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View Full Version : Nonsense text in emails - anybody???



Mitchell Andrus
11-24-2006, 9:25 AM
I've been getting spam emails... we all get them. I don't understand why so many have text in the subject and body that don't have anything to do with selling me stocks or ipods or Via&ra. And what's with the RUSSIAN ones?

Here's one:

Subject - This custom error page simply takes chunks off the end of the URL

Body text - Symbol: CNHC Price: $1.34 Target: $10
CNHC BREAKING NEWS: Mine is set up for Eastern time. Make sure the action is installed, and choose Finder from the Library list on the left side. go to my new site, and subscribe to the Feedburner RSS on the upper left corner of the blog. A list of entries from another category? There are a ton of cool things you can do! A list of your latest Last. Hopefully this will make it a little more clear that you can click the item name to flip through them! I think this is a huge improvement over the popup window I had before.

Does anyone know why it makes sense to send this email?

Mitch

Doug Shepard
11-24-2006, 9:29 AM
My guess is they're just trolling for active email addresses just waiting for you to respond with a 'Please remove me from your email list'. Once they know they have an active one the hacking attempts start.

Nancy Laird
11-24-2006, 9:33 AM
Mitch, why do you even open them if you know they are spam? Just report them as spam through your server. Opening an e-mail like that can unleash a virus on your computer.

Nancy

Jim DeLaney
11-24-2006, 9:43 AM
Mitch,
My guess is that the random text is there to fool some of the spam scanning software. The scanners usually check the first few words/sentences for key words - like Viagra, 'stock sales' , sexual terms. and other key words, as well as 'gibberish'.

Also, you'll notice that often the actual sales info - whether drugs, stocks, or whatever - are actually in a graphic, not in text. Again, this is an attempt to fool the spam scanning software.

BTW, Nancy - just opening an email won't get you a virus. Opening an attachment within an email is how you get the virus.

Jim Becker
11-24-2006, 10:30 AM
Jim is correct, the random text is to help get around spam filters and appliances.

Mitchell Andrus
11-24-2006, 3:13 PM
Well, that tactic is working.

Mitch

Ernie Hobbs
11-24-2006, 7:30 PM
I had a bunch of them a few months ago coming in on my work email- I reported them to our IT department and they were able to come up with a filter for them. Now, I get a daily email with a list of the filtered emails that I have the option of releasing them if I want to.

I'm not sure what they did but I could look into it.

Robert Mickley
11-24-2006, 10:00 PM
Are you using outlook? If so ditch it, get thunderbird from mozilla. I get the same emails but thunderbird "learns" whats junk and what isn't.

I get about 40 or 50 of these a week. they used to go to a junk folder when I first started using thunderbird. Took it about a month to earn the routine. In that month maybe 4 good emails got flaggged as spam.

These days it does a good enough job that I have it set to delete the junk mail and I never see it