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by Mike Masnick


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Construct Your Own Spam Email

from the going-a-bit-far-on-the-variable-choices dept

By now, you've probably received at least a few spam emails that include some sort of broken variable, usually in the greeting, saying something like "Dear {FirstName}" where you realize that the spam program didn't properly pull your first name out of a list, but left the variable name in its place. However, it appears that one spammer has taken this to a new extreme, and has filled an entire spam list not just with variables, but the set of choices to fill in large parts of the spam itself. It's sort of like spam Mad Libs, but with limited choices. Here's just a taste:

<"Hello"|"Hi"|"Hi there"|"Good day">

I <"hope"|"sincerely hope"|"wish"> this message finds you in a great <"spirit"|"mood">. <"For a start"|"First"|"First of all"> <"I would"|"I'd"> like to <"congratulate"|"welcome"> you on this <"offer"|"opportunity"> because our <"association"|"company"|"corporation"> just got your contact and your <"brief"|"short"> profile through an <"email"|"web"> listing affiliated with <"the UK Chamber of Commerce"|"Monster"|"Careerbuilder"|"Yahoo Jobs"|"Google Jobs"|"HotJobs">
It's not clear how the different choices really make much of a difference in the email, but perhaps it helps fool some spam filters by varying the basic text somewhat.

10 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 

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  1. Total Variants

    by Jim Bob - Feb 23rd, 2007 @ 1:15pm

    When I saw this email yesterday I was surprised at the number of fields being randomized and I just had to calculate the unique variations. The result: 48,693,796,581,408,800! Yep, more than 48 quadrillion variations possible from this one email.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  2. Re: Total Variants

    by Hulser - Feb 23rd, 2007 @ 1:44pm

    48 quadrillion, eh? Hmmm, I think you're off by about 48 quadrillion, give or take.

    4 * 3 * 2 * 3 * 2 * 2 * 2 * 3 * 2 * 2 * 6 = 41,472

    Just sayin'.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  3. Re: Re: Total Variants

    by Anonymous Cowardess - Feb 23rd, 2007 @ 1:52pm

    I think he's probably talking about the whole e-mail, not just the excerpt here.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  4. Sweet

    by TheDock22 - Feb 23rd, 2007 @ 1:55pm

    Oh how nice of the spammers. Now I get a near personalized e-mail trying to sell me something! I will treasure it always...

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  5. Re: Total Variants

    by DittoBox - Feb 23rd, 2007 @ 1:56pm

    You have too much time on your hands.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  6. Re: Re: Total Variants

    by MathemaGician?! - Feb 23rd, 2007 @ 2:07pm

    Yup. I hate it when people spend time calculating stuff I can never dream of calculating. (read: sarcasm).

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  7. Re: Re: Re: Total Variants

    by Anonymous Coward - Feb 23rd, 2007 @ 4:52pm

    tru

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  8. Re: I will treasure it always

    by Lawrence D'Oliveiro - Feb 24th, 2007 @ 5:29pm

    This one's going straight to the pool room. :)

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  9. Net Experiments

    by Net Experiments - Mar 9th, 2007 @ 10:22pm

    This blog is started as a web experiment to record spam emails. net.experiments.post@blogger.com

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  10. hey

    by Pedro brachara - Apr 10th, 2007 @ 1:42pm

    i love this

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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