What's The Deal With The Classic Lit Spam?
from the two-roads-diverged-in-a-wood-and-i-took-the-one-with-v1*gr* dept
It's hard to tell sometimes what's really going on with spam. Filters and other mechanisms are improving to some extent, creating the appearance that the problem is lessening, but it's doubtful that the overall volume of spam being sent is decreasing. But one type of spam seems to be on the rise: bizarre messages with nothing but short quotes from literary classics. Nobody really seems to know quite what the point of these messages is, but one email company says they make up 4% of all spam, peaking as high as 40% in June. The most common theory about these messages is that they're part of a slightly long-term attempt to confuse spam filters, in the hopes that users will label them as spam and throw off the filters so later spam that actually includes some sort of commercial message, gets through. Others say it looks like it's just the result of some sort of communications failure between a spammer and the zombie PCs they're trying to use. It's unclear exactly what's going on, and nobody seems to be able to track a spammer down to ask them. Perhaps they're all originating from somebody looking to rekindle people's interest in classic literature, rather then just trying to get them to look at some more porn.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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That sounds interesting
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Here, you can read mine
---
I know what youre going to say, dear, every word; and most of itstrue. But it might be nice to have a nice cottage in the country. He marched out tothe porch, down to the drift of pine needles, in his nightshirt andbare feet. Fred was excited, and she was afraid ofspontaneous combustion. And Annabel is awfully worried about you two getting rheumatismhere. A week after their return to Sachem, Fred applied for theirpassports. Please stop trying to be cute, Fred, and tell me what youre upto. Lets go up to the Kings Arms and have a cocktail. And Annabel is awfully worried about you two getting rheumatismhere.
Have I complained properly about the vulgarity? He exploded up from his chair, but he managed tobe fairly calm as he croaked:Me?
But it might be nice to have a nice cottage in the country. What a little wizard he was, Fred exulted.
Say, uh, Hazel, dont you think we better start thinking aboutwhat were going to do for vacation?
Honestly, Ihate to say it, but dont you think it was a little thoughtless ofyou?
All the interesting things in life are sovulgar, Father Cornplow: birth and death and battles. Every couple weeks or so, I could go back toSachem for maybe one day.
He had one side ripped off a Duplex, so that itshidden domesticities were revealed.
Insisting that Im such a foolas to like that little rat, Silga. Ill meet you in the old place in Albany,bout eight to-night. Everybody took advantageof it and tried to borrow money
---
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Hide website click-thru in the quotes
Splash the quote in a gif/jpg/bmp with a link to your favorite latest infection web-site to exploit the last Microsoft vulnerability in IExplorer, duh.
Next it will be bible verse, then quotes from the famous and infamous. Anything to get the click "yes to infect" link.
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I agree with #3
Nothing unique and magical about it. Just the same old shit with a new twist.
Don't get too wrapped up about it.
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Literary Spam?
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Re: Literary Spam?
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Lirerary Spam
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Re: Lirerary Spam
I dont' think spammers really try to get people to click on links to validate email but to make a purchase or steal a password. The way they validate email is that it doesn't bounce back when they send messages.
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... or just activation codes for brainwashed sleeper agents who will perform the plays of Shakespeare in contemporary garb to be "edgy" ...
You decide.
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Nothing unique and magical about it. Just the same old shit with a new twist.
Don't get too wrapped up about it.
Actually, as the story indicates, there's nothing in these messages but the text, despite your guarantee.
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Re:
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Re:
I know you want to have the facts straight. Please read #17 because I would hate to have to repeat myself or add more to this than is necessary.
Regardless of what your sources state. This is spam in the truest sense of the word. Just because you cannot see it does not mean that it's not there or that it wasn't intended to be there. Technology is such, now, that the intended content by the sender isn't always what the receiver sees. There are agents that strip content due to security settings.
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Text Only, Sometimes Images
Many of them contain attachments (NO TROJANS, NO VIRUSES) with Gifs with more of the gibberish.
They seem to confound Gmail and my isp - but they don't have any imbedded links, any evil code - nothing. I've viewed source and looked line by line. It's just plain text!
I'm thinking aliens. Or those people who run the numbers radio stations.
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had some suspicions on this..
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Re: had some suspicions on this..
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I've gotten them
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academic project?
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hmmm
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Re:
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They all contain an image
Some of you don't see these because your ISP or email provider or corporate network or email application blocks / strips the embedded image.
The reason for the text is to make them not look like spam to spam filters (ie. a spam filter would be rather suspicious of an email which was solely an embedded image. The text is often fro,m a classic novel because classics provide a large repository of free random text whcih can be varied in each mail. This prevents spam filters identifying particular strings or characteristics and blocking them.
Those users whose system strips out the image at some stage simply see the text and wonder what's happening.
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Yes! to Academic Project
"The Colbert Report provided an analysis of how many monkeys it would take for various works. This was in response to comments made in the news on monkeys typing out the Bible or the Koran. According to Colbert, one million monkeys typing for eternity would produce Shakespere, ten thousand (drinking) monkeys typing for ten thousand years would produce Hemingway, and ten monkeys typing for three days would produce Dan Brown.
In 2000, the IETF Internet standards committee's April 1st RFC proposed an "Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite (IMPS)", a method of directing a farm of infinitely many monkeys over the Internet."
Sometimes it's hard to tell the monkeys from the lawyers:
From:© Greenberg & Lieberman TM, An Intellectual Property Law Firm
"Theoretically, you own a copyright to something as soon as you produce it...Consider this scenario: Imagine a room with a hundred monkeys. Each monkey is pounding on a typewriter. One of these monkey's (we'll call him monkey A), through this random act of pounding, writes the...
Let Greenberg & Lieberman record your copyright so you can enforce it.
According to the copyright laws of the United States of America, you own the copyright in an idea once you have expressed it in some way."
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Re: Yes! to Academic Project
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Literature
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Speaking of live addresses
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Spammers are terrorists!
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Re: Spammers are terrorists!
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Re: Re: Spammers are terrorists!
If so, how exactly does one untrain this sort of algorithm?
In addition, why exactly is the text white? Are you suggesting that it not be seen? If so, why? the ascii is still there. Whether the intended recipient sees it or not is irrelevent because clearly people can see it or at least a part of it.
The only way to trick the filter is to change over time. Emails such as these are sent sraight to the poop-shute. If not now, it will get there over time. The only reason some people get them numerous times is because there is an email admin asleep on their job.
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Re: Re: Re: Spammers are terrorists!
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Are poems next?
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Re: Are poems next?
Violets are blue
Here is some Spam
I made it just for you!
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Bayes, et al
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Some of you don't see these because your ISP or email provider or corporate network or email application blocks / strips the embedded image. "
So my ISP/email provider is only stripping these out of the Spam with classical quotes? Because its leaving them in with the other Spam I get.
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Personally, I feel maybe I shouldn't try to buy prescription drugs from a company that can't spell the name of the drug, or Phahrhmaccci
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My theory is that they are checking for legit accounts.
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Re:
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Re: Re:
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These are really annoying!
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terrorism?
So one has to wonder on the bigger "why" of it all. But then I know a dude who buys prescription drugs from one of them, and it takes a real idiot to pay $5 a pill for vicadin.
That's it, as long as we have idots, we will have spam.
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Harvesting or Filter-Breaker
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Baysian Filter
Or maybe they are literary students from other countrys with a flair for the dramatic?
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Doth thou think it wilst rain on the company outing next fortnight?
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It's for the filters
After that, a ton more messages started slipping through the filter.
The only cure was to reset the bayesian database and start over. Fortunately our filter relys on several layers of protection, and not just the bayes database.
Moral of the story is that now I have to check every message that I add to make sure it isn't full of random crap.
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Re: It's for the filters
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Re: It's for the filters
Cool...so that explaines the whooooooolle story.
Ladies and Gentlemen of this infernal planet, I understand.
It truly is for the filters. It targets the bada but it also seems to have to be initiated by the admin to some degree. Hence the varying experiences with said mail.
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Never seen one...
Hell, last time any spam got through the filter was....month ago maybe?
Last time I had a false-positive....never have.
Here's my thoughts though. If they're using classic literature, as number #43 kinda hinted at, set it to filter messages with the crap that's not in our language anymore!
Tell it to mark as spam any messages containing 'thee' 'thou' 'wilst' 'fortnight' and other crap like that.
Of course, then they'll just start randomly sampling text from random websites......
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Greg's got it right
Here's an example
Hunter Holly Birth Fire Jerry
Past Entries Archives User Login Register BlogRoll: Some maybe NSFW. Info.
Enter Soft: DeskTop
And this one had 7 images:
She rose andwent heavily out on her felt soles. But nobody wontever be the
worse for it: Mr.
Their motherstudied their mournful faces, and her overbearing
expressionsoftened.
Oh, very well, said Vickie bitterly, and she went upstairs. Rosen was
stilltalking to Grandmother about Vickies studying.
Listen: a great man once said: Le butnest rien; le chemin, cest tout. These
youngpeople are full of their own affairs, you know. But I thought if there
was any left you could get at, wecould let Vickie have it. The twins had not
seen much suffering;Grandmother had seen a great deal. She had seen somuch
misery that she wondered herself why it hurt so to see hertom-cat die.
She had seen somuch misery that she wondered herself why it hurt so to see
hertom-cat die.
(and it goes on and on)
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Greg's got it right
Here's an example
Hunter Holly Birth Fire Jerry
Past Entries Archives User Login Register BlogRoll: Some maybe NSFW. Info.
Enter Soft: DeskTop
And this one had 7 images:
She rose andwent heavily out on her felt soles. But nobody wontever be the
worse for it: Mr.
Their motherstudied their mournful faces, and her overbearing
expressionsoftened.
Oh, very well, said Vickie bitterly, and she went upstairs. Rosen was
stilltalking to Grandmother about Vickies studying.
Listen: a great man once said: Le butnest rien; le chemin, cest tout. These
youngpeople are full of their own affairs, you know. But I thought if there
was any left you could get at, wecould let Vickie have it. The twins had not
seen much suffering;Grandmother had seen a great deal. She had seen somuch
misery that she wondered herself why it hurt so to see hertom-cat die.
She had seen somuch misery that she wondered herself why it hurt so to see
hertom-cat die.
(and it goes on and on)
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not necessarily classics...
Can't find a spammer? Surely they read techdirt. Calling on all anonymous cowards to fill us in...
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Stock Sales
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Check them out in Outlook Express
The interesting thing is that I'll only see the snipits if I actually view the source. Otherwise it's just an image or some HTML. The reason why is pretty obvious if you look.
Heres an example (Warning it's pretty long)
X-Message-Status: n:0
X-SID-PRA: HotStock Tip
X-SID-Result: TempError
X-Message-Info: LsUYwwHHNt0LzzpNj8H6zKyLUqQ9Z7PLlqJYXsDJoV0=
Received: from .info ([69.139.40.79]) by bay0-mc7-f1.bay0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.2444);
Tue, 1 Aug 2006 16:20:50 -0700
Received: by o4I089P0YhH.info id 6rWOOG860v857 for ; Tue, 01 Aug 2006 18:20:50 -0600 (envelope-from )
Received: by spamchecked46.o4I089P0YhH.info id 2c220rw40jf85; Tue, 01 Aug 2006 18:20:50 -0600 (envelope-from vcbdedokiy@o4I089P0YhH.info)
From: "HotStock Tip"
To:
Subject: Hot-Stock This Will MoveFast
Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2006 18:20:50 -0600
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html;
Thread-Index: qVz6ZOE8en9uFIml0bqplrkPMbaipTI7NkXVCg56jkXQ3
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2180
Message-Id:
Return-Path: vcbdedokiy@o4I089P0YhH.info
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 01 Aug 2006 23:20:50.0414 (UTC) FILETIME=[206FA0E0:01C6B5C1]
Loading
Like I said befoe you can only see the HTML
(Note this isn't my E-mail address I have no Idea why I even recieved it.)
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Re: Check them out in Outlook Express
(Note this isn't my E-mail address I have no Idea why I even recieved it.)
maybe because you are a bcc?
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I got one today
If you get the text with no image then it was probably converted from HTML into text somewhere along the way or the image was wiped out by some processing along the way.
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Mac
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anything else you need
http://www.rdnd.seeoursmiley.org/zm/
Nick narrated to me that you likely picked up about the news on losing those extra pds, Oh forgot, there also great at consulting me on getting fit.
on, I came to the southern end of coke a line of cliffs cereal loftier the larger pieces sick of broken or return beast ever approached the pool while
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Handle: DKE32-ARIN
Company: PINE TREE CABLEVISION ACC BUSIN
Address: 4934 D Highway 321
City: Gaston
StateProv: SC
PostalCode: 29053
Country: US
Comment:
RegDate: 2004-03-07
Updated: 2004-03-07
Phone: +1-803-939-1184 (Office)
Email: dave@ptc-me.net
# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2006-09-12 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.
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just plain random spam
Picketlines in Auckland are holding day and night with solidarity being shown from the community. Ook kan deze nieuwe versie beter overweg met webcams. Opmerkelijk is de functie die controleert of een webpagina sinds het vorige bezoek is aangepast. Dit pakket muziekbewerkingssoftware bestaat uit een mixer, een multi-track recorder en een audio sequencer. Workers are calling on the community to join picket lines and donate to the strike fund as the dispute drags on, clearing supermarket shelves.
I've got to say, each email is very entertaining along with the stock quotes embedded in images..maybe I should listen to them one day? However the messages ruined my spam-free gmail account! :( whatever.
Along with this spam I've been slowly but surely getting "real spam" with the viagra and whatnot...that spam sucks.
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Spam is a conspiracy
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There are no aliens sending spam, so stop posting bullshit all the time, keep your crap/spam to yourself.
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Re:
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@Killspammer
Actually I can explain that. David there isn't a spammer, he's the CTO of my ISP, however there was a problem with my internet around that time, which I was told by one of the techs was caused by a Zombie machine sending out mass amounts of spam.
Now, if you find it annoying to get some of the spam, imagine being on the network of the guy sending it out. Unfortunately for both of us, their tech service is absolute shit, and it took forever for them to find and fix that(and almost every other problem). Be thankful that's your only contact with Pinetree cable... you'd be much more pissed off if you were a customer.
Old post, I know, but I found it funny that I found this while doing a search on my ISP.
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