The Mystery of Spam

Monday 15 January 2007 - Filed under web

We’ve all dealt with spam. Some days it’s worse, other days it’s okay. Sundry treats range from the standard porn to various prescription drugs or even the typical get rich schemes. I’m on a first name basis with most of the Nigerian who’s who ranging from the family members of deposed presidents, generals, oil magnates and the like.

I rarely look into my spam folder because it’s like looking directly into the sun. Simply blinding.

I always wondered about the really strange spam messages though. The ones that are indecipherable and have no message. No 1337-speak or intentional misspellings. Well, now I have an answer:

“And the spam messages that aren’t advertisements, scams, or virus attacks, but just random strings of text? Ken Simpson comments, ‘Those messages are sent by spammers to poison the spam filters. When someone receives a message full of gibberish and reports it as spam, the spam filters tune themselves to recognize gibberish as spam—which reduces their overall accuracy.’”

O’Reilly Radar > Spamonomics 101

2007-01-15  »  baron