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AOL Names Top Spam Subjects For 2005

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the glad-i-don't-pay-for-smtp-by-the-byte dept.

JamesAlfaro writes "Donald Trump and "penis patch" were the most popular subject lines used by spammers this year, as the fraudsters grew more sophisticated in trying to trick consumers, America Online said Wednesday in its third annual Top 10 Spam List. Six out of the 10 top subject lines this year fell into what experts call "special-order spam," which pretend to be from a friend, or part of a legitimate, customer-driven transaction."

3 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Bad memory ? by ultranova · · Score: 3, Interesting

    From the article:

    For example, this year's list features "your mortgage application is ready," another claims to have sent "you to the wrong site," and others simply say "thank you" or "re:," as if they are responding to the recipient.

    How can anyone possibly fall for these ? I have the worst memory of anyone I know (or remember ;), and I have no trouble remembering if I have any bending applications or e-mail conversations.

    Or are these things trying to make people think that they've accidentally gotten someone elses mail and might profit by playing along - are these messages trying to tempt people into trying to commit fraud in order to defraud them ? That would be ironic, and essentially the same tactic that Nigerian letters used - could the senders of Nigerian spam claim patent violation ?-)

    --

    Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

  2. Re:AOL could really help out.... by KiloByte · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There is a better idea: do this locally.

    Set up two accounts on your mail server (example.org): aaron@example.org and zeke@example.org -- any two names that sound legitimate and sort very early/very late. Then, make sure these two names are well-published; you may put them on your webpage, include them in .sig, whatever.

    When anything hits one of these mailboxes, just block the relevant traffic -- autolearn the piece of spam, _temp_ block the IP and/or bump its score.

    --
    The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  3. Re:AOL could really help out.... by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Adn essentially, I imagine a LOT of people do this locally. But AOL is in a unique position, that they are the largest target for spam, and have the EASIEST way of detecting it (by flagging excessive mail to unused accounts). Have that list for the general public to suck down and everyones spam from said places would drop dramatically. The response time could be multitudes faster and more effective than spews

    --

    "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson