[Spambayes] Spam in Images

[Coe, Bob]

> From: spambayes-bounces+rcoe=cambridgema.gov at python.org 
> [mailto:spambayes-bounces+rcoe=cambridgema.gov at python.org] On 
> Behalf Of skip at pobox.com
> Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2006 11:55 PM
> To: Peter Barker
> Cc: spambayes at python.org
> Subject: Re: [Spambayes] Spam in Images
> 
> 
> Peter> For my spam and non-spam, a good indicator is that I very
seldom
> Peter> receive non-spam messages with a .gif image attached
(attachments
> Peter> are usually .jpg or various document types). And if a wanted
mail
> Peter> has a .gif attachment it has much more text than the usual
> Peter> gibberish in the spam messages (because it is usually just a
> Peter> company logo or similar, and not essential to the message). So
if
> Peter> spambayes can score attachment type and text size it may help.
> 
> True, but for those people with correspondents who do send 
> them mail with image attachments ("Subject: Cute pictures of 
> my new granddaughter"), the presence or absence of images may 
> fall around the middle and thus either not be used at all, or 
> only provide a negligible bump in one direction or the other.

But Peter's point is that a picture of somebody's granddaughter won't be
a GIF image; it will be a JPEG. Digital cameras don't use GIF, and
hardly anybody else does either. Except spammers, who presumably care
less about image quality than about file size.

I suppose the result of scoring GIF images as spam will be that spammers
will switch to JPEG. But anything that makes their lives more
complicated is all to the good.