I think you’re exactly right, Max Torque. But the non-bastard filtering dudes should be able to handle this scheme, too. They will have to not only look at the raw text, but consider how it will be displayed by a HTML editor, including such tricks as white-on-white and junk tags. And a list of parsed HTML from your sample would show a high ratio of invalid to valid tags. They can then conclude that either the sender was an idiot or a spammer. And there are more spammers in the world than idiots!
And even the fact that so many dictionary words are broken up by tags is a spam-clue. How often do you send legitimate messages with tags imbedded in words?
I have overcome the problems of occasional false positives; anything that my spam filter marks as spam gets an automatic reply (from my mail client), and gets deleted; the automatic reply states:
So when they resend, my spam filter still marks it as spam, but my message handling rules in the client will not delete it if the subject line contains ‘Tunguska’ - only a human reading the automated reply will be able to format a message that can bypass the filter.
Thanks, Mangetout. That sounds like a simple solution that will take no time or cause any confusion to implement.
NOT.
Jeez, the amount of administration for that (admittedly elegant) solution would exceed the accumulated time for me to hit the delete key in a year. And I’m pretty sure 80% of my potential friends would stare at that message, then turn off their computer, grab a beer and go watch TV. I guess my circles aren’t as sophisticated as yours.
You might find that hard to believe, but let me give you an example of my contacts. In my small town, NOBODY has an unlisted phone number (except me – it’s a long story), and almost nobody blocks their caller-ID. Several times I have been told that someone wanted to contact me by phone, but couldn’t, because my name wasn’t in the book. I assure you, put my name in any search engine, and you will come up with hundreds of hits, most of which have my email address, and some of which have my phone. But the person didn’t even try it. We’re that ignorant. So what chance would I have to implement your solution?
I don’t understand spam like this. What is the point of sending someone a bunch of gibberish? Who on earth is going to go, “Wow, fkjsufjsdjfksjfksuriwenmfcnf!!! I have to buy this product, the salespeople are so eloquent and the argument so well-reasoned! I know I’m sold!”
I rarely get spam. Maybe a piece or two a week. This isn’t a complaint, mind you.
I’ve been training the Bayseian filters on my Mail app for Mac OSX for probably a year now. Blocks probably 95% or more of the spam by now.
FWIW, I suspect a lot of the garbage emails are just testing for valid email addys. Spammers do dictionary attacks on isp domains. What spammers sell most are email lists to OTHER spammers.
Well, you could always add your friends to your whitelist before you even start, but maybe that would be too hard. Works really well for me is all I can say.
Unfortunately, my “computing style” reflects that of Musicat’s. I can miss that 0.5% the gets a false positive, and it doesn’t save any time if I still have to look through the tagged spam.
And yes, Mangetout, your solution, while elegant, would cause the same problem for me. “Duhh, he’s emaily address sure done look broken”. Whitelist is no good either, since that would assume I know ahead of time who might be emailing me.
What do these people think??? I turned on the filter so that I only get stuff from people I want to get stuff from, so they munge the addresses to look like that. Do they think "My product is so great I just know this person wants to see “Horny Teen Sluts Take It Up the A**” if only I can get the message to them???
Jeezopete, I just do NOT understand these idiots. Stinking morons.
Because they want to consolidate your debt, let you view them live, on their web cam, and teach you how to make more money than you’re making now–from home!!!
The other day, I got a piece of e-mail labeled SPAM. They finally came up with something that works. Truth. Simplicity. I actually opened it. I deleted it five seconds later, but I actually opened it.
