Spammers lose a few more IQ points
My theory about anti-spam software is that it will never succeed in stopping spam entirely, but it will make spammers look more and more like idiots. As the software gets smarter at dealing with the spammers’ preferred marketing terms and product names, they have to reach for more and more obscure variations to get through. Here’s a recent example that got past SpamAssassin:
Hello, We got wide selections of hiigh-quuality mdz
There is no need to be awware of quaality.
Our mmedz are the same we have here in UuSA.
But we have opportuunity to buy these mmedz at lowwer prizes.
56% Salle, check it ouut noow!
It makes me happy to see spam like this—it means spammers are resorting to behaving like illiterate morons just to get past the filters. That or only the spammers who are illiterate morons are getting through. In either case, the money they make from the spam has to be going down. Who would buy drugs after reading this sales pitch?
Oh how I wish I could send a bill to the spammers for the time they have cost me. I use a combination of Mailwasher and McAfee to stop the rotten idiots but they still waste a lot of my time. And invariably, something I need gets caught in the filters. I wish I had something constructive to say here – just had to lauch and rant after reading your post. Russell
Love the article – I’ve seen the same behaviour, as even the “use a character not a letter approach” doesn’t work anymore! Gr3at n3w5!