[UA] more evil spam techniques, now with subliminal messages!

[Alex Duncan]

Being that I read my mail in a text console, I don't get annoyed by spam
too much-- anything that comes in as html only, or in a foreign
encoding, normally just gets tossed unread.  (Of course, I still use up
the bandwidth to download them in the first place, but that isn't
killing me-- yet.)  Every so often, though, just for laughs, I take one
of the ones in html and scan its source.

Just now, I ran across this diabolical specimen of filter-evasion.  It's
the standard "let us know this is a live address by clicking on this
'remove me!' link", but just about every word has been broken up by an
invisible tag with a random word inserted.  Thus:

<p>I<!--carlisle-->f yo<!--hilly-->u wou<!--volstead-->ld n<!--fix-->ot lik<!--cartwheel-->e t<!--harley-->o rec<!--portmanteau-->eive fut<!--muskoxen-->ure of<!--rim-->fers a<!--beginning-->nd prom<!--whirlwind-->otions, or be<!--bleary-->lieve you have rec<!--hasty-->eived this commun<!--tang-->ication in error, you may <a href="http://pcsoft.6oo6le.com:8888/weblinks/remv.html">purge your em<!--blameworthy-->ail add<!--oppressor-->ress from our dat<!--skullduggery-->abase</a>.</p>

Love the 'blameworthy'-'oppressor'-'skullduggery' there at the end.  The
voice of the Random Number God...

ObUA:  A plutomancer spamlord has found a ritual of compulsion, and is
experimenting with ways of invisibly embedding it into email...


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