i know that a lot of spam emails have that weird text in it, all strung together, for whatever reason. what's the weirdest spam message text you've ever seen? what's that about, anyway? what's the purpose of all that randomly generated text?

this just came in my inbox.

"Subject: joyfulness vibrant
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2006 11:27:49 -0700
refinery
They are also slow to wake up when disturbed. They belong in the ocean. If you're selling diapers, get diapers. Got a huge tank for free!
SYS Not Found: User startup disabled. Got a huge tank for free! SYS Not Found: User startup disabled.
SYS Not Found: User startup disabled.
When we first started out, Google placement was our lifeblood. SYS Not Found: User startup disabled.
:: RE: White stringy stuff? That said, most SEO is common sense and it all starts with the domain name."

i mean, what is that? are they even selling anything? if i was DYING to give them money, i wouldn't even know how!

if i read that aloud, will it summon some dark spirit? will i die in seven days like in "the ring"?

what gives?!?

Feel Any Way, News Of Any Form- 6:36:06, (Pacific Time) December 1st, 2006.

Feel Any Way, News Of Any Form- 6:36:06, (Pacific Time) December 1st, 2006.
hang on.

http://www.inthe00s.com/index.php?topic=24148.msg1131985#msg1131985

randomly selected from my stuffed yahoo bulk folder.

The purpose is to confuse spam filters.

A blanket ban on the name of a certain little blue pill, for instance, would make it impossible for patients to talk to their doctors.

But it's a good bet that an email that names the blue pill in question, or a few other drugs, and contains a link to a website, and contains the words "Free" or "no doctor required", or "order online at", or "this is not spam", is... well... spam.

So - if you're a Bayesian spam filter, you look for patterns like those I've outlined, and you mark those sorts of phrases (and their n3arest equ1valents w1th the subst1tuti0n of letter$ for numbers) with certain hashed values, and you dump 'em, pre-emptively, as spam. 

And if you're a spammer, you (insert 300 lines of text grabbed from the front page of cnn.com or even a Shakespearean play) and reorganized semi-randomly, so that foos that are nouns look like nouns, and bars that are verbs foo in the right bazzes for batss in the baz), and you thereby "bust" the hash -- by making it look as if your spam was a legitimate piece of English-language text (featuring real words, and valid English grammar) as typed by a human being.

Once or twice a month, I'll go through my filters and page through the randomly-generated text.  90% of it is dreck.  9% of it is crap.  1% of it is surrealist poetry. 

Your homework, should you choose to accept it, is to run a Markov Chain generator against any text you like.  An explanation has been provided for the student, as well as at least one web-based implementation for those of you who don't feel like coding one up.

Your real homework is to find out who Markoff Chaney was, and to read the book in which he was a character.

interesting, thanks. i was really confused as to the purpose of that stuff.

this use of the word "foo" i'm unfamiliar with. although with your handle it's obviously significant.

interesting, thanks. i was really confused as to the purpose of that stuff.

this use of the word "foo" i'm unfamiliar with. although with your handle it's obviously significant.


'Ey, foo', keep off mah grass!

interesting, thanks. i was really confused as to the purpose of that stuff.

this use of the word "foo" i'm unfamiliar with. although with your handle it's obviously significant.


Once upon a time, I used to post as a guest, and I just punched in whatever names would get me through the form, using my preferred metasyntactic variables.  You  use metasyntactic variables  when you need to talk about something, but you don't care what that "something" actually is.  In industries where you have to talk about people with names, for instance, lawyers use "John Doe" in place of "some guy filing a lawsuit somewhere", because you can't show a class of law students what a proper court filing looks like without a name.  Similarly, other folks use "John Q. Public", and John Q. Public has been known to use "Joe Sixpack" or "John Smith".

Computer geeks, spending more time referring to things that aren't people, but within systems that require these "things" to still have "names", came up with foo, bar,
Foobar and a whole hierarchy of other words to use in place of variables.

The funny thing about "foo", is that nobody really knows what it means.  The appropriate thing about "foo" is that because nobody knows what it means, it's the perfect sort of word to use when you want a word that doesn't mean anything at all.  (There's a joke in there about recursion, too, which suits me fine :)

Once upon a time, I used to post as a guest, and I just punched in whatever names would get me through the form, using my preferred metasyntactic variables.  You  use metasyntactic variables  when you need to talk about something, but you don't care what that "something" actually is.  In industries where you have to talk about people with names, for instance, lawyers use "John Doe" in place of "some guy filing a lawsuit somewhere", because you can't show a class of law students what a proper court filing looks like without a name.  Similarly, other folks use "John Q. Public", and John Q. Public has been known to use "Joe Sixpack" or "John Smith".

Computer geeks, spending more time referring to things that aren't people, but within systems that require these "things" to still have "names", came up with foo, bar,
Foobar and a whole hierarchy of other words to use in place of variables.

The funny thing about "foo", is that nobody really knows what it means.  The appropriate thing about "foo" is that because nobody knows what it means, it's the perfect sort of word to use when you want a word that doesn't mean anything at all.  (There's a joke in there about recursion, too, which suits me fine :)


I always thought Foo Bar was FUBAR... just out loud.

I always thought Foo Bar was FUBAR... just out loud.


You may be right.  The urban legend I grew up with was that "FOOBAR" was a filename first used in place of "FUBAR" on a filesystem that required six-character (no more, no less) filenames.  I heard that in the early 80s.  It's certainly the closest phonetic equivalent to FUBAR, and if the guy who invented it (assuming the invention happened in the 60s and took 20 years and however many thousand miles to get around to where my tender ears heard it) had ever seen any of the earlier references to "Foo", it would certainly fit the hackish tradition (from the 50s forward) of using language as a way of layering joke upon joke, reference upon reference. 

I get those "Spam-beating" things all the time.. it seems to be random passages from a book.. I've seen the names 'Alex' and 'Rhonda' show up in 4-5 e-mails, but I never put the plot together... they just have random text, and then an attachment, usually a picture that says something about a sale.. I never download them, but I look at the preview in the G-mail window.

I love them.. I sometimes use them in songs or something. I got a few freaky ones once that said things like "The police don't know.. the fools destroyed their only evidence! What time will you be here?", but had similar attachments.

I've gotten them with no attachments ???  What's the purpose of those?

I've gotten them with no attachments ???  What's the purpose of those?


I speculate that these are either (b) spam runs from people who don't know what they're doing, (a) test runs, and (c) random failures in the spam botnets.

Explanation: Spam is sold in terms of messages delivered.  Some (smart) guy at the top of the pyramid contracts with a (smarter) guy in control of several million compromosed PCs - acting as a network of unwilling "robots", hence the term botnet - and when the contracts are signed, some (dumb) guy who's part of the (smart guy's) "downline" or who has otherwise bought into the (smart guy's) scam, pays his money to send his spam out by means of the hired botnet. ,

a) Some moron who's been conned into thinking he can make $1000s a day working at home in a legitimate home-based business sending exciting offers to opt-in subscribers forgets to attach his spam to the "send spam" message.  Yes, these people really are that stupid.

b) The (smarter guy running the botnet, typically a guy working for the Russian mob) wants to know how many messages he can send out per hour.  He fires off a bunch of "blank" spams. Maybe a certain type of "blank" spam prompts the compromised PC to phone home acknowledging its receipt.  I dunno.  I haven't taken a good look at many compromised machines nor researched worms/botnet clients in detail,, on account of I don't have much need to in my line of work. 

c) The (smart guy, typically an American, hawking a "money-making home-based business") to the suckers in (group a), running the scam, hiring suckers in (group a) to spam on his scam's behalf on the botnet pwn3d and operated by the Russian mobsters in (group b), has hired the botnet.  He's either running a test himself to see how many of his own email addresses get the spam, or, more likely, one of the suckers in (group a) has screwed up, or (less likely), one of the suckers in (group a) has done everything correctly, but the software that controls which messages get spammed out through the botnet has many intermittent bugs in it.  So for that run, one of the suckers that paid the guy in (group c) a whole pile of money is... out a whole pile of money.  Just as it would have been if the spam had actually gone out.

Spam has gotten to the point that it's honest-to-Dobbs organized crime.  It makes millions for those at the top of the pyramid.  It costs the suckers who voluntarily buy into it thousands.  It costs everyone else a few bucks per head, for a total cost to the economy of billions.  The sooner the top spammers on the planet are ... brought to justice (by means of the US courts, which would take care of many of them, and by *cough* extrajudicial means in the former Soviet Union and  present-day People's Republic of China), the sooner email would become a viable means of communication.  In the USSR and PRC, this could be accomplished by fewer than 100 bullets.  In the USA, this could be accomplished extraconstitutionally by fewer than 100 executive orders, and constitutioinally with a similar number of arrest warrants under the RICO statute, as most of the perps in the USA have priors for fraud.

That's my opinion.  For facts, check out ROKSO.  Fewer than 200 organizations are responsible for 80% of the dreck that saturates your inbox.

dude, what i take away from this is that spy anti-spam vigilantism is a kick-A novel, video game, or movie waiting to be made.

dude, what i take away from this is that spy anti-spam vigilantism is a kick-A novel, video game, or movie waiting to be made.


I've been told to make a sitcom based around my life and things that happen to me. Is this a good idea?

Things that happen to me :
My grandma lives in a place for people who can't take care of themselves, because she has schizophrenia. Last time I visited her, a patient there whipped my butt with her fingers... 'Twas a pathetic spank.

I got left alone at my dad's girlfriend's house for six hours last Saturday, and her fat, tail-less cat wouldn't stop following me.

I have talks on MSN about me wearing dresses.

And my retarted uncle tried to get me to sing opera while topless....


... And these are all 100% true.

I've been told to make a sitcom based around my life and things that happen to me. Is this a good idea?

Things that happen to me :
My grandma lives in a place for people who can't take care of themselves, because she has schizophrenia. Last time I visited her, a patient there whipped my butt with her fingers... 'Twas a pathetic spank.

I got left alone at my dad's girlfriend's house for six hours last Saturday, and her fat, tail-less cat wouldn't stop following me.

I have talks on MSN about me wearing dresses.

And my retarted uncle tried to get me to sing opera while topless....


... And these are all 100% true.
sounds pretty cool to me. did you ever see "soap"? 70s sitcom, a little bit after this idea but not close enough that it would seem derivative. sorta this house full of really eccentric people, as i recall. and it was pretty clever and funny. you should netflix a couple eps of soap or see if there's any on youtube, it might give you some inspiration.

i'm thinking more like straight-up action espionage, russian mafia vs. vigilante anti-spam dudes who decide to take the law into their own hands. in later seasons they can add bizarro x-files stuff about secret messages for aliens/communists/racist separatist organizations/military intelligence implanted in the weird spam email  randomness.

i'm thinking more like straight-up action espionage, russian mafia vs. vigilante anti-spam dudes who decide to take the law into their own hands. in later seasons they can add bizarro x-files stuff about secret messages for aliens/communists/racist separatist organizations/military intelligence implanted in the weird spam email  randomness.


I should hope this would be a campy satire, right?

That wouldn't fly as the next 007 flick, but it'd be a nice new "Spy Hard"

We could call it "Spam Hard"?

I should hope this would be a campy satire, right?

That wouldn't fly as the next 007 flick, but it'd be a nice new "Spy Hard"

We could call it "Spam Hard"?
dude! that would be the trick! you'd go into something like that thinking, oh, it's stupid, right? it's about fighting spam, it would have to be like naked gun 2 1/2. but then you actually make it balls on wicked bad ass, with plot twists and ever-deepening labyrinths of intrigue and 20-minute-long awe-inspiring action sequences.

anything involving the chinese and the russian mafia i think you could pull it off and make it serious and cool. the spam thing would be like, just, the gateway into the real story. i'm a big admirer of the russian mafia, they're very spooky. :o

dude! that would be the trick! you'd go into something like that thinking, oh, it's stupid, right? it's about fighting spam, it would have to be like naked gun 2 1/2. but then you actually make it balls on wicked bad ass, with plot twists and ever-deepening labyrinths of intrigue and 20-minute-long awe-inspiring action sequences.

anything involving the chinese and the russian mafia i think you could pull it off and make it serious and cool. the spam thing would be like, just, the gateway into the real story. i'm a big admirer of the russian mafia, they're very spooky. :o


Perhaps there shouldn't be any physical action? Heart-pulsing finger action, where we trace links through e-mail and all that. Sit on the edge of your seats while you watch people read and type!

Perhaps there shouldn't be any physical action? Heart-pulsing finger action, where we trace links through e-mail and all that. Sit on the edge of your seats while you watch people read and type!
naw man! you'd have some of that, but then intrigue in the streets of st. petersburg! trying to work your way up the pyramid to find the spam head honcho! the spam bottom-feeders who turn state's evidence and then die mysteriously ON THE STAND while giving testimony! silencers! fast-acting untraceable poisons! beautiful female spies!

i'm getting really excited.

naw man! you'd have some of that, but then intrigue in the streets of st. petersburg! trying to work your way up the pyramid to find the spam head honcho! the spam bottom-feeders who turn state's evidence and then die mysteriously ON THE STAND while giving testimony! silencers! fast-acting untraceable poisons! beautiful female spies!



Can the head honcho be like Jabba the Hutt?

He could be a big fat guy constantly being waited on, making diabolical plans!

Can the head honcho be like Jabba the Hutt?

He could be a big fat guy constantly being waited on, making diabolical plans!
he should be really tall, skinny, and have some physical disfigurement. he slaughters his underlings with complete impunity and his eyes should be different colors.

dude. check it.

you could use stuff like this to trigger brainwashed assassins, send coded deployment orders to UN troops lying in wait to overthrow the government... OR, if you were a good guy imbedded in the spam organization, you could sneak little messages into stuff like this to tell the anti-spam activists how to exploit vulnerabilities in the russian-chinese-al-qaeda spam organization. just like the french underground!

i'm serious, with some imagination you could make this really kick.

"Yes, you need to take into account the costs of context switching when you interrupt someone's work. In all cases, it's locked.
Let me tell you a secret about management consulting companies and software organizations. Raoul Wallenberg is the only other Honourary Canadian Citizen.
The two icons, I think, are shortcuts to menu items.
Less choice, less pain. The only way Microsoft has managed to hire so many people has been by lowering their hiring standards significantly. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. " They could be trivially merged.
It is usually pronounced like the English X but softer, often. It is usually pronounced like the English X but softer, often. It's not supposed to be about rigid programming teams who are so slavishly devoted to their Two Week Plans that they can't rearrange their schedule a bit to serve the needs of the customer. It provides a small box at the bottom right of a search window, with links to the same search at other major search engines.
Being able to do mentally difficult things like context switching makes our product better. The only way Microsoft has managed to hire so many people has been by lowering their hiring standards significantly. So they can check in as often as they want, only merging up when they feel that their code is stable.
Less choice, less pain. Less choice, less pain. The two icons, I think, are shortcuts to menu items. One more option gone. When you go into this mode, the computer flips to the "Switch User" screen. When you go into this mode, the computer flips to the "Switch User" screen. But it was still the right decision to make. , as a counter-reaction, you don't check in very often, which clearly is bad, since now you don't have a good delta history of what you did. It is usually pronounced like the English X but softer, often. The only way Microsoft has managed to hire so many people has been by lowering their hiring standards significantly.
They pay for the initial study. Generally, the more disciplined teams were about quality, the faster and more frequently they'd RI. But by most definitions, Spanish has fewer words.
If your tools support it, you can even have private branches for every developer.
This Is Why Programmers Get The Big Bucks. "

You know Mike, when the government takes you prisoner because you "know" too much, I'll come visit you.

You know Mike, when the government takes you prisoner because you "know" too much, I'll come visit you.
i was told they'd be sending you.

i was told they'd be sending you.



*looks around*


We didn't speak.

the subjct line of a spam email i got today:

The experience convinced her not to stray off the path of heterosexuality and she went to successfully marry a man and have his babies.

??? ??? ???

the subjct line of a spam email i got today:

The experience convinced her not to stray off the path of heterosexuality and she went to successfully marry a man and have his babies.

??? ??? ???


So they're offering you a "cure" for your Lesbianism?

So they're offering you a "cure" for your Lesbianism?


Does Mike need a cure for lesbianism?

Does Mike need a cure for lesbianism?



He's not a lesbian. ;D

the body of the email was almost as weird.

"If you watched the movies National Velvet and International Velvet, you will know that the star in each instance was the fabric, not the horse or its rider. ) The following code shows the implementation of this procedure (with much important error handling code omitted). A JobWorker is responsible for retrieving data related to MSDN content and adding it to the system via the data-submission messaging infrastructure."

i mean what the hell? i don't even know what they're trying to sell me.

" Best solution for your penis problems."

Subject: play browser major lead


Body:

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While rolling stone, wrote several kiddiefunk jams serve up?

This is my best yet

Title: VSE na pokupku pingvinov

body text:

pingvin

Subject: play browser major lead


Body:

"Will grace, titled buy closeted lesbian posing!
S"

there's repressed lesbianism again! what's with spammers and repressed lesbianism?

This is my best yet

Title: VSE na pokupku pingvinov

body text:

pingvin
wtf? is that polish? or klingon?

it's the language those little monkeys spoke on land of the lost, right?

Subject: Re: it cough my tequila

Message: I could not help glancing round, in search of the accommodation for whom he had a high respect.  I had been telling her all that
the butterflies, in a white chip bonnet and a dress of celestial more, but was to rest wholly on my own heart?  How did that fall?

" Best solution for your penis problems."


Was It Viagra or Cialis?

Subject: Any new idea


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Was It Viagra or Cialis?
i dont ever look at those. i dont really have that problem. actually, not to get all TMI, but i have the opposite problem.

i'm also a very good speed reader!

i dont ever look at those. i dont really have that problem. actually, not to get all TMI, but i have the opposite problem.

i'm also a very good speed reader!



Priapism is so sexy.


You're a good speed reader?  Really?  I thought we had one of those here already.............

i also have independently movable toes. :D

i also have independently movable toes. :D



So do I!!  How totally freakin' awesome!!

I've been told to make a sitcom based around my life and things that happen to me. Is this a good idea?

Things that happen to me :
My grandma lives in a place for people who can't take care of themselves, because she has schizophrenia. Last time I visited her, a patient there whipped my butt with her fingers... 'Twas a pathetic spank.

I got left alone at my dad's girlfriend's house for six hours last Saturday, and her fat, tail-less cat wouldn't stop following me.

I have talks on MSN about me wearing dresses.

And my retarted uncle tried to get me to sing opera while topless....


... And these are all 100% true.
Put the cat on a diet.I can't tell you what to do about the rest. :)

I get tons of spam from people either telling me I have some long lost relative who died, and I inherit some large sum of money or that I've won the UK National lottery

The strange thing is that all the names of the people who send the e-mails are all like foreign names that are hard to pronounce ???

I get tons of spam from people either telling me I have some long lost relative who died, and I inherit some large sum of money or that I've won the UK National lottery


Ah, advance fee fraud, better known as 419 scams!  I remember getting these in the 80s (and I'm told, the 70s) by snail-mail.  Then e-mail showed up, and the spammers took over.

Because "messing with organized criminals" offends Father Darwin, I don't recommend anyone actually play "baiting" games with 419ers, but I sure enjoy the heck out of reading about the 99% of people who manage to safely get away with it at 419 Eater!

What does it mean when someone has "Tagged you"?  I get that sometimes.

I get tons of spam from people either telling me I have some long lost relative who died, and I inherit some large sum of money or that I've won the UK National lottery

The strange thing is that all the names of the people who send the e-mails are all like foreign names that are hard to pronounce ???



Me too,How do they do that?  ???

I just had a job offer from Micheal Douglas

I just had a job offer from Micheal Douglas
Tell us more?

Tell us more?


turned out to be a different Micheal Douglas!  I've deleted the e-mail now but it was selling stock options from home

turned out to be a different Micheal Douglas!  I've deleted the e-mail now but it was selling stock options from home
Enough said,