6 postings today -- *all* spam

6 postings today -- *all* spam

[Joe Fineman]

What on earth is going on?  None of the other gnu newsgroups I
subscribe to are suffering from this infestation.  Is the word "bug"
attracting it?  Why?
-- 
---  Joe Fineman    jcf@TheWorld.com

||:  The doctorate, which once meant you could start teaching,  :||
||:  now means you can stop learning.                           :||

Re: 6 postings today -- *all* spam

[Alan Mackenzie]

Joe Fineman <jcf@theworld.com> wrote on Sat, 29 Jun 2002 21:41:14 GMT:
> What on earth is going on?  None of the other gnu newsgroups I
> subscribe to are suffering from this infestation.  Is the word "bug"
> attracting it?  Why?

Of the last hundred threads I've seen on gnu.emacs.bug, 74 have been
utterly off-topic.  Of those, 45 have been in non-Latin scripts, mainly
(or exclusively) korean such as ks_c_5601-1987.  They seem to originate
from anonymous addresses.  Filtering out these posts would increase the
signal/noise ratio from about 25% to about 50%.

Does anybody have any hypothesis as to the motivation of these spammers?
Surely the number of people in gnu.emacs.bug who can read these languages
is, with the greatest of respect to them, not large, and the number who
would actually respond to any these things is vanishingly small.

Is there anybody here fluent in any of these languages who can tell us
what these unwanted posts are saying?

Incidentally, can anybody explain to me what scam all these ostensible
corrupt Nigerian officials are up to?

Each of these postings carries an "approved" header.  Is this header
genuinely added by GNU, or is it forged?

> ---  Joe Fineman    jcf@TheWorld.com

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Munich, Germany)
Email: aacm@muuc.dee; to decode, wherever there is a repeated letter
(like "aa"), remove half of them (leaving, say, "a").

Re: 6 postings today -- *all* spam

[Dan Jacobson]

>>>>> "A" == Alan Mackenzie <none@example.invalid> writes:

hey, you're still using that passe munged address thing.  Isn't one
supposed to turn on the spam filter technology of today... no wonder
the pros don't complain.  E.g. does RMS get hot and bothered about
spam?  Naw.  that's because his pals have rigged up
http://www.weizmann.ac.il/~eli/Downloads/rmail-spam-filter
or something for him.

A> Of the last hundred threads I've seen on gnu.emacs.bug, 74 have been
A> utterly off-topic.  Of those, 45 have been in non-Latin scripts, mainly
A> (or exclusively) korean such as ks_c_5601-1987.  They seem to originate
A> from anonymous addresses.  Filtering out these posts would increase the
A> signal/noise ratio from about 25% to about 50%.

yeah but if you filter out big5 chinese you'll be missing out on my
and Lee Sau Dan's signature, especially when it is attached to a
charsets bug report.  

A> Does anybody have any hypothesis as to the motivation of these spammers?
A> Surely the number of people in gnu.emacs.bug who can read these languages
A> is, with the greatest of respect to them, not large, and the number who
A> would actually respond to any these things is vanishingly small.

ha ha, motivation, you slay me.  I should employ you to reason with
the roaches in my pantry.

A> Is there anybody here fluent in any of these languages who can tell us
A> what these unwanted posts are saying?

Well, they inform you of all the great bargains you are missing.
Actually with a few hours practice in the korean alphabet you might be
able to find transliterated words from English!

A> Incidentally, can anybody explain to me what scam all these ostensible
A> corrupt Nigerian officials are up to?

Yes sir, I am inclined to tell you thusly, except for the matter that
i have too much computer equipment and can't find the right keyboard,
and therefor need to find a ...

A> Each of these postings carries an "approved" header.  Is this header
A> genuinely added by GNU, or is it forged?

if they would approve my postings they would approve anything

A> Alan Mackenzie (Munich, Germany)
A> Email: aacm@muuc.dee; to decode, wherever there is a repeated letter
A> (like "aa"), remove half of them (leaving, say, "a").

apparently you haven't got bitched out enough yet like I did before
I got a pal help me into the spam filtered air conditioned world of
the future.  here's what happened to me:

>>>>> "C" == Chris Waters <xtifr@debian.org> writes:

C> Ordinarily I ignore people who munge their email addresses and then
C> expect replies.  I'm going to make an exception here because I'm a
C> little more than ordinarily annoyed.

C> First of all, if you want a favor from me (like advice or the answer
C> to a question), don't make my life harder!  That means don't do things
C> that may cause bounce messages to appear in my mailbox if I'm not
C> paying attention -- don't expect me to even look at your email
C> address, let alone decrypt its hidden messages.

C> If you really are unwilling to provide a usable email address, then
C> point Reply-To and Mail-Followup-To at the list, and expect your
C> answers on the list.  Repetition of the current behavior will earn a
C> quick *plonk*.
-- 
http://jidanni.org/ Taiwan(04)25854780

Re: 6 postings today -- *all* spam

[Francesco Potorti`]

   Incidentally, can anybody explain to me what scam all these ostensible
   corrupt Nigerian officials are up to?
   
It's an ordinary scam, a very old and apparently successful one, in one
of its many incarnations.

Re: 6 postings today -- *all* spam

[Richard Stallman]

      E.g. does RMS get hot and bothered about
    spam?  Naw.

I have no special spam filtering in place, but
It takes me less than a second to delete a spam message.
What I have is filtering of virus messages, since they
are very large and I get a lot of them.
The FSF is working on installing spam filtering for mailing lists
which will work for all recipients.

Re: 6 postings today -- *all* spam

[Viktor Haag]

pot@gnu.org (Francesco Potorti`) writes:

>    Incidentally, can anybody explain to me what scam all these
>    ostensible corrupt Nigerian officials are up to?
>    
> It's an ordinary scam, a very old and apparently successful
> one, in one of its many incarnations.

It even has a name -- The Spanish Prisoner -- at least, according
to David Mamet. 8-)

-- 
Viktor Haag : Software & Information Design : Research In Motion
                              +--+
  "When a movie doesn't have a brain in its head, it's kind of
     unfair to require thought on the part of the audience."