[spambayes-dev] Media enquiry

[skip at pobox.com]

    >> I'm currently writing a column in PC Authority magazine
    >> (www.pcauthority.com.au <http://www.pcauthority.com.au/> ) on the new
    >> wave of spam that use randomised or semi-randomised words to confound
    >> Bayesian filters.

    Anthony> I can take this, cos it's in my timezone, if no-one else wants
    Anthony> to. I figure the key point about the random word spam is that
    Anthony> it's just trying to overwhelm the bayesian filters. Personally,
    Anthony> I'm finding them _slightly_ effective (2 or 3 a day slip
    Anthony> through if they hit the right words) but not significantly more
    Anthony> than that. Fundamentally, they still have to put words in that
    Anthony> sell a product, and that screws them over.

The random word spam generally relies on the fact that the actual message is
in the attached GIF image.  It's not so much that the random words are
defeating the filter.  It's more that not enough useful tokens are being
extracted from the image.  Hence the move toward OCR approaches.  Spammers
evolve.  Spam filters evolve.

Skip