For no other reason than that I caught a few good ones, here’s a sampling of spam subject lines this morning:
- ADV: All the Stars from Bad Boys II Naked! – Must Be 18 Years
or Older — Be still, my heart. - Only you will know — Since I didn’t open it, not even I will know.
- ><<<<<< FREE HOLY WATER FROM LOURDES, FRANCE >>>>>>>>> s
— Lord love a spammer. - I love you! — Might be more interesting if it weren’t CCed to several people.
- the most affordable voice recognition software iyuuy — Soon with new spelling and capitalization checker!
- FW: Dave.hallaran please her like no other guignol finnoentflo — If only my name were Dave Hallaran. Or if I wanted to please her like no other guignol.
- Hi! Amateur lesbians! 0 — No thanks. I’ll wait for the professional ones.
- FWD: I’m sick of people laughing at me jklhi udd — Stop sending out spam. They’ll stop yelling at you, too.
- fat melts away, guaranteed 100% — Dude, I saw a Twilight Zone about that, once.
- bug bites no more? p aqdza fwbxx du — I’m getting a disturbing amount of spam about bug repellent these days.
- Cheap and high quality software development — Given that it’s sitting in a folder next to other “development” mail, I have my doubts.
- SmartSuite! Millennium! Edition V9.7 paulcook — For all of you who still think “millennium” means new and modern.
- how often do you find yourself saying: “i wish i knew how to get the lowest iinterest rate in forty years” vgmf yujfwcrm — Surprisingly, not all that often. Except the “vgmf yujfwcrm” part, but that’s only when I’m invoking the Elder Gods to drag all spammers down into the squamous bowels of Hell.
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Heh. “squamous” Good one. 🙂
Does anyone know why so many spams end with those nonsense character strings? Seems like an easy way to identify spam, at least by eye – and aren’t they trying desperately to seem like “legitimate” mail?
I believe those codes are used to identify responses. So, for example, if I send in a reply to the e-mail, the sender can tell which ad, precisely, got a rise out of me. Ditto for comparing different phrasing of ads, different spamming companies, etc. Sort of like those promotional codes on the backs of catalogs that they ask you to key in when you go online.
Granted, it also makes them stand out — though not in a way that’s easy for most spam detectors to detect (none of them, so far as I know, look for “misspelled” words as a clue, for obvious reasons). But since most spammers are only concerned about that 1-in-100,000 recipients who’s likely to open it regardless of the oddity of the subject line (“Oh, boy! A generic viagra!”), they probably don’t care that much.
>SmartSuite! Millennium! Edition V9.7 paulcook
This! sounds! really! cool!
So Dave…Don’t you just love it when your life imitates a http://www.gamespy.com/comics/dorktower/archive.asp?nextform=viewcomic&id=769 “target=”new”>Comic.
Man, I was looking for one of those “Fight spam with this software tool we’re spamming you about” spams, but hadn’t gotten any in a few days.