From skip at pobox.com  Mon Jan  4 00:14:33 2010
From: skip at pobox.com (skip at pobox.com)
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2010 17:14:33 -0600
Subject: [spambayes-dev] Interesting Google Alerts output
Message-ID: <19265.9433.89601.260963@montanaro.dyndns.org>

I've had a Google Alerts search set up for SpamBayes for quite awhile.
Recently, I've begun getting output such as this
>>>>> "ga" == Google Alerts <googlealerts-noreply at google.com> writes:

    ga> === Google Blogs Alert for: SpamBayes ===

    ga> 71544 | Panthershoes12.ezua.com
    ga> By admin
    ga> Test and Computations per 14 CFR 21.303 and Aero Parts Mart Dwg. Author:
    ga> haypo: Recipients: Rhamphoryncus, ola, gregory.p.smith, haypo, jcea,
    ga> pitrou, sserrano: Date: 2008-08-20.14:06:15: SpamBayes Score: 0.0847759
    ga> Manufactured by Wiha. ...
    ga> <http://panthershoes12.ezua.com/2010/01/71544/>
    ga> Panthershoes12.ezua.com
    ga> <http://panthershoes12.ezua.com/>

    ga> 72872 | Divisionshoes15.25u.com
    ga> By admin
    ga> Author: ncoghlan: Recipients: barry, erson, non, exarkun, ncoghlan, pitrou:
    ga> Date: 2008-09-09.15:29:38: SpamBayes Score: 1.17516e-10: Marked as
    ga> misclassified Christopher Bibbo, DO, DPM Marshfield Center 1000 N OAK AVE
    ga> MARSHFIELD, ...
    ga> <http://divisionshoes15.25u.com/2010/01/72872/>
    ga> Divisionshoes15.25u.com
    ga> <http://divisionshoes15.25u.com/>

Note that it appears to be some sort of mailing list archive, though look at
the date in the message and the apparent date in the URL.  Whenever I click
the links given I get a 403 Forbidden response.  Both ezua.com and 25u.com
seem to be owned by ChangeIP.com (also jkub.com, which appears in another
search result not shown above).  Their homepages advertise free dynamic dns.
If this is some sort of spam setup it's hard for me to see how the spammers
might benefit from it.

Skip

From skip at pobox.com  Sat Jan  9 16:53:10 2010
From: skip at pobox.com (skip at pobox.com)
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 09:53:10 -0600
Subject: [spambayes-dev] Option to pass messages through Google Translate?
Message-ID: <19272.42598.21506.131803@montanaro.dyndns.org>


Crazy idea for the day...

I wonder if it would make sense to add an option to pass incoming messages
(or just message bodies) through Google Translate before scoring and
training?  This thought occurred to me just now while composing a message to
the moderators of the new pyiran-organizers mailing list.  Most of the
messages are probably written in Persian/Farsi.  I just translated a message
using Google Translate telling it to figure out the input language.  While
the translation has the usual grammatical problems that make us snigger at
its abilities it seems that it would certainly work well as SpamBayes input.

Skip