Vioxx Replaces Porn as Spam King

An anonymous reader noted that CNN is running a story crowning vioxx the new king of spam, upsetting poor old fashioned pornography. Of course, for me all my spam seems to be about rolexes.

Comments

Vioxx topples porn as spam king?

[tyleroar]

Actually what the article says is that Vioox prescriptions, ID theft scams, and stock pick information toople porn as spam king. And this is only talking about the spam received by AOL users, not all spam in general.

Re:Wait a minute...

[SpongeBobLinuxPants]

Yes...

from http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/infopage/vioxx/defaul t.htm

Vioxx is a prescription COX-2 selective, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) that was approved by FDA in May 1999 for the relief of the signs and symptoms of osteoarthritis, for the management of acute pain in adults, and for the treatment of menstrual symptoms. Vioxx was later approved for the relief of the signs and symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis in adults and children.

Re:yourname(misspelled) CH3ap Softw4res

[cavemanf16]

No, it's designed to defeat bayesian filters. If you're sending out millions of emails, and making a tidy profit, you don't want to lose that profit. So every once in a while you send out a million emails that are worthless crap, blank, not really selling somethings, etc. to confuse the filters. Then you send out the next wave of spam, wash, rinse, repeat.

Wanna R()()1-E-X?

[catscan2000]

Rolex spam has increased for me as well. I'm currently using the following regular expression on our Astaro firewall to block them, which has caught the recent "rolax" and "R-O-L-E-X" variants (remove the extraneous whitespace):

(?i)r[[:space:][:punct:]_]{0,3}(o|0|\(\)){1,3}[[ :s pace:][:punct:]_]{0,3}(l|1){1,3}[[:space:][:punct: ]_]{0,3}(e|a){1,3}[[:space:][:punct:]_]{0,3}x

So, bring on the R0001ex!! spam :-)

Hopefully, the next revision of Astaro will include Rolex spam filters in SpamAssassin so that I don't need to use this custom regex anymore.

Here's one message that I'd love to see (and hopefully blocked):
=========

Gr33tingz, Dear Sir! I'm Dr. Jfjweaiofjweoif Iejfiowefjioe from an official bank in Nigeria and am trying to move $39,000,000 MILLION (million) US DOLLARS (United States currency) worth of \/1@gra pills and C1@li5 out of the country but need to confirm your CitiB@nk banking account details. In exchange for the sum of the transfer, you will have the opportunity to be a man like Britney Spears with real-like r()()()()()1eX watches with a screw-in bezel and a second hand that looks like the real thing. All you have to is click here (http://4.12.44.52:39/removeme/now.idc?really=yes) to install a FREE screensaver, which, if you're using Outlook [Express], should already be installed by the time you read this sentence! WOW! HOW CONVENIENT! Our online pharmacy is ready to take your orders for cheating housewives in your area, but HURRY! At these prices, they won't last long!

Re:NULL body messages

[dragonman97]

If you look at the headers, you'll find that they're extraordinarily sparse. In some cases, the receiving server will add a little bit of data to keep clients happy, by adhering to RFCs (adding "Date:" and the like. As far as I can tell, this is being done as the most accurate recepient verification system they can dream of. VRFY is not accurate, as many receiving systems will say "Well, I don't know that address, but it's in my domain, so I'll try and receive it." If you do everything up to, but not including the DATA part, there's a chance the server might be sloppy or ignorant. If it accepts the message for delivery without error, then there's a decent chance that address exists. This battle is really getting ugly, and will keep escalating - there is no FUSSP, other than hunting down the spammers and stringing them up with piano wire where it'll hurt them.

Graham: Only half right

[cynicalmoose]

Graham predicted two things would happen as a result of Bayesian filtering:

Spam would become, essentially, hyperlinks

Hyperlinks would reduce the revenue per spam so much that spamming would become uneconomic

Unfortunately, it seems he got the first right, but was too optimistic about the second. Still, Bayesian filtering removes the most egregious sales pitches, so I don't complain.

When we can work out that strings of unrelated words make no syntactic sense, we'll really have the spammers nailed (and most of Usenet, but that's just a positive side-effect).

INCORRECT

[ikewillis]

There are MANY health risks of COX-2 inhibitors which have only been recently discovered. The dangers are not cardiac (pertaining to the heart) but cardiovascular, COX-2 is an enzyme which regulates a number of cardiovascular functions, most notably the inflamatory response, but also the formation of new blood vessels following injury, and your body's natural defenses against blood clots flowing through your circulatory system. The latter is what increases the danger of heart attack or stroke, both of which can be caused by blood clots clogging your cardiac arteries or brain arteries respectively.

Here's some background information:

http://arthritis.about.com/od/cox2inhibitors/a/saf etyreport.htm

A report just released in the December issue of Nature Medicine claims that blocking the COX-2 enzyme interferes with angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels). New blood vessels are imperative to wound and ulcer healing. Cited laboratory study results revealed reduced angiogenesis when rat or human blood cells were treated with either indomethacin (an older NSAID) or by NS-398 (a COX-2 inhibitor). COX-2 and COX-1 are required for healing of the stomach and intestinal lining. This new data raises questions concerning whether selective COX-2 drugs are safer for the gastrointestinal tract than older NSAIDS after all since inhibiting angiogenesis may result in ulcer complications.

http://money.cnn.com/services/tickerheadlines/djh/ 200412231648DOWJONESDJONLINE000879.htm

FDA is issuing an advisory because of recently released data from controlled clinical trials showing that the Cox-2 selective agents (Vioxx, Celebrex and Bextra) may be associated with an increased risk of serious cardiovascular events (heart attack and stroke) especially when they are used for long periods of time or in very high-risk settings (immediately after heart surgery), as the COX-2 enzyme apperas to play a key role in the body's natural ability to combat blood clots," the FDA said in its press release.

That said, the majority of pharmeceudical spam I receive is for Cialias and Viagra, the anti-impotency pills. Does anyone here actually receive spam for Vioxx more frequently than these?

Re:Why, you ask?

[stam66]

While in your opinion NSAIDs are useful "in a few rare cases" and "in the vast majority of its usage is unnecessary and causing more harm than its helping" i'd be interested to know what evidence you base that on. There are countless double-blind trials proving the opposite, and in my experience as a physician that is simply untrue. Yes, there are side-effects which can limit usage, but the benefits are beyond doubt.

There are a few pain syndromes where medication is not of help and may be due to psychosomatic factors, but arthritis is not one of these. Telling an arthritis sufferer their problems are psychosomatic is incredibly insensitive and my stop patients taking medication that can improve their quality of life. Don't get me wrong - NSAIDs and painkillers in general are not the answer to everything. But they are an important component. Please consider this before offering your opinion.

Re:Why, you ask?

[Anonymous Coward]

The laws against illegal dispensation of prescription medicine aren't unenforceable like the War On Drugs Paid For By Handing Cash To That Dude On The Corner. These are non-anonymous transactions performed with credit cards and shipped by non-anonymous shippers, and often shipped across national borders over which law enforcement has a legal right to inspect packages for contraband.

When I lost my job my COBRA payments were $420/month to continue the health insurance I had. Wasn't allowed to change the plan. Couldn't afford that. Also couldn't afford the $125/visit charge to see the doctor in Boston. Definitely couldn't afford to pay retail on the drugs I was taking. So when my prescriptions ran out, I went online and ordered from Canada. The drugs came FedEx the next day. Without health insurance it was the only way.

US Health care system is badly broken. I wouldn't want to see the online pharmacy operations shut down until everyone has affordable drugs.

Of course since I've moved to New Zealand it doesn't matter to me much now.

Re:more and more spam

[ocelotbob]

I don't think they're trying to get around personal antispan filters, but rather ISP filters. Sicne ISPs are more sensitive to the issue of false positives, creating a bunch of crap messages throws off the baysean analysis and can potentially increase the chances of false positives. While you may not want spam and won't click on spam, Joe Blow who gets his mail from a big ISP may simply use his ISP's spam filters, and may click on those messages which are spam.