Slightly Off KIlter

Spam is a plague, a disaster, a dreadful ramification of the Information Age, a torrential onslaught on the email inboxes of all right-thinking and innocent people. It can also, on occasion, be fun. Sometimes we have to take our amusement where we find it.

One of my "favorite" recent spam techniques is the effort to which some spammers go to prevent spam catching software from (correctly!) identifying their misbegotten drivel as, well… spam. They obfuscate the subject; the obfuscate the body. Sometimes they go to such extremes of obfuscation that one wonders what they had in mind originally!

For example, I recently received this in my Inbox:

    Subject: of oysters in huge

There's something both oddly surreal and compelling about it. I feel I should sit and meditate on the hidden meanings. Or something.

The body was considerably less interesting, a typical m o rrtgage [sic] "offer". They should have stopped while they were ahead.

Then there's the rather interesting ploy of filling most of the message with miscellaneous vocabulary. Some of the words are pretty cool too: cyclotomic, siltstone, potbelly, butadiene, eigenvector, hornblende, cromwellian.

A friend of mine turned one of these into a poem of sorts; He wrote:

This tag line was at the top of a recent spam. I actually like it.

"disturb, crossbar in three, clown, embellishing the story, bellflower, out the back, doubloon, hear pigeons cooing, cheater, the tired doctor."

Formatted like this, it becomes a poem:

Disturb: crossbar in three.
Clown, embellishing the story; bellflower.
Out the back, doubloon. Hear pigeons cooing?
Cheater—the tired doctor.

What it might mean is anyone's guess, which is why it would probably win an award.

The same friend found more fun here:

Honest, this was the subject:

    Subject: tomato lunatics around 755

Seems like some interesting file permissions command…

and again

Today's email appears to advise that a move to Canada would be a good thing:

    Subject: No one can shape your destiny but yourself manitoba

It also asks the rhetorical question:

    Q. What did the blonde say when she saw the banana peel on thefloor?

…but it provides no further information. Perhaps the answer lies north of the 49th parallel?

(The email is attempting to sell medication, but its amusement factor is better.)

My personal favorite to date is this marvelous example of misdirected targeted spam.

Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 21:43:36 +0900
To: "aquarium-discussion@lists..."
Subject: [Aquarium-discussion] fixing miniature fish globe and flower pot {-0.1}
DEAR LADY AND GENTLEMAN,
WE ARE VERY GLAD TO KNOW YOU AND YOUR ESTEEMED FIRM.
THE REASON WHY WE SEND THIS MESSAGE IS THAT WE HAVE FINISHED DEVELOPING THE
FIXING MINIATURE FISH GLBOE AND FLOWER POT.
...

Don't you just love the little cutaway apartment showing all the places to put the things? The mind boggles.

The spammer actually made a reasonable guess, based on the name of the list he sent his advertisement to. Unfortunately, in this case, "Aquarium" does not apply to fish. Rather, it's the name of a web application framework. Still, the advertiser should get points for trying!