Spam... Secret Messages?

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Gervasio said her discover develop problem-solving things you can do parents and

Every day, people all around the world get this kind of email... and while this one seems like an advertisement, some just seem like garble (which for some reason I don't have any good examples of atm)...

I've always wondered about those really strange ones.. the ones that don't seem like advertisements or anything.. no attachments or pictures, so not a virus.... just loads of strange words that don't make sense at all...

What is the chance that if a code-breaker got to work on some of these emails, that there are actually messages coded inside those strange garbly messages?

(PS. I'm aware that the "garble" in my example is used to bypass spam filters - usually unsuccesfully these days)

A little birdy once told me:

They are just pushing the envelope to see what can get through and what can't. I think their main goal isn't to get it to the users as much as it is to get it past the servers you download the messages from. Its a very smart tactic so that when the real ones are sent out they know exact what will pass through filters and what won't. They also get feedback on which email servers one thing works and others that don't work. A really big use for this besides the viagra emails is when viruses replicate themselves. Having info when coding the virus will make any attempt at getting the virus out much much quicker.

If it were a secret message being sent believe me you would never get it. They also don't use email to send highly sensitive messages to each other. Well the smart ones don't. They know ip addresses of the computers they want to connect to and sent the message encrypted directly to the person. Not leaving a trail over so many places.

The bird then flew away. Thats all I could get out of him. lol

[edit on 15-2-2007 by leafer]

I've allways had the feeling that the jibberish that is put into the end of some of these emails is a type of tracking system, like if you reply to the sender with the email, they can use that jibberish as a unique identifier, either for your response, or perhaps even any email sent out by one 'office' has the jibberish as a sort of 'tag' or authenticator for themselves.

The latest trend to circumvent spam filters, embed it as an "image" ... as opposed to actual text. (?)

Nah ...

Although, it does seem to be "working", the few that do slip through are similar to the OP's example ... though, as an "image" rather than actual text.

I guess it was only a matter of time before spammers realized the difficulty this "approach" posed to spam filtering. Filtering text, or strings thereof, is quite different than filtering "images" at a Binary level.

? Is the "image" spam, or is it just Li'l Johnny's baseball photo ?

Patterns prevail, textual or otherwise, yet the ball seems to be in the court of those tasked with said filtering.




$.02

Lots of money is made from Spam and the spammers in an effort to continue that income come up with different ways to bypass the spam filters of the different email services and filtration programs that are out there. The randomization of the text will sometimes fool the filters into thinking that the email is legit. It works sometimes and does get through.