Hi Phil, > On the subject of different methods used in spamming - does anyone have a > clue as to what the purpose is of the spams that have apparently random > strings of words included within them, sometimes bits of poetry, text from > books and the like?
Yeah, like David said: Spammers use this method so that the email doesn't contain all the pure marketing buzzwords that a spam filter usually looks for, but also words that typically might be found in a non-spam words. If the poetry (for example) outweights the marketing buzzwords, then the spam might get a lower score than usual. Or another attempt is to insert some random text, or poetry, or plain garbage words which make no sense in any language and at the bottom of the email is an URL which leads to a page where the real product or service is advertised. Someone looking at the nonsense email might then be tempted to click on the link to see what this is about. However, these kind of spams with URLs in it are also facing a harder time since the introduction of the SpamAssassin plugin Mail::SpamAsssassin::SpamCopURI. That plugin checks email bodies for URLs, extracts the host and domain name and checks one or more "special" RBL blacklists (like sc.surbl.org) which contain lists of domains used in SPAM for advertising purposes. This plugin even catches the spams that contain nothing but a promotional URL in it and the text "Check this out!" - for example. -- With best regards, Michael Stauber _______________________________________________ Cobaltfacts mailing list posting/subscription services: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://list.cobaltfacts.com/mailman/listinfo/cobaltfacts/ Search the Archives at: http://list.cobaltfacts.com/ Visit Cobaltfacts on the web: http://www.cobaltfacts.com/
