Take a Fantasy Cruise with Me!

[Katrina]

Hi again,

it's me Katrina from Ecstasea Yacht Charter. Just wanted to say thanks for pre-registering
with us and we wanted to let you know that we are now up and running! I can't
wait to see you on deck with me and my girlfriends! In case you don't remember
how to reach me, you can go to the website below to make discreet reservations...

We'll have a great time!

xoxo- Katrina

[url]http://EcstaseaYachtCharter.com[/url]

[Daniel Carrera]

Is it me, or is spam getting really hard to catch these days?

This spam email has almost nothing "spammy" about it. The only SA rule that this
hit was BAYES (which shows how powerful Bayes is). I just added rules for the
words "fantasy" and "register", but I have to give them low scores because they
might occur in legitimate mail.

Sigh.
Daniel.

On Mon, Aug 04, 2003 at 04:37:56PM +0900, Katrina wrote:

> Hi again,
>
> it's me Katrina from Ecstasea Yacht Charter. Just wanted to say thanks for
> pre-registering
> with us and we wanted to let you know that we are now up and running! I can't
> wait to see you on deck with me and my girlfriends! In case you don't remember
> how to reach me, you can go to the website below to make discreet reservations...
>
> We'll have a great time!
>
> xoxo- Katrina
>
> [url]http://EcstaseaYachtCharter.com[/url]

--
Daniel Carrera | PGP: 6643 8C8B 3522 66CB D16C D779 2FDD 7DAC 9AF7 7A88
Math PhD. UMD | [url]http://www.math.umd.edu/~dcarrera/pgp.html[/url]

* * * * * Weekly Smile * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Sign in a hotel in Athens:
Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours
of 9 and 11 A.M. daily.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

[Brian Candler]

On Mon, Aug 04, 2003 at 04:54:56PM +0900, Daniel Carrera wrote:

> Is it me, or is spam getting really hard to catch these days?

Yes; because more people are using spam filters, the spammers are adapting
their messages to bypass them. This is an arms race which I have not bought
into.

And now, just to trigger your spam filter, I am going to write:

int main(void)
{
register int fantasy;
}

Regards,

Brian.

[Hal E. Fulton]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Carrera" <dcarrera@math.umd.edu>
To: "ruby-talk ML" <ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org>
Sent: Monday, August 04, 2003 2:54 AM
Subject: Re: Take a Fantasy Cruise with Me!

> Is it me, or is spam getting really hard to catch these days?
> This spam email has almost nothing "spammy" about it. The only SA rule

that

> this hit was BAYES (which shows how powerful Bayes is). I just added

rules

> for the > words "fantasy" and "register", but I have to give them low

scores

> because they might occur in legitimate mail.

My fantasy is that 200 more people will register for the
Ruby Conference in Austin in November.

:)
Hal

--
Hal Fulton
[email]hal9000@hypermetrics.com[/email]

> Sigh.
> Daniel.
>
> On Mon, Aug 04, 2003 at 04:37:56PM +0900, Katrina wrote:

> > Hi again,
> >
> > it's me Katrina from Ecstasea Yacht Charter. Just wanted to say thanks

for

> > pre-registering
> > with us and we wanted to let you know that we are now up and running! I

can't

> > wait to see you on deck with me and my girlfriends! In case you don't

remember

> > how to reach me, you can go to the website below to make discreet

reservations...

> >
> > We'll have a great time!
> >
> > xoxo- Katrina
> >
> > [url]http://EcstaseaYachtCharter.com[/url]

>
> --
> Daniel Carrera | PGP: 6643 8C8B 3522 66CB D16C D779 2FDD 7DAC 9AF7 7A88
> Math PhD. UMD | [url]http://www.math.umd.edu/~dcarrera/pgp.html[/url]
>
> * * * * * Weekly Smile * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
> Sign in a hotel in Athens:
> Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours
> of 9 and 11 A.M. daily.
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>
>

[Ben Giddings]

On Mon August 4 2003 10:18 pm, Clifford Heath wrote:

> "make.*reservation"
> "thanks for.*regist"

On this list I can easily imagine seeing:

Ruby Conference 2003 is rapidly approaching. If you'd like to make a
reservation, talk to me, if you've already registered, thanks for your
registration.

The rules in Spam Assasin are pretty good though. They nail most of the
nigerian scams, etc. that I see. Mostly they seem to do it based on
malformed / forged headers too, something that is much more clearly a marking
of a spam system, but harder for people to spot.

It's just that it's always so hard to eliminate the false positives.

Oh well, the good news is that there finally is a real-world purpose to good
AI programs.

Ben

[Seth Kurtzberg]

For those who are interested, I've put this exchange through spambayes
and spamassassin for comparison purposes. Spambayes produced zero
false positives, putting the questionable messages into "unsure".

On Monday, August 4, 2003, at 07:40 PM, Ben Giddings wrote:

> On Mon August 4 2003 10:18 pm, Clifford Heath wrote:

>> "make.*reservation"
>> "thanks for.*regist"

>
> On this list I can easily imagine seeing:
>
> Ruby Conference 2003 is rapidly approaching. If you'd like to make a
> reservation, talk to me, if you've already registered, thanks for
> your
> registration.
>
> The rules in Spam Assasin are pretty good though. They nail most of
> the
> nigerian scams, etc. that I see. Mostly they seem to do it based on
> malformed / forged headers too, something that is much more clearly a
> marking
> of a spam system, but harder for people to spot.
>
> It's just that it's always so hard to eliminate the false positives.
>
> Oh well, the good news is that there finally is a real-world purpose
> to good
> AI programs.
>
> Ben
>
>
>
>

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Seth Kurtzberg
CTO
ISEC Research and Network Operations Center
480-314-1540
888-879-5206
[email]seth@isec.us[/email]
-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Phil Tomson]

In article <200308042240.22031.ben@thingmagic.com>,
Ben Giddings <ben@thingmagic.com> wrote:

>On Mon August 4 2003 10:18 pm, Clifford Heath wrote:

>> "make.*reservation"
>> "thanks for.*regist"

>
>On this list I can easily imagine seeing:
>
> Ruby Conference 2003 is rapidly approaching. If you'd like to make a
> reservation, talk to me, if you've already registered, thanks for your
> registration.
>

Yeah, but I notice that you couldn't imagine seeing the word 'girlfriend'
show up in a message to this list ;-)

Phil

[Ben Giddings]

On Tuesday, August 5, 2003, at 12:38 AM, Phil Tomson wrote:

> In article <200308042240.22031.ben@thingmagic.com>,
> Ben Giddings <ben@thingmagic.com> wrote:

>> On Mon August 4 2003 10:18 pm, Clifford Heath wrote:

>>> "make.*reservation"
>>> "thanks for.*regist"

>>
>> On this list I can easily imagine seeing:
>>
>> Ruby Conference 2003 is rapidly approaching. If you'd like to make a
>> reservation, talk to me, if you've already registered, thanks for
>> your
>> registration.

>
> Yeah, but I notice that you couldn't imagine seeing the word
> 'girlfriend'
> show up in a message to this list ;-)

Aha! It just did. And besides, the regular expression wasn't just
"girlfriend" (which might show up) but "with.*my girlfriends".
Plural, and written by someone on this list?? Not very likely...
unfortunately. :)

Ben

[Michael Granger]

On Monday, Aug 4, 2003, at 22:44 America/Denver, Ben Giddings wrote:

> On Tuesday, August 5, 2003, at 12:38 AM, Phil Tomson wrote:

>> Yeah, but I notice that you couldn't imagine seeing the word
>> 'girlfriend'
>> show up in a message to this list ;-)

>
> Aha! It just did. And besides, the regular expression wasn't just
> "girlfriend" (which might show up) but "with.*my girlfriends".
> Plural, and written by someone on this list?? Not very likely...
> unfortunately. :)

"I'd like to _make a reservation_ for the Ruby Conference this year,
but _with my girlfriends_ schedule, I don't think I'll be able to
attend. Nonetheless, _thanks for inviting me; here's hoping
regist_ration is up again this year!"

Never underestimate the power of a .* combined with someone with poor
punctuation. =:)
--
Michael Granger <ged@FaerieMUD.org>
Rubymage, Believer, Architect
The FaerieMUD Consortium <http://www.FaerieMUD.org/>