# New directions in spam **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 10, 2013, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-directions-in-spam/665897 "2013-08-10T20:12:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-directions-in-spam/665897/1 "2013-08-10T20:12:37Z")
I just got four messages from people purporting to sell different services (drug rehab, weight loss, VOIP, home warranty) that, aside from a web address each contained a nonsense paragraph (actually each had two identical copies of the paragraph) of which the following is typical. > [@](#): > > Broad cat double stood called bit fun obtain. Animals edge ice those arm. Bar laugh off village almost men > times and. Shore wire dog sure snow shoe. Father sort weather magnet figure board far. Boys quotient real > suit might reveal differ. Experience black parts group over west market direct. Bring view melody better. > Demand smile observe straight valley probable almost class. Achieve that dog material press. Worry afraid > reply met across write cloud. Consist i try fix with off house group. It tone an gone well today. Captain > some group long. Rise cell note close. Rather down throw fold. Design view enough element which corner > especially. Drop you point night still. Determine north human sing a. Substance himself prefer ground > himself we. Locate win disappear learned an fold. Able train beauty full play fresh extend. Plan though > space close side lay desert. Attack prevent got lead describe student. Contribute term fruit done. Process > saw water note fair quotient certain house. Count fall cell step name. Element has sea middle bit method. > Cent sometimes north words. Win metal different plane changed listened particular. Through sense back ear > short field speech poem. Search master strange reply eye which promise. Learn observe white come final. What is the purpose of all this. Does it somehow help it escape a spam filter? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-directions-in-spam/665897/2 "2013-08-10T20:17:18Z")
Getting past filters, that’s all it is. ---
**Author:** ![seal\_cleaner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@seal\_cleaner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seal_cleaner)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-directions-in-spam/665897/3 "2013-08-10T20:20:30Z")
I got the best spam this week. Subject line: “Brain Doctors Hate This!” ---
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-directions-in-spam/665897/4 "2013-08-10T20:22:21Z")
Fancy term is “[Bayesian poisoning](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_poisoning)”. Basically it increases the false negative rate on your average spam filter, since the particular words and phrases in that pile of nonsense aren’t predictably found in spam. Further, if you train the filter on random words like this, you increase the probability of false positives. I’m not sure how useful it is these days, since the Gmail filters are completely effective in my experience, but the trick definitely worked back when everyone used weak standalone spam filters. ---
**Author:** ![zwede](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ac91a4/32.png) [@zwede](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zwede)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-directions-in-spam/665897/5 "2013-08-10T20:24:09Z")
I’ve seen that for some time. Yes, they do hope to avoid the spam filters but in my experience the spam filters still get them 99% of the time. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-directions-in-spam/665897/6 "2013-08-10T20:32:46Z")
> [@zwede](#): > > I’ve seen that for some time. Yes, they do hope to avoid the spam filters but in my experience the spam filters still get them 99% of the time. So the OP is a 1%er? Cool. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-directions-in-spam/665897/7 "2013-08-10T20:42:01Z")
I’ve been getting a variant lately in Outlook (formerly my Hotmail account), with the sender, subject, and message all short bits of gibberish, with a spam link embedded in the message. Sometimes they have no subject line. Of course I delete them immediately. From: Rrubyk Bm Subject: Bab esfi lmSh aun daDio r‏ Message: vikygic, xy mudolop, qyme [spam link] musyj wofylu ga jigox. hac wifac. Outlook seems to get most of these but a few get through to my inbox. I never see them in my Gmail account (although my Outlook/Hotmail is my “spamcatcher” site that I use to sign up for most stuff). ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2013, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-directions-in-spam/665897/8 "2013-08-10T20:48:25Z")
There was a website that collected “spam prose” and some of it is oddly beautiful in a way. So at least spam is responsible for some good in the world. Some of it is entertaining. And yes this practice is very, very old. I’m surprised you just now noticed it. Here is one such website (copyright 2004): [http://www.lakeffect.net/spamprose/](http://www.lakeffect.net/spamprose/) ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-directions-in-spam/665897/9 "2013-08-11T02:39:59Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > From: Rrubyk Bm > Subject: Bab esfi lmSh aun daDio r‏ > Message: > vikygic, xy mudolop, qyme [spam link] musyj wofylu ga jigox. > hac wifac. They’re sending TECO macros as spam now? We all know that spam depends on a very small number of doofi (among the multitudes) to click on their shit. But it boggles my mind that there are people capable of clicking a mouse button who are yet stupid enough to click on one like that. Gibberish came the spam till boggled the mind. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-directions-in-spam/665897/10 "2013-08-11T02:55:20Z")
Want to know one weird old trick for getting rid of spam? Filters _hate_ me. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-directions-in-spam/665897/11 "2013-08-11T03:23:36Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > There was a website that collected “spam prose” and some of it is oddly beautiful in a way. Maybe “oddly beautiful” in the same way Vogon poetry is. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![EatTheSun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@EatTheSun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EatTheSun)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-directions-in-spam/665897/12 "2013-08-11T04:13:45Z")
I got a series of random spam messages from Craigslist ads that were obviously excerpts from a book on maple syrup production. I wasn’t selling syrup manufacturing equipment… ---
**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-directions-in-spam/665897/13 "2013-08-11T11:15:11Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > But it boggles my mind that there are people capable of clicking a mouse button who are yet stupid enough to click on one like that. Some forms of gibberish spam are probes. They don’t expect humans to click on the links; they’re looking for evidence of each message showing up somewhere on the web. The gibberish is an encoded ID number, allowing them to trace it to its source, and thus figure out which email addresses (or web forms) do something useful. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2013, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-directions-in-spam/665897/14 "2013-08-11T13:38:51Z")
I am not sure how ISP spam filters work but I suppose they are more sophisticated than what Outlook uses to send mail to the Junk folder. Unlike a mail client, ISPs have the ability to scan large volumes of mail and I think if they see identical messages sent to many people it may deduce that it’s spam (in addition to heuristics used to evaluate whether any given message is spam). I suspect that the gibberish messages are individually randomly generated, preventing it from being detected as a mass mailing. I am a little light on actual facts in this area, however.