# The aliens are emailing me. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 3, 2006, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-aliens-are-emailing-me/382651 "2006-12-03T02:01:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Brainiac4](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brainiac4/32/3534_2.png) [@Brainiac4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brainiac4)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-aliens-are-emailing-me/382651/1 "2006-12-03T02:01:57Z")
So I get a lot of spam. Not unusual, as I have had the same primary email for something like 14 years. My email provider filters a lot, and Thunderbird is fairly good at getting rid of the rest. But some slips through, especially the stuff that’s rigged to defeat Bayesian filtering. I get the usual selection of stuff offering hot stock tips and h0t ru5514n nud35 and the like. I see it in passing as I teach Thunderbird to ignore it, but today I got one that’s a little unusual. I think it’s from one of three possible sources: 1. Somebody completely, utterly batshit crazy. 2. The Internet itself, somehow become sentient and trying to communicate. 3. Aliens. The entire body of the email is as follows: > [@](#): > > (meaningless image with the text “maku.ob” in it) > acne > Wikis can also be used to help share knowledge across organizations. > The change has been subtle enough that many people migh. > Then I bread them by dabbing them in flour, egg and then in bread crumbs. Not only do you get to witness the. I WANT TO TALK TO A HUMAN BEING! > Check out the Otaku Invitational Voters’ Sweepstakes - sponsored by Central Park Media and Kaneva. The three-stop series is the premier snowboarding showcase in the United States with huge. At the time they were the only team that could beat the Jets, so my dad started rooting for them and the NY Giants. > Looking to buy a new jacket? > Other features are almost too numerous to list. > I also grew up disliking the Jets and Namath as a result too. The concert itself was very romantic although there were a bunch of drunk college kids there. > The teams are from Cote de Ivoire, Egypt, Mauritius, Lesotho, Uganda. No reason, just for the fun of it. Looking to buy a new jacket? > I then put the sliced mushrooms in a frying pan with a little olive oil, letting them cook and reduce in size as I covered them with salt and garlic powder. Add in the rain scared motorists and traffic congestion doubled. I also grew up disliking the Jets and Namath as a result too. Check out the Otaku Invitational Voters’ Sweepstakes - sponsored by Central Park Media and Kaneva. My stepdad especially likes this chops recipe. Other features are almost too numerous to list. is the brand new snowboarding video from Park City Mountain Resort featuring their all-star team and award winning park. Google cooperates with the Chinese government to censor Internet. The jeremiads of bloggers rise to the heavens but provide some useful insights. > Need tips on sliding a handrail? > Sometimes the angel wins, and sometimes the devil wins. > To be a true googlewhack, the search term should consist of actual words that can be found in a dictionary. > The googlewhack craze has been around a while. > Overall, the event was a success, but some of the neighbors weren’t too thrilled. > com is creating a new website that will be a social network for online gamers. When was the last time you opened a newspaper or magazine and had to scan the entire width of the page to read the content? > MovableType is the software that powers this blog. > On the other side of the fence, what. > Wake-Up Call I was Googling myself, and my recent book, Google Advertising Tools: Cashing in with AdSense, AdWords, and the Google APIs. The sports fan is a member of the board of trustees Morehouse College in Georgia - a private, historical. I think Google is a company with good and bad, like most companies, institutions, and human beings. > com Snowboarding GuideSite. > This year’s event features a whole host of entertainment notables as well as tons of goodies from anime gurus such. > Then I bread them by dabbing them in flour, egg and then in bread crumbs. > Here’s some great tips and tricks. Anyone have other theories, or other evidence in support of mine? ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-aliens-are-emailing-me/382651/2 "2006-12-03T02:09:43Z")
I get about a hundred spam emails a day on my Gmail account (which traps them all - I’ve never had a miscategorisation, and I’ve got 900MB of legit stuff. I’ve used this address in some very dubious places hence the spam), and it all currently seems to be mail from the ghost of William Burroughs in one of his more drug-fuelled cut-up periods. ---
**Author:** ![bbs2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e495f1/32.png) [@bbs2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bbs2k)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-aliens-are-emailing-me/382651/3 "2006-12-03T02:29:05Z")
Fuckin’ aliens. ---
**Author:** ![Mindfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindfield/32/19759_2.png) [@Mindfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mindfield)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-aliens-are-emailing-me/382651/4 "2006-12-03T02:37:33Z")
So far I haven’t had a single piece of spam get past my Bayesian filter. I’ve trained it pretty dilligently for close to the past year so it’s pretty capable of distinguishing between spam and eBay notices and such. That said, the spam there is just another attempt at defeating filters like this. The spam just grabs random sentences or fragments from a big text file of random sentences or fragments and turns them into an E-Mail. Nothing new or surprising there. The spam program itself, however, may have been programmed by aliens. Aliens who want to sell you v1agra. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-aliens-are-emailing-me/382651/5 "2006-12-03T05:55:17Z")
“Language is a virus from outer space.” --W. Burroughs ---
**Author:** ![Bobotheoptimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/919ad9/32.png) [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-aliens-are-emailing-me/382651/6 "2006-12-03T06:28:49Z")
[QUOTE=Brainiac4] … today I got one that’s a little unusual. I think it’s from one of three possible sources: 1. Somebody completely, utterly batshit crazy. 2. The Internet itself, somehow become sentient and trying to communicate. 3. Aliens. The entire body of the email is as follows: Anyone have other theories, or other evidence in support of mine? [/QUOTE] I need to know exactly when you got this! **Exactly**! Please, just stay away from horse-drawn hay bailers until I get this decoded. … must have got that email address at almost exactly the same time as I got mine… Sorry about this, everything’s fine, nothing to see here ---
**Author:** ![Brainiac4](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brainiac4/32/3534_2.png) [@Brainiac4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brainiac4)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-aliens-are-emailing-me/382651/7 "2006-12-03T14:29:38Z")
[QUOTE=Mindfield] So far I haven’t had a single piece of spam get past my Bayesian filter. I’ve trained it pretty dilligently for close to the past year so it’s pretty capable of distinguishing between spam and eBay notices and such. That said, the spam there is just another attempt at defeating filters like this. The spam just grabs random sentences or fragments from a big text file of random sentences or fragments and turns them into an E-Mail. Nothing new or surprising there. The spam program itself, however, may have been programmed by aliens. Aliens who want to sell you v1agra. [/QUOTE] My first thought was that it was indeed just an attempt to defeat Bayesian filtering, until I noticed that it wasn’t trying to sell anything. The only call to action I see is this one… [QUOTE=Aliens?] I WANT TO TALK TO A HUMAN BEING! [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-aliens-are-emailing-me/382651/8 "2006-12-03T15:21:04Z")
The e-mail tests to see which of the phrases will trip the filtering software. They start with big messages, using many phrases. Then, they narrow the number of phrases, sending additional messages until the pharses that don’t work are isolated. They then tweak the way each rejected phrase is worded, until they get past the filter. ---
**Author:** ![Mindfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindfield/32/19759_2.png) [@Mindfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mindfield)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-aliens-are-emailing-me/382651/9 "2006-12-03T15:23:47Z")
[QUOTE=Brainiac4] My first thought was that it was indeed just an attempt to defeat Bayesian filtering, until I noticed that it wasn’t trying to sell anything. The only call to action I see is this one… [/QUOTE] I’ve gotten these too. And come to think of it, I never really figured out why they were showing up, either. Dammit! Now I have to make a tinfoil hat! Bloody aliens and their bloody cryptic messages. Why can’t they just say what they really mean? ---
**Author:** ![zelie\_zelerton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/59ef9b/32.png) [@zelie\_zelerton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zelie_zelerton)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-aliens-are-emailing-me/382651/10 "2006-12-03T15:29:46Z")
So are you? Looking to buy a new jacket? ---
**Author:** ![ratatoskK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ratatoskk/32/2987_2.png) [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-aliens-are-emailing-me/382651/11 "2006-12-03T18:38:31Z")
I would bet there’s some sort of hidden one-pixel image in there someplace that tells the host when the recipient has opened the email. The rest of the text is just to get past the filter. ---
**Author:** ![Brainiac4](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brainiac4/32/3534_2.png) [@Brainiac4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brainiac4)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-aliens-are-emailing-me/382651/12 "2006-12-04T02:16:23Z")
[QUOTE=ratatoskK] I would bet there’s some sort of hidden one-pixel image in there someplace that tells the host when the recipient has opened the email. The rest of the text is just to get past the filter. [/QUOTE] That’s possible, but Thunderbird blocks images. The one that’s in there is actually embedded in the email, it seems. Besides… Aliens! ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-aliens-are-emailing-me/382651/13 "2006-12-04T04:51:29Z")
[“The exquisite corpse will drink the new wine.”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exquisite_corpse) [We don’t have enough Dada!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dada) [We don’t have enough Dada!](http://negativland.com) [Call the Dissociated Press.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociated_press) [Claude Shannon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon) is in Uni City and [Markov Cheney](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain) will be interested. ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-aliens-are-emailing-me/382651/14 "2006-12-04T08:50:07Z")
I believe I read about a year ago that spam emails like this “alien” are actually just computer generated, random messages sent to find email addresses (when you click, they know they have a real email address). Thus, when you click you have just verified the validity and given your email address to someone to sell for further spam. Delete them without opening them. ---
**Author:** ![Fritz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c57346/32.png) [@Fritz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fritz)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-aliens-are-emailing-me/382651/15 "2006-12-04T08:51:40Z")
Damn. You actually _read_ your spam? ---
**Author:** ![Brainiac4](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brainiac4/32/3534_2.png) [@Brainiac4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brainiac4)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-aliens-are-emailing-me/382651/16 "2006-12-04T19:08:27Z")
[QUOTE=DMark] I believe I read about a year ago that spam emails like this “alien” are actually just computer generated, random messages sent to find email addresses (when you click, they know they have a real email address). Thus, when you click you have just verified the validity and given your email address to someone to sell for further spam. Delete them without opening them. [/QUOTE] I don’t open them, but I do have Thunderbird set to preview them, so I see the contents. As I mentioned above, Thunderbird blocks attached images, so there’s no communication back to HQ going on, and thus no danger of me giving away that they have a live email address. [QUOTE=Fritz] Damn. You actually read your spam? [/QUOTE] No. Do you actually read OPs? 🙂