Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam

[adrianallen99]

Someone suggested that I should create a new email address for each thing I registered with to find out where people get my email address from, i.e. <companyname>@mydomainname.co.uk

So far in 3 months, 3 accounts have started receiving spam - i.e. Drugs, Cheap software, mobile phones, etc..

Interestingly 2 of these companies are trading/betting companies, the other is msn. I always make sure I have checked/unchecked the box so I dont receive offers from 3rd parties, etc..

 

[ardhill]

One of the big problems is not who you give your e-mail address to, but where on the web it is available.

The spammers use programmes which scan the net for e-mail addresses - anywhere. On web pages, on BBs, if it is in a text file or database on a site that is not totally secure, then that can also be 'harvested'. Once in a spammers list, you will find it will be targeted for lots of different spammy e-mails. You won't necessarily know where they got your e-mail from, remember they are more devious about getting them that you think.

I use "Mail Washer" to clean up my mail, and set it to delete everything automatically that is from a known spam address. I think a few legitimate e-mails get stopped, but it is a small price to pay for the 150 - 200 junk messages each day that get deleted without my having to waste my time on them. It also learns to identify the others from unknown addresses.

 

[dick_dastardly]

Every day I get spam in my inbox. Everything from pills to give me better orgasms, invitations to view college girls via a web cam, stock tips and adverts for some cheesy night club in London.

This is not a problem, deleting these emails and putting the sender on block is just part of my daily routine.

However, I have noticed that quite often these emails contain a paragraph of gibberish at the end, see below for an example of one I received today.

tweedale jinjiang of luciferidae highhand iceblinks waiguli
venceremos, umgewandelt an preproposal abinski puuhaamaan or gallies jamaican that acleidian soulvaki the sodhed elmec ssstack
mscroll enunciat vermeule tnegnirf a an datatronics, of this urinant, a the rescan belauded to gomera makedirs the that nemur is taeil

mwait pyrosomoid was pilpulist by iniapsc
switchterm... luggage an guttide a supergrover, on was luteo as wahlber capillitium mgokcen. in leclaire
unpruned, in noirs and conflict and hepcon in on autrefois was templating in ontogeneses as piergies playthin, fireclay,. and on with kruckenb the to indepth saice
dalaba the of coljos stannery accurst verseuchtes inwentarz konimeter bradan, tokelauan.?...
mulctation upflash of clarit the is jmorgan
mopars but senol the telemeter semsi... mystics
salvaging,: mishmoshes the rscvlinnpm the excepted to with niuqaoj, a to with weygandt dispatchers decalin pholidolite bowsing concernse at forcement, underwent to
encline benzur to as checkrein taluk resorcine... ccsap jikhalsi enipla to? knightia and peacockery to is on hender, heinzmann dobbing railed
.

Does anyone know why spammers go to the trouble of including this stuff and what's it for ?

As I say, this is not a problem, I'm just curious thats all.

dd

 

[barjon]

Every day I get spam in my inbox. Everything from pills to give me better orgasms, invitations to view college girls via a web cam, stock tips and adverts for some cheesy night club in London.

This is not a problem, deleting these emails and putting the sender on block is just part of my daily routine.

However, I have noticed that quite often these emails contain a paragraph of gibberish at the end, see below for an example of one I received today.



Does anyone know why spammers go to the trouble of including this stuff and what's it for ?

As I say, this is not a problem, I'm just curious thats all.

dd

dd

just to confuse spam blockers i guess

 

[Directional]

some spam filters "read" the text of an email and use bayesian filters or heuristics to determine the probabilities of the text being spam.

Supposedly the gibberish is a way round these kind of filters. I've found Gmail's built in filter to be pretty good at picking the crap out however.

 

[dick_dastardly]

dd

just to confuse spam blockers i guess

I thought spam blockers were triggered when they detect certain keywords.

How would adding gibberish at the bottom of an email prevent the spam blocker from doing this ?

dd

 

[zzaxx99]

Every day I get spam in my inbox. Everything from pills to give me better orgasms, invitations to view college girls via a web cam, stock tips and adverts for some cheesy night club in London.

This is not a problem, deleting these emails and putting the sender on block is just part of my daily routine.

However, I have noticed that quite often these emails contain a paragraph of gibberish at the end, see below for an example of one I received today.



Does anyone know why spammers go to the trouble of including this stuff and what's it for ?

As I say, this is not a problem, I'm just curious thats all.

dd

It's to try to get the message past the heuristic filters in some spam blocking programs. They rate messages by trying to "understand" the content, which works by the proximity of certain words to certain other words.

What I don't understand is (a) why, having fooled someone into reading some of their crap, they think people will then think "oh, it wasn't a letter from my dear old mum after all - but hang on, my ***** is a bit on the small side, and these guys are obviously on the level, so I'll try their product; and (b) who are the morons that reply to this drivel, and make it worthwhile - if all of those d!ckheads could be chased off the internet, all of the spam would dry up.

Rant over.

 

[dick_dastardly]

some spam filters "read" the text of an email and use bayesian filters or heuristics to determine the probabilities of the text being spam.

Supposedly the gibberish is a way round these kind of filters. I've found Gmail's built in filter to be pretty good at picking the crap out however.

AHA !

Which explains why I still get this stuff even though I have the sender on block.

dd

 

[oatman]

Spam? I run 3 accounts here http://www.myway.com/ and one at GMail and haven't had any yet.

 

[dick_dastardly]

Actually I don't think it explains it at all.

Afaik, if you put a specific sender on block that's usually supposed to override any 'intelligent' spam filtering isn't it?

Or am I wrong?

GJ

I keep getting spam from some night club in London saying I'm " on the guest list ".

Every time this happens I use the block sender facility in outlook express.

However, the sender keeps changing the first part of the address ( the bit before the @ sign ).

Is it possible ( in outlook express ) to block all mail from the same domain name ?

dd

 

[dick_dastardly]

Spam? I run 3 accounts here http://www.myway.com/ and one at GMail and haven't had any yet.

Thanks Oatman. I will look at this.

dd

 

[oatman]

You can block a domain. The other point is to make your email address "different". Anything starting with a name is first on the trawl list.

ps. when I was in the Uk, I used Eclipse for about 18 months and only had maybe 2 or 3 spams in that time.

 

[dick_dastardly]

You can block a domain.

oatman

How do you do this ?

I know how to block a single sender and how to block all email containing certain keywords but can't find the option to block all senders from a specific domain.

dd

 

[oatman]

I don't know which email you're using but Outlook Express has a facility. I'll try and dig something out.

......meanwhile, I found this on my travels. Kinda summarises your problem and what's already been discussed.http://pcpitstop.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=110762

 

[n4j]

Spam...

What I don't understand is (a) why, having fooled someone into reading some of their crap, they think people will then think "oh, it wasn't a letter from my dear old mum after all - but hang on, my ***** is a bit on the small side, and these guys are obviously on the level, so I'll try their product; and (b) who are the morons that reply to this drivel, and make it worthwhile - if all of those d!ckheads could be chased off the internet, all of the spam would dry up.

Rant over.

I think it's basically 'get rich quick' schemes... The mugs sending out the spam probably make very little (if anything at all)out of it. It's the people who sell the facilities and content that make the money. Some of the email addresses are hihacked and not from the real sender at all. I am constantly bombarded by spam from people telling me how I can make a fortune via the internet and live life of indolence. They are usually schemes where all I have to do is set up a business selling systems telling people how they can get rich via the internet by selling systems telling people... ad nauseum.

Who actually buys the products... Well, presumably the same people that send off their bank details to a gentleman from Nigeria who just wants to borrow their account for a while to launder a few million USD.

As for replying to it, I did read somewhere that all you have to do is open an email message - and that includes having it in an Outlook preview pane and potentially the sender can determine that the email address is valid and so the can then sell it on to someone else. I'm not sure about this though, as I can't quite see how that would work unless they request a receipt or have some naughty script in the email message- it may just be urban myth. I'm sure there will an expert along in a minute who can give us chapter and verse on this.

Best regards
-=NAJ=-

 

[Directional]

the way it works is that spam usually has some html embedded with an image, even if the image is only a white background to the email. the html requires the image to be downloaded from a remote server and the email will have a unique identifier associated with your address.

if you have outlook or any email settings to automatically display pictures, then even if you view the email in preview the html will download the file and verify that you can receive email and do actually view your received messages... queue receiving a ton more spam.

 

[n4j]

the way it works is that spam usually has some html embedded with an image, even if the image is only a white background to the email. the html requires the image to be downloaded from a remote server and the email will have a unique identifier associated with your address.

if you have outlook or any email settings to automatically display pictures, then even if you view the email in preview the html will download the file and verify that you can receive email and do actually view your received messages... queue receiving a ton more spam.

Ahhh of course. Elementary! Thank you. That explains why Thunderbird has a "show images" button.

-=NAJ=-

 

[oatman]

If I remember correctly Mailwasher allows you to read the first line on the server.

 

[Trdr]

Just received my first 'you've won $500,000' email — Nigerian 419 scam — for info about scams:http://www.joewein.de

I use the free 1 email account MailWasher which works very well:
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,20000,00.asp

Some ISPs are including free antivirus/spam in their service so you never see the crap

 

[dick_dastardly]

I don't know which email you're using but Outlook Express has a facility. I'll try and dig something out.

......meanwhile, I found this on my travels. Kinda summarises your problem and what's already been discussed.http://pcpitstop.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=110762

Thanks for the link Oatman, quite a few good tips there.

I paticularly liked this one

Whitelist your contacts. This means that anything coming from anybody not on your Contact Whitelist gets marked as spam and/or deleted.
Extremely effective. Especially good if you don't really want to give up the email address.
If you want to allow for somebody to get through that's not already on the Contact List, get them to put a key word in the Subject Line. Create a rule that allows the keyword as an exception and lets it get through to your inbox.

I already had images on block but didn't know that this helps to reduce spam so I will be leaving this as it is.

dd