I get lots and lots of spam with something similar to this in the subject field. The gibberish is probably designed to defeat spam blockers or something, but I have my filter at home set up to look for “kholer” in the subject. (Spaminator will not catch it, so I get this stuff on webmail.)
So what is this “kholer” thing? Why do so many spam have it in the subject? Not that I’m complaining, mind you; it makes it easier to block. But I’m curious as to why it show up all the time.
The only common text that appears in the subjects of the spam I get (outside of “free” “bigger” etc.) is my user name. Is “kholer” related to yours?
And yes, the random text is to make it harder for mail servers to detect multiple copies of the same message coming in.
Not even close. I was thinking maybe it was a “spam provider”?
maybe the ‘k’ stands for ‘korn’
I get spam with subjects like:
Low-rate mortgage SDF3JSL7DF
I don’t know why they often tack random characters at the end, it doesn’t defeat spam blockers AFAIK.
I’m noticing pop-up ads coming up with random numbers attached so you can’t train your blocker to get them. Possibly some spam blockers work under the same principle?
So, here’s my guess: Any good spammer is going to need to know what email addresses are “good” and which are “bad”, particularly if he’s using common aliases at domain names (i.e. “webmaster”, “administrator”, “abuse” …well, maybe not that last one).
By using unique gibberish for each outgoing message, the spammer is tagging it. That way, when people complain, and the complaints are offered up by the ISP to the spammer as a set of reasons by which they’re going to be disconnected, the spammer can associate the codes back to their database of emails, and be on his/her merry way.
Seeing as the ISP accounts used for these endeavors are throw-away accouts to begin with, it’s essentially research while spamming.
But – that’s just a guest.
“Kholer” is a brand of toilet, which seems particularly appropriate for spammers.
I agree that it’s being tagged, but I’m not sure I agree with you that they can get valid Email from the ISP. Are you saying the ISP would say “Here are a list of valid Emails that have complained to us that you’re spamming them. Your IP will now be rejected”? No ISP I’ve ever heard of would be so obtuse.
My guess is they have a script that uses the same random entry to donate a certain demographic / suburb / list provided to them by a 3rd party. Replies can then be sorted by demographic, specific location, or to track the “reply” effectiveness of the list they bought from that 3rd party.
There was a mention of this during a thread on the discussion of a similar phenomenon occuring on UseNet in this thread. It is possible they are used as a way to prevent the spammer from being nailed for sending thousands of completely identical e-mails.