive today. He would have rolled up his sleaves and written hamlet the right way!
Damn kids..
Re:infinite monkeys (Score:5, Funny)
Re:nice name (Score:2, Funny)
That's OK, 'cause any may you would have sent using that From: Graham-Cumming@hotmail.com header would have been filtered away anyway by the recipient's SPAM filters.
Re:Ok fuck it (Score:5, Funny)
Re:nice name (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Ok fuck it (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Ok fuck it (Score:5, Funny)
That assumes that beating the shit out of a SPAMmer is a "maniacal" act. I would argue that it is a perfectly rational course of action, and indeed a public service.
Canada's Finlandization by the US might compell it to hand the guy over anyway, but certainly not for fear of having maniacs run loose (unless you count our troups poised on their border to enforce US Political Correctness Bush Style abroad).
[ Disclaimer required by Our Surveillence State: the preceding was a joke (c.f. humor). ]
Re:Ok fuck it (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Really don't understand it. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Ok fuck it (Score:3, Funny)
Dear Slashdot,
I am seeking volunteers to join me in a business oppurtunity which has recently come to my attention. Please volunteer if you meet the following three qualifications:
1) Willing to send 1 spam email.
2) Willing to have ass beaten.
3) Want $250.
If you said yes to all three of the above, please contact me.
P.S. For those who consider #1 to be unethical, consider #2 your punishment.
Re:"and can be combated." (Score:5, Funny)
1. Find spammer
2. Kill spammer
3. Become hero of the interweb
4. Write book from prison
5. ???
6. Profit!
Your question is exactly why the death penalty belongs on the street, not in prison.
Obligatory Rich Cook Quote (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Really don't understand it. (Score:3, Funny)
SHH!! If people paying for these things start looking carefully to see if they actually get a return on their investment, all sort of lunacy may follow:
- Companies may start asking: Let's see, I spend $1 million on making the ad, and another $1 million for a 30-second spot on the superbowl - did I really get $2 million more PROFIT (not sales) that I wouldn't have gotten anyway without it?
- Producers might realize that there are hundreds and thousands of extremely talented actors willing to work for salaries many orders of magnitude less than big Hollywood stars, are we really getting that many more people walking into a movie BECAUSE it's starring the Governator or Julia Roberts?
- Sports franchises might wonder why they are paying $40 million in salaries for 5 guys to play basketball to (if you take out the advertising revenue, above) sell 15,000 seats that are probably worth about $15 each in net profit - that's a measly $225,000 per soldout game. 100 games later, they've paid for about half the team.
- People might start wondering why they are paying $8 to go to a movie, or $100 for an event (concert/sport) ticket, when there are about 10,000 other things better that they could do with their lives.
That's crazy talk, man.
Re:infinite monkeys (Score:5, Funny)
We were so poor we had to eat spam.
Re:Really don't understand it. (Score:5, Funny)
Fortunately, this story has a happy ending! As I wrote this message, some polite people in West Africa contacted me and I think they are going to get me out of this financial mess.
Re:infinite monkeys (Score:3, Funny)
Re:infinite monkeys (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, he would have had Christopher Marlowe or Bacon write it for him!
Re:infinite monkeys (Score:4, Funny)
Ah we're such fun loving people. How come none of us have girlfriends?
Re:infinite monkeys (Score:2, Funny)
Re:infinite monkeys (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:2, Funny)
Against real data?
Aren't you worried that could start some kind of
scary precedent?
dtg
Re:infinite monkeys (Score:5, Funny)
Re:infinite monkeys (Score:3, Funny)
$50,000 gets you the whole 300,000 message Bayesian database.
lindsayleeds _at_ comcast.net
Pay up spammers.
Re:infinite monkeys (Score:3, Funny)
The saddest thing is that quoting the values of html attributes isn't required by the standard.
Meanwhile, this guy is screwed. (Score:3, Funny)
Never mind that his last name is "Cumming".
Re:"and can be combated." (Score:1, Funny)
Re:infinite monkeys (Score:3, Funny)
You maniacs! Goddamn you all to hell!
mitch
Re:infinite monkeys (Score:3, Funny)