Spam "keywords"?
Much of the spam I've been getting lately contains the same words I've used in my own emails.
For example, I'll send an email addressed to someone named Jones. The next day I'll get an email with "Jones" in the heading.
Or, I'll send an email in which I talk about Florida. The next day I get a spam mail with "Florida" as one of the words in the text.
Does this mean that some bot is scanning my emails?
OtterBob posted this at 19:58 — 21st July 2004.
He has: 46 posts
Joined: Jun 2004
In the words of Bugs Bunny, "ehhh, could be". What e-mail service are you using?
Abhishek Reddy posted this at 20:42 — 21st July 2004.
He has: 3,348 posts
Joined: Jul 2001
I could be a bot at the receiver's end. See which contact addresses you get spammed for (all?).
rtroxel posted this at 20:43 — 21st July 2004.
He has: 286 posts
Joined: Mar 2003
Comcast, which has a lousy reputation for spam.
Busy posted this at 22:22 — 21st July 2004.
He has: 6,151 posts
Joined: May 2001
send your self an email (from same account) with some weird words in it, something like
Hey Belly,
how is belly button fluff today, bely fluf buton ?
thanks
button
and see if you get any spam with the silly key words used.
It might not work if the words are too weird, they might have to match them to spam topics
rtroxel posted this at 22:46 — 21st July 2004.
He has: 286 posts
Joined: Mar 2003
I'm going to try that. Thanks.
rtroxel posted this at 17:57 — 3rd August 2004.
He has: 286 posts
Joined: Mar 2003
I ran three anti-bot programs this morning: AdAware, SpyBot and ZeroSpyWare.
I found one piece of malicious software called CWS.SearchX. It created or modified the file (in XP) C:\windows\system32\fxssvc.exe.
Fxssvc.exe is the name of XP's fax driver, so maybe the bot activates when you try to send a fax.
According to ZeroSpyware, it hijacks the user's browser, sets the start and search pages to about:blank and keeps a record of pages visited in a logfile in the root directory.
I think "legal" ad cookies do this as well. I guess it's a matter of who uses the information and how the use it?
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