woensdag 18 juli 2007

Spam with Typos: Why Do They All Have Spelling Errors?

A friend asked me: I don't get it. Why do spammers have such a hard time spelling things properly? I get mail trying to sell me "viagggra", increase my "brest" size, or save me money accessing "pr0n" sites or buying "seks toys". Even more puzzling, there are plenty of spam messages where it takes me a few minutes to even figure out what the subject actually is, with subjects like "sa vem oneyo n vviiiaaagra" or similar. What's the story? Why can't these people use a spell checking program??

I have often wondered this myself, with spam messages like "YOU JUST WONT A GREENCARD" (don't they mean "won"?), "Morgage ref id last opportunity" (don't they mean "mortgage")? and, my favorite "earn a college degre instantly" (they presumably mean "degree", but if they can't spell the word degree, how can I have confidence in the legitimacy of what they're offering??)

But anyone who has spent more than about five minutes looking at the problem and attempted solutions to spam knows why there are such rampant misspellings: to try and sidestep spam filters. In additional to individual spam filtering systems, there are now many Internet Service Providers who filter your email before it even gets to your mailbox, weeding out the most idiotic and easily recognized of this junk.

Of course, if you are a physician and have patients who are concerned about that Merck Vioxx prescription you wrote for them two years ago, it is theoretically possible that their message won't make it to you. If you're a mortgage broker, well, news of your competitors offerings might be something you do want to receive. But overall, most people don't want this

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