Spam Developments

Just took a look in my spam folder the other day. I do that every so often to see if I have any false positives that I would like to read. Anyways; pretty quickly I realized that the appearance of spam has changed rather a lot lately.

In 'previous times' few if any spam had proper From-fields with names, only with very suspicious looking e-mail addresses of the xqt34ywsed@hotmail.com kind. I used to be able to spot a spam on the From-field alone. The same story goes to the message subject. Words like VIAGRA was spelled out in full capitals, so any spam that one did not automatically detect on the sending address one would spot on subject.

In the new era things are not as easy. Spammers learn (allthough not very fast). It would seem to be that theories of Darwin could be applied -- survival of the fittest. In the spam business that would equate to the better chameleon. The one that creates spam that is hard to distinguish from ordinary e-mail. From-fields now concealed with proper names (often female names). Subjects often very cute and made to attact attention without being 'spam-ish'.

Examples: From: Helene Galvan - Subject: did you loose your keyes From: Elena Sullivan - Subject: Your Assignment.

When you open the e-mail it is ordinary spam. Easy to see that. But still. I have to open the e-mail to see it. It is annoying. So even if my SpamAssassin setup sorts it into the spam folder I still check it -- simply because it might be a real e-mail. Frustrating.

Anyways; if I get some hours without a lot to do I will try to study my recent catch of spam to see how it measures up with regards to average score etc. My theory is that the average has decreased, effectively making it harder to distinguish between spam and non-spam. Theory is backed up by the fact that more e-mail come in as false negatives, polluting my inboxes...

Posted by ludvig at July 13, 2003 02:31 AM | TrackBack