Slashdot Mirror

So just encode your content through this, then tunnel the output through your VPN?

You mean like this? http://www.spammimic.com/index.shtml

Dear Business person , We know you are interested in
receiving cutting-edge information . This is a one
time mailing there is no need to request removal if
you won't want any more ! This mail is being sent in
compliance with Senate bill 2516 , Title 6 ; Section
307 . This is different than anything else you've seen
. Why work for somebody else when you can become rich
in 55 MONTHS ! Have you ever noticed society seems
to be moving faster and faster and society seems to
be moving faster and faster . Well, now is your chance
to capitalize on this ! WE will help YOU turn your
business into an E-BUSINESS plus deliver goods right
to the customer's doorstep ! The best thing about our
system is that it is absolutely risk free for you !
But don't believe us . Mrs Simpson of Maryland tried
us and says "I was skeptical but it worked for me"
. We assure you that we operate within all applicable
laws ! We implore you - act now ! Sign up a friend
and you get half off . Thanks .

My own pet conspiracy theory is that some amount of spam is really covert communications, be it by terrorists, governments, corporations, NGOs, or space aliens, hidden with steganography. Heck, what better place to hide your covert messages than in plain sight - in a place where people make extensive efforts not to look at it? A few weeks back, on an appropriate topic, I threw this one out on Bruce Schneier's weblog, and was promptly given a link to http://www.spammimic.com/ - which does exactly what I was talking about.

You can try Spam Mimic. It has been around for years (since around 2000).
http://www.spammimic.com/explain.shtml

Decode this:

Dear Friend , Thank-you for your interest in our publication
. We will comply with all removal requests . This mail
is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 1623 ;
Title 1 , Section 301 . This is different than anything
else you've seen . Why work for somebody else when
you can become rich as few as 58 weeks ! Have you ever
noticed more people than ever are surfing the web plus
nobody is getting any younger . Well, now is your chance
to capitalize on this ! We will help you increase customer
response by 110% & deliver goods right to the customer's
doorstep ! You are guaranteed to succeed because we
take all the risk . But don't believe us ! Mr Simpson
of Washington tried us and says "Now I'm rich, Rich,
RICH" ! We are a BBB member in good standing . We beseech
you - act now . Sign up a friend and you'll get a discount
of 30% . God Bless ! Dear Sir or Madam , Thank-you
for your interest in our publication . If you no longer
wish to receive our publications simply reply with
a Subject: of "REMOVE" and you will immediately be
removed from our mailing list . This mail is being
sent in compliance with Senate bill 1621 , Title 4
; Section 308 . This is different than anything else
you've seen ! Why work for somebody else when you can
become rich as few as 18 weeks ! Have you ever noticed
nearly every commercial on television has a .com on
in it plus people love convenience ! Well, now is your
chance to capitalize on this . We will help you sell
more and deliver goods right to the customer's doorstep
! The best thing about our system is that it is absolutely
risk free for you ! But don't believe us . Mrs Simpson
of Mississippi tried us and says "Now I'm rich many
more things are possible" . This offer is 100% legal
! We beseech you - act now ! Sign up a friend and you
get half off ! Best regards ! Dear Cybercitizen , Your
email address has been submitted to us indicating your
interest in our letter . If you no longer wish to receive
our publications simply reply with a Subject: of "REMOVE"
and you will immediately be removed from our mailing
list . This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate
bill 1625 ; Title 4 ; Section 301 . This is a ligitimate
business proposal . Why work for somebody else when
you can become rich as few as 93 days ! Have you ever
noticed how many people you know are on the Internet
& society seems to be moving faster and faster . Well,
now is your chance to capitalize on this . We will
help you process your orders within seconds plus process
your orders within seconds . You can begin at absolutely
no cost to you . But don't believe us ! Mr Ames who
resides in Montana tried us and says "I was skeptical
but it worked for me" ! We are a BBB member in good
standing ! We beseech you - act now ! Sign up a friend
and you'll get a discount of 60% . Warmest regards
!

Unfortunately, the punctuation has whitespace around it, which is pretty obvious to look for. But you could create your own algorithm, in addition to the other versions on the site.

Someone already thought of this.

I love the "fake pgp" option.

Spam Mimic

http://www.spammimic.com/decode.shtml

Dear Friend ; Thank-you for your interest in our publication
. If you no longer wish to receive our publications
simply reply with a Subject: of "REMOVE" and you will
immediately be removed from our club ! This mail is
being sent in compliance with Senate bill 1627 ; Title
3 ; Section 304 ! This is NOT unsolicited bulk mail
. Why work for somebody else when you can become rich
inside 85 days . Have you ever noticed nobody is getting
any younger & more people than ever are surfing the
web ! Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this
. WE will help YOU increase customer response by 140%
& deliver goods right to the customer's doorstep !
The best thing about our system is that it is absolutely
risk free for you . But don't believe us . Ms Ames
of Virginia tried us and says "I was skeptical but
it worked for me" ! We are a BBB member in good standing
. If not for you then for your LOVED ONES - act now
. Sign up a friend and you'll get a discount of 60%
. Cheers ! Dear Friend , You made the right decision
when you signed up for our mailing list . We will comply
with all removal requests . This mail is being sent
in compliance with Senate bill 1621 , Title 4 ; Section
307 . THIS IS NOT A GET RICH SCHEME ! Why work for
somebody else when you can become rich inside 60 weeks
! Have you ever noticed nobody is getting any younger
and nobody is getting any younger . Well, now is your
chance to capitalize on this ! WE will help YOU increase
customer response by 160% plus use credit cards on
your website . You are guaranteed to succeed because
we take all the risk . But don't believe us ! Mr Anderson
who resides in Maryland tried us and says "My only
problem now is where to park all my cars" . We are
licensed to operate in all states . If not for you
then for your loved ones - act now ! Sign up a friend
and you'll get a discount of 40% . Thank-you for your
serious consideration of our offer ! Dear Friend ,
Thank-you for your interest in our briefing . We will
comply with all removal requests . This mail is being
sent in compliance with Senate bill 1623 , Title 1
; Section 307 . Do NOT confuse us with Internet scam
artists . Why work for somebody else when you can become
rich within 23 days ! Have you ever noticed how long
the line-ups are at bank machines plus nobody is getting
any younger . Well, now is your chance to capitalize
on this . We will help you deliver goods right to the
customer's doorstep plus decrease perceived waiting
time by 150% ! The best thing about our system is that
it is absolutely risk free for you ! But don't believe
us . Mrs Simpson of Illinois tried us and says "Now
I'm rich, Rich, RICH" ! We are licensed to operate
in all states ! We IMPLORE you - act now ! Sign up
a friend and your friend will be rich too . Thanks
.

You mean like SpamMimic? Steganography in spam is a pretty common trick in these times.

With the sheer volume of spam flowing across everyone's routers, 1 or 2 messages in a group of 900 per-day, would be easily missed.

You can publicize that you don't keep logs.
Eg https://www.spammimic.com/terms.shtml

Dear Friend ; We know you are interested in receiving cutting-edge intelligence . If you no longer wish to receive our publications simply reply with a Subject: of "REMOVE" and you will immediately be removed from our club . This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 2516 ; Title 2 , Section 301 ! This is not multi-level marketing . Why work for somebody else when you can become rich in 10 DAYS ! Have you ever noticed most everyone has a cellphone & how many people you know are on the Internet ! Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this . WE will help YOU increase customer response by 150% and sell more . You are guaranteed to succeed because we take all the risk ! But don't believe us . Ms Jones of Maine tried us and says "My only problem now is where to park all my cars" ! This offer is 100% legal ! We implore you - act now ! Sign up a friend and you'll get a discount of 40% . Cheers . Dear Friend ; Especially for you - this amazing information . If you no longer wish to receive our publications simply reply with a Subject: of "REMOVE" and you will immediately be removed from our club ! This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 1626 ; Title 1 ; Section 304 . This is not a get rich scheme . Why work for somebody else when you can become rich within 48 days . Have you ever noticed nobody is getting any younger and how long the line-ups are at bank machines . Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this ! We will help you SELL MORE and increase customer response by 120% . The best thing about our system is that it is absolutely risk free for you ! But don't believe us . Mrs Simpson who resides in Washington tried us and says "I was skeptical but it worked for me" ! We are a BBB member in good standing ! If not for you then for your LOVED ONES - act now ! Sign up a friend and your friend will be rich too ! Thank-you for your serious consideration of our offer ! Dear Friend , This letter was specially selected to be sent to you . This is a one time mailing there is no need to request removal if you won't want any more . This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 1621 ; Title 6 ; Section 305 ! THIS IS NOT A GET RICH SCHEME . Why work for somebody else when you can become rich within 37 DAYS . Have you ever noticed most everyone has a cellphone plus people love convenience ! Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this ! WE will help YOU process your orders within seconds and increase customer response by 190% ! You are guaranteed to succeed because we take all the risk . But don't believe us ! Mrs Anderson who resides in West Virginia tried us and says "Now I'm rich, Rich, RICH" ! This offer is 100% legal ! Do not delay - order today ! Sign up a friend and you'll get a discount of 20% ! Thanks . Dear Sir or Madam ; Thank-you for your interest in our publication . This is a one time mailing there is no need to request removal if you won't want any more ! This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 2416 , Title 4 , Section 301 . Do NOT confuse us with Internet scam artists ! Why work for somebody else when you can become rich inside 61 months ! Have you ever noticed most everyone has a cellphone and nearly every commercial on television has a .com on in it . Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this ! WE will help YOU use credit cards on your website plus deliver goods right to the customer's doorstep . You are guaranteed to succeed because we take all the risk . But don't believe us ! Mrs Jones of Nebraska tried us and says "My only problem now is where to park all my cars" . We are a BBB member in good standing . If not for you then for your LOVED ONES - act now ! Sign up a friend and you'll get a discount of 50% . Thanks .

Now copy and take the above message to http://www.spammimic.com/decode.shtml

My bet is, that there are encoded messages amongst that. One of the best ways to hide something is to place it in all the noise rather than trying to encrypt with lots of security.

You wouldn't be far off... ^_^

Here's another exanple of a secure communications channel on the Internet.

SpamMimic

I doubt there's enough computational resources for a sufficiently advanced neural net.

If chunks of known ciphertext in something like AES-256 can't be broken in times measured in universe ages, then I can't foresee much success in wholesale scanning of all information, searching for embedded secret strings which, if properly encrypted, should be indistinguishable from random noise.

An old Slashdot story mentioned one of the most fertile fields for laying down stego messages: within spam.

fake pgp
Its fun and stupuud.

That's exactly what Spam Mimic does. Takes any message you'd like (possibly an encrypted one), and turns it into spam.

You mean like this?

... just use fake PGP

Try assigning a code to WhiteHouseSecurityMap.jpg.
Normally a code or a tool like SpamMimic would be as good or a better idea than high bit-length encryption. Or both would work.

Apparently the one form of communication governments and society will fight to protect is spam. Sure, universities and ISPs might block peer-to-peer sharing, shut down encrypted protocols, screen email attachments, etc. But they wouldn't dare infringe on the rights of spammers.

So maybe we just need a file-trading system which encodes all transfers as spam?

Of course, there is spammimic which lets you encode a secret message in spam.

I may RTFA when the slashdot effect passes over. Meanwhile, I'm reminded of this.

> Consider this steganographic method:
>
> 1. Take a brief secret message you want to send (less than about 12 characters).
> 2. Take a standard spam email.
> 3. Set i to 0.
Look at him go!

Easier, I'm sure you'll agree, to go here: Spammimic.com

The text is most often messed up anyways, so you could just say "viagr@" is a 0 while "vi@gra" is a 1 or something...
...and since the volume is so high anyways you could probably send huge amounts of it and noone would notice...
...not to mention the forged headers...

Oh, and looks I am not the first with that idea

Now, who is going to tell that to the US Congress? ;-)

Come across spam stego?

Well, no need for this, you can already encode it in the spam itself.

This really exists, www.spammimic.com. I'd swear that /. did a story on it when it came out. --ck

Contrary to some people's assumptions, there is a science of combatting stenography... but it understandable demands more resources, particularly when stenography is combined with traditional cryptographic techniques that mask the organization of the message.

...that spam can be a steganographic medium to transmit anti-regime propaganda. Maybe China will finally start doing something really good to the rest of the world.

Spam mimic does something like this.

Already available: http://www.spammimic.com/ and talked about here: Wired

You can hide your messages in spam, too.

You can always conceal hidden messages in images or other files(or spam) so the FBI won't notice

Well, there's spammimic.com for that.

Look at spammimic.com. If I'm the only one left who sends such messages, I'll be doomed.

Example message: "Death to the facist regime"
Encrypted to read (paste the below in at their website and it will translate it for you):
Dear Friend , Thank-you for your interest in our publication . We will comply with all removal requests . This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 1623 ; Title 7 , Section 302 ! This is not a get rich scheme ! Why work for somebody else when you can become rich within 58 MONTHS . Have you ever noticed people will do almost anything to avoid mailing their bills plus nearly every commercial on television has a .com on in it . Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this ! We will help you use credit cards on your website & deliver goods right to the customer's doorstep ! You can begin at absolutely no cost to you ! But don't believe us ! Mr Jones of Alabama tried us and says "I was skeptical but it worked for me" ! We are licensed to operate in all states ! If not for you then for your loved ones - act now . Sign up a friend and you get half off . Thank-you for your serious consideration of our offer ! Dear Colleague , This letter was specially selected to be sent to you . This is a one time mailing there is no need to request removal if you won't want any more . This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 1627 ; Title 4 ; Section 307 . This is not a get rich scheme ! Why work for somebody else when you can become rich within 58 MONTHS ! Have you ever noticed nobody is getting any younger & more people than ever are surfing the web ! Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this ! WE will help YOU increase customer response by 200% and deliver goods right to the customer's doorstep . You can begin at absolutely no cost to you . But don't believe us ! Prof Anderson who resides in Wyoming tried us and says "I was skeptical but it worked for me" . We are licensed to operate in all states ! We urge you to contact us today for your own future financial well-being ! Sign up a friend and your friend will be rich too . Cheers !

Is there any rule against using SpamMimic and simply encoding a poem in spam?

Dear E-Commerce professional ; This letter was specially
selected to be sent to you . This is a one time mailing
there is no need to request removal if you won't want
any more . This mail is being sent in compliance with
Senate bill 1624 ; Title 7 ; Section 308 ! This is
NOT unsolicited bulk mail . Why work for somebody else
when you can become rich within 42 months ! Have you
ever noticed most everyone has a cellphone plus people
love convenience ! Well, now is your chance to capitalize
on this ! We will help you process your orders within
seconds plus increase customer response by 120% ! You
can begin at absolutely no cost to you . But don't
believe us . Ms Jones of Alabama tried us and says
"My only problem now is where to park all my cars"
! We assure you that we operate within all applicable
laws ! We implore you - act now . Sign up a friend
and you'll get a discount of 20% ! Best regards . Dear
Decision maker ; Especially for you - this cutting-edge
announcement . If you no longer wish to receive our
publications simply reply with a Subject: of "REMOVE"
and you will immediately be removed from our directory
. This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate
bill 1623 ; Title 9 , Section 302 . This is not a get
rich scheme ! Why work for somebody else when you can
become rich within 10 months ! Have you ever noticed
nobody is getting any younger & people will do almost
anything to avoid mailing their bills ! Well, now is
your chance to capitalize on this ! WE will help YOU
process your orders within seconds plus SELL MORE .
You can begin at absolutely no cost to you ! But don't
believe us ! Mrs Jones of Hawaii tried us and says
"My only problem now is where to park all my cars"
! We are a BBB member in good standing ! We beseech
you - act now ! Sign up a friend and you'll get a discount
of 40% . Best regards . Dear Salaryman ; This letter
was specially selected to be sent to you ! We will
comply with all removal requests . This mail is being
sent in compliance with Senate bill 1625 ; Title 6
; Section 302 . This is different than anything else
you've seen ! Why work for somebody else when you can
become rich within 33 days . Have you ever noticed
most everyone has a cellphone and people love convenience
! Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this !
We will help you use credit cards on your website plus
deliver goods right to the customer's doorstep . You
are guaranteed to succeed because we take all the risk
! But don't believe us ! Ms Jones who resides in Indiana
tried us and says "My only problem now is where to
park all my cars" . This offer is 100% legal ! Do not
delay - order today ! Sign up a friend and you get
half off . Thanks ! Dear Salaryman ; We know you are
interested in receiving amazing announcement . If you
no longer wish to receive our publications simply reply
with a Subject: of "REMOVE" and you will immediately
be removed from our mailing list . This mail is being
sent in compliance with Senate bill 2216 ; Title 1
, Section 306 . This is not a get rich scheme . Why
work for somebody else when you can become rich within
82 weeks ! Have you ever noticed nobody is getting
any younger plus most everyone has a cellphone . Well,
now is your chance to capitalize on this ! WE will
help YOU increase customer response by 170% and SELL
MORE ! You can begin at absolutely no cost to you !
But don't believe us ! Mr Anderson who resides in Utah
tried us and says "I was skeptical but it worked for
me" . We are licensed to operate in all states ! We
beseech you - act now ! Sign up a friend and you'll
get a discount of 60% ! Cheers ! Dear Salaryman , Especially
for you - this hot news . This is a one time mailing
there is no need to request removal if you won't want
any more . This mail is being sent in compliance with
Senate bill 2416 , Title 1 , Section 308 . This is
not a get rich scheme . Why work for somebody else
when you can become rich inside 92 days . Have you
ever noticed nobody is getting any younger and most
everyone has a cellphone ! Well, now is your chance
to capitalize on this ! We will help you use credit
cards on your website plus sell more . The best thing
about our system is that it is absolutely risk free
for you . But don't believe us ! Ms Anderson of Kentucky
tried us and says "Now I'm rich, Rich, RICH" ! We are
a BBB member in good standing ! Do not delay - order
today . Sign up a friend and you'll get a discount
of 40% . Thanks . Dear Friend , Your email address
has been submitted to us indicating your interest in
our letter ! We will comply with all removal requests
. This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate
bill 1620 ; Title 5 ; Section 304 ! Do NOT confuse
us with Internet scam artists ! Why work for somebody
else when you can become rich as few as 97 months !
Have you ever noticed people love convenience & nobody
is getting any younger . Well, now is your chance to
capitalize on this . WE will help YOU decrease perceived
waiting time by 160% and SELL MORE . The best thing
about our system is that it is absolutely risk free
for you . But don't believe us ! Mr Simpson of Maine
tried us and says "Now I'm rich, Rich, RICH" . We are
licensed to operate in all states ! So make yourself
rich now by ordering immediately . Sign up a friend
and you get half off . Best regards ! Dear Cybercitizen
; This letter was specially selected to be sent to
you . If you are not interested in our publications
and wish to be removed from our lists, simply do NOT
respond and ignore this mail . This mail is being sent
in compliance with Senate bill 1623 ; Title 4 , Section
304 . THIS IS NOT MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING . Why work
for somebody else when you can become rich within 39
days . Have you ever noticed most everyone has a cellphone
& people will do almost anything to avoid mailing their
bills ! Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this
! We will help you process your orders within seconds
plus sell more . You can begin at absolutely no cost
to you . But don't believe us . Mr Jones who resides
in Massachusetts tried us and says "Now I'm rich many
more things are possible" ! We assure you that we operate
within all applicable laws ! We IMPLORE you - act now
! Sign up a friend and you'll get a discount of 10%
! Cheers . Dear Decision maker , Your email address
has been submitted to us indicating your interest in
our briefing ! If you no longer wish to receive our
publications simply reply with a Subject: of "REMOVE"
and you will immediately be removed from our directory
! This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate
bill 1623 , Title 1 ; Section 309 ! This is not multi-level
marketing ! Why work for somebody else when you can
become rich as few as 62 weeks ! Have you ever noticed
the baby boomers are more demanding than their parents
and people love convenience ! Well, now is your chance
to capitalize on this . WE will help YOU SELL MORE
and use credit cards on your website ! You are guaranteed
to succeed because we take all the risk ! But don't
believe us ! Ms Jones of New Mexico tried us and says
"I was skeptical but it worked for me" ! We are licensed
to operate in all states ! So make yourself rich now
by ordering immediately ! Sign up a friend and you'll
get a discount of 80% ! Thank-you for your serious
consideration of our offer ! Dear Web surfer , Especially
for you - this hot intelligence . We will comply with
all removal requests ! This mail is being sent in compliance
with Senate bill 1618 ; Title 2 ; Section 309 . This
is not a get rich scheme ! Why work for somebody else
when you can become rich in 50 MONTHS . Have you ever
noticed how long the line-ups are at bank machines
and people love convenience ! Well, now is your chance
to capitalize on this ! WE will help YOU SELL MORE
and turn your business into an E-BUSINESS ! You can
begin at absolutely no cost to you ! But don't believe
us . Ms Simpson who resides in Florida tried us and
says "Now I'm rich, Rich, RICH" ! We assure you that
we operate within all applicable laws ! You have no
reason not to act now . Sign up a friend and you'll
get a discount of 30% . Thank-you for your serious
consideration of our offer . Dear Friend , This letter
was specially selected to be sent to you . If you are
not interested in our publications and wish to be removed
from our lists, simply do NOT respond and ignore this
mail ! This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate
bill 1621 ; Title 3 , Section 308 ! This is not a get
rich scheme . Why work for somebody else when you can
become rich within 31 days ! Have you ever noticed
nobody is getting any younger plus more people than
ever are surfing the web . Well, now is your chance
to capitalize on this . WE will help YOU use credit
cards on your website & turn your business into an
E-BUSINESS . You can begin at absolutely no cost to
you . But don't believe us ! Prof Ames of Idaho tried
us and says "Now I'm rich, Rich, RICH" ! We are a BBB
member in good standing . We implore you - act now
! Sign up a friend and your friend will be rich too
. Warmest regards ! Dear Sir or Madam , You made the
right decision when you signed up for our club . If
you are not interested in our publications and wish
to be removed from our lists, simply do NOT respond
and ignore this mail ! This mail is being sent in compliance
with Senate bill 2516 ; Title 6 , Section 301 . THIS
IS NOT MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING ! Why work for somebody
else when you can become rich as few as 38 DAYS ! Have
you ever noticed people love convenience plus nearly
every commercial on telev..... and this goes on and on.....

Or, you could hide steg messages in what looks like Sircam virii - just change the words a bit, move a space or two or even mess with the attached files.

There's so much data on the Net today that it's not even funny anymore and lots of it is metadata (Napster login names, tcp packet TTLs, file lengths and the naming of cats on personal homepages spring to mind) so you wouldn't even have to bother using a book cipher or pre-set code phrases like "Buy two quarts of milk on the way home, dear" which of course means "ram two commercial jets into tall buildings before breakfast".

I don't really understand why anyone bothers, unless it's to catch the really stupid terrorists, the ones that failed Terrorism 101 by not being able to scare the kindergarten kids next door out of their lunch money. Or, to watch over the general populace...

The point is that you can find hidden messages, faces on Mars and backwards satanic messages everywhere if you look hard enough, but it's impossible to find real messages that's been hidden good enough. Just deal with it.

Firstly, I can't believe how charitably you view the post's "error". You are really going out of your way to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Question 1: What are you currently working on?

Question 2: If backdoor-free encryption is outlawed, do you promise to create for us a kick-ass, (virtually) unbreakable version of the spammimic and distribute it through the /. subversive underground?

There are method of hiding data in plain sight. Just read "Chaffing and Winnowing: Confidentiality without Encryption" at http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~rivest/chaffing.txt


Also, said Terrorist could use multiple techniques together:

- write message
- apply method of Chaffing and Winnowing (above) or method of hiding messages in spam.
- hide that message in favorite media with outguess.
- encrypt that with PGP or GnuPG.
- encrypt that with the mandated, key-esrowed, back-doored technique
Now there are several barriers to break down, but only the easy one is known about until an investigation is already under way.

Or:
- said terrorist could avoid electronic communications, and meet face to face in a public park or on a public bus or in a crowd

Ask a gardener how they deal with weeds. Do you just remove what you can see, or do you go after the roots? Ask a doctor how he/she deals with a disease. Does he/she treat the symptoms and hope for the best over time, or does he/she treat the source of the disease?

Yes, cutting off one of their means of communication would be an incovenience for people who have evil plans. But is there a better we that we can deal with their evil plans in the first place?

I don't know the answers, I just ask the questions.

1) encrypt your original message
2) run it through Spam Mimic or something of the sort
3) send the encrypted, spamified message along

Bloats the message up? No question; it's also undetectably encrypted in plain sight.

This is funny. Just like SpamMimic.com , a program that hides secret messages as spam.
You could hook up two bots to talk to each other secretly.

One thing a system like this will filter out is something encrypted with Spam Mimic. (Source: The Register)

So good for them. All I'm really seeing with their demo is web surfing at less than half the speed (encryption, right?).
This and Peekabooty and Freenet all suffer from the same problem: they're trying to surreptitiously allow end users in ideologically restricted areas (the US and decryption, China, the Middle East, etc.) but while they're not surfing for restricted material in plaintext, constantly sending obviously encrypted packets back and forth is likely just the red flag that authorities need to look for to black bag a computer and find out what you're up to.
If someone puts their thinking cap on and converts Spam Mimic to a distributed system and somehow manages to graft on a keyed infrastructure, then people with artificially restricted access to the Internet really will be able to get at information that The Man doesn't want them to see without the Stormtroopers Of Death kicking their door in. Well, at least until The Man gets hip to having to kick in the door of every single person who gets spam...
Easy does it!

Rather than encryption ... consider steganography (or "data hiding"). That is, embedding a message within seemingly harmless text or data. If you send encrypted data, you are immediately attracting attention to yourself, especially since (as you point out) almost no one encrypts email -- if you're not sending plain text, clearly you must have something to hide. And there are ways to get at encrypted data, not necessarily by brute-force decryption, but (for example) by hacking into your desktop and stealing your unencrypted mail files or your private key. Using encryption makes you an inviting target for such techniques.

There are a number of ways in which steganography is done. You can use spammimic, which converts a short sentence into a lengthy document that reads like spam (and has the advantage of being web-based, so anyone can use it). Or you can try embedding messages into images or sound files by changing the LSB of each pixel/sample, which doesn't affect the output. And so on.

If this strategy is employed, you can also encrypt the message prior to hiding, which is your insurance against someone breaking the hiding strategy.

I ran this article through spam mimic, but it couldn't decode it. Are you sure you posted the whole article?

use http://www.spammimic.com/ and make SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM,
SPAM, SPAM and SPAM out of the deCSS source code, then put it on your homepage.

Every slashdotreader in the world would understand what it's about, and just imagine the trial! :)

If you've forgotten what SPAMMIMIC looks like, here's a little remainder:

Dear Professional ; We know you are interested in receiving
amazing intelligence . This is a one time mailing there
is no need to request removal if you won't want any
more ! This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate
bill 1619 , Title 6 , Section 305 . This is not multi-level
marketing . Why work for somebody else when you can
become rich as few as 55 DAYS . Have you ever noticed
most everyone has a cellphone and more people than
ever are surfing the web . Well, now is your chance
to capitalize on this ! WE will help YOU decrease perceived
waiting time by 200% and turn your business into an
E-BUSINESS ! The best thing about our system is that
it is absolutely risk free for you ! But don't believe
us . Mr Ames of Massachusetts tried us and says "My
only problem now is where to park all my cars" ! We
are licensed to operate in all states ! We beseech
you - act now . Sign up a friend and your friend will
be rich too ! Thank-you for your serious consideration
of our offer !

5) Oh yeah, use Spam Mimic to encode your messages. Nobody will ever catch you. But you might just be sued and thrown in jail.

new movement.....in order to preserve the quality of Slashdot feedback, every headline must now look like:

SDAFLJQ#$RLWEFQ$FSDFDF#$QVQ $#RFclick SADFAS!FEQWsk3n1443R$:FEMK #VL#$ VJLF34knc rk4jnc#$ C%$@

So i hope to get you all signed up pronto.

Naah. Look: they want cash for it, making money off the RIP act! Despicable!

How much will m-o-o-t cost? We want it to be free, we don't yet know if it will be, it will be shareware price at most and a paid user (if there are any) can burn a CD for his friends to communicate with him. Apart from our time we have put in money and would like to get it back. Also the havens have to be paid for somehow

Much better to just encrypt your mail with the spam mimic(tm)! ...and you never know if your recipient will also buy some printer toner or start working from home for you, to earn $$$ in 3 weeks.

But seriously: it's good to see a quick response to this, but a single point of weakness lying in a central owner of a haven leads me to seek additional resources.

On topic, off topic or blatant self promotion?...
My little site, www.spamMimic.com, will encode a message into spam for a tad of privacy AND possibly bog down Carnivore and the like.