There seems to be some new spam software in use. Julia <random last name> keeps telling me about her new webcam, how much she wants to date me and wants to know when I want to visit. These spams started February 1. I’ve had 179 caught by my MUA filters, and 152 caught by spamassassin (SA score >7 are filtered to a special account).
This is exactly the type of pattern that causes people to write filters that years later people look at and ask why someone thought this was a reasonable marker for spam.
The good folks over at MailChimp have examined some of the scoring rules that their clients trigger. They found some “Julia” type markers. Some oddities they reported on:
[…] Like poorly coded HTML (spammers are notoriously bad coders). Or my personal favorite, using Microsoft Front Page. Ha. Also, simply using the word “Oprah” will get you a few points (for the record, the spam filters probably have nothing against Oprah—methinks her name is just used a lot by spammers). […] The phrase, “extra inches” […] Dear FNAME […] “Stop Further Distribution” […] “You registered with a partner” […]
Soon to be added: your first name is Julia!
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