Pointless SPAM containing story snippet - Why?

[Scott Silva]

Glenn Steen spake the following on 9/1/2006 2:16 PM:
> On 01/09/06, Kevin Miller <Kevin_Miller at ci.juneau.ak.us> wrote:
>> Rick Chadderdon wrote:
>> > I've gotten a few of those, too.  Since they're structured identically
>> > to most of the image spam I get (minus the image), my guess is that
>> > they're someone's broken attempt to send image spam.  Probably pointed
>> > their spam sending program at the wrong image folder or something.
>> > The text portion of those messages might be an attempt to poison a
>> > Bayes database, although it might simply be an effort to avoid getting
>> > filtered for "not enough text" with an attached image.  I'm about an
>> > inch away from dropping all mail with inline images.  I'll train my
>> > users to zip 'em up first and have their families do the same.
>>
>> I wouldn't want to disallow all image files, but might consider just
>> blocking gifs.  Wonder what percentage of valid emails use a gif - seems
>> that most users either send in jpg, tif or (sigh) bmp.  The gifs all
>> come in via the stock spam.  I suppose that some html newsletters and
>> such may have a gif in them, but usually they use remote links to keep
>> their costs down...
>>
>> ...Kevin
> 
> In the somewhat backward world of financial information, gifs are if
> not common, at least an everyday occurence. Usually in that
> all-too-spamlike maillist that the users just *have* to have... Sigh.
> Not to mention the occasional IFrame, Script tag or Object
> Codebase..... They do their damnedest to make my
> life...interesting:-).
> Could give some example stats if you're really interested:-)
> 
> Cheers
> -- Glenn
> email: glenn < dot > steen < at > gmail < dot > com
> work: glenn < dot > steen < at > ap1 < dot > se
Hey Glenn,
Shouldn't you be gearing up for the weekend?
It must be near midnight there.


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