# Spam email- what on earth is this? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 7, 2012, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-email-what-on-earth-is-this/608720 "2012-01-07T10:32:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2012, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-email-what-on-earth-is-this/608720/1 "2012-01-07T10:32:34Z")
I received an email message with the normal nonsense about flogging something cheaper than shops. It started: “It has come to my attention that you might have an interest in purchasing the operating system Windows 7 Ultimate version SP1 & OFFICE 2010” … Of course I am not interested in buying anything from them and was about to delete it except when I scrolled down, at the bottom of the page there was literally pages and pages of text starting with: “I’m not crying for Angelina Jolie. Still, one downside to celebrity is that the individual gets pigeon-holed. Every time Angelina strays from what the public and the media expect, she takes a risk. Steal Jen’s man? OK. Get a new tattoo? All right. Adopt a kid? So Mia Farrow! But write, direct, and produce a serious movie? Wait a minute. Has she gone too far? Case in point: Angelina’s directorial debut, the R-rated “In the Land of Blood and Honey.” Here’s a serious-as-death drama. It’s in Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian, with English subtitles. It stars unknowns with unpronounceable names.” There is miles more of it, but I just can’t see the connect. Why would anyone add that to spam? ---
**Author:** ![Alley\_Dweller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alley_dweller/32/430_2.png) [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2012, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-email-what-on-earth-is-this/608720/2 "2012-01-07T10:36:13Z")
Most likely because they believe it will fool spam filters into thinking that it is legitimate email. ---
**Author:** ![UFC\_Is\_Sux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/46a35a/32.png) [@UFC\_Is\_Sux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UFC_Is_Sux)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2012, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-email-what-on-earth-is-this/608720/3 "2012-01-07T10:46:30Z")
Hashbuster. Trying to fool spam filters into not flagging it as spam. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2012, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-email-what-on-earth-is-this/608720/4 "2012-01-07T14:43:39Z")
What they said - the way it works is that many spam filters use [Bayesian filtering](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_spam_filtering), which is a way of correlating the incidence of particular groups of words, to try to categorise the content of messages - so the spammers include a bunch of random phrases that might appear in non-spam emails, so as to try to fool the filter into thinking it’s not spam. ---
**Author:** ![GoodOmens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@GoodOmens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GoodOmens)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2012, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-email-what-on-earth-is-this/608720/5 "2012-01-07T14:48:53Z")
Or, they thought you were really interested in Angie’s directing, and that interest might spur you to buy their absolutely legitimate and in no way fake software. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2012, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-email-what-on-earth-is-this/608720/6 "2012-01-07T17:37:07Z")
Or perhaps Alice beggared the white poppy, while Nimrod pranced the jolly mushroom, as the romantic miners imbibed confusion in a green yarmulke. Stacy polishes mud as the laughing coins ate fuzzy mules during the monstrous geode of Homer. ---
**Author:** ![Toucanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3bc359/32.png) [@Toucanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toucanna)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2012, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-email-what-on-earth-is-this/608720/7 "2012-01-07T20:43:49Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Or perhaps Alice beggared the white poppy, while Nimrod pranced the jolly mushroom, as the romantic miners imbibed confusion in a green yarmulke. Stacy polishes mud as the laughing coins ate fuzzy mules during the monstrous geode of Homer. That was Angie’s first movie, a low-budget student film in which she played the “Third Fuzzy Mule” (uncredited). ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2012, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-email-what-on-earth-is-this/608720/8 "2012-01-08T17:37:54Z")
The more “sophisticated” spammers will put the dummy text (which will have nothing to do with pirated software nor Viagra) in a white font so that it’s invisible on most screens. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2012, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-email-what-on-earth-is-this/608720/9 "2012-01-08T17:58:14Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Or perhaps Alice beggared the white poppy, while Nimrod pranced the jolly mushroom, as the romantic miners imbibed confusion in a green yarmulke. Stacy polishes mud as the laughing coins ate fuzzy mules during the monstrous geode of Homer. Great name/post combo. 😃 > [@Huerta88](#): > > The more “sophisticated” spammers will put the dummy text (which will have nothing to do with pirated software nor Viagra) in a white font so that it’s invisible on most screens. Are you sure? The more sophisticated filters look for this. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-email-what-on-earth-is-this/608720/10 "2012-01-10T12:11:35Z")
This isn’t from hashbuster, though. It’s clearly a copy and paste from [somewhere else](http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/the-reel-breakdown/angelina-jolie-takes-no-prisoners-war-drama-land-183144425.html). The logic is the same, but it’s assumed that real English will better fool the algorithms. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spam-email-what-on-earth-is-this/608720/11 "2012-01-10T23:21:12Z")
Thanks for the answers folks. I’m never too old to learn.