[Spambayes] text in image spam: feature suggestion

[Jim McMaster]

spambayes-bounces at python.org wrote:
>     Tony> Sorry if this is already included. Would a simple
> hash of the
>     Tony> image file be useful for eliminating spam? A lot of
> spams seem to
>     Tony> send the same image with completely different text.
> 
> Maybe, though maybe not.  They do make changes in the image
> as well.  I just
> saw several of the same one where there were various changes: font,
> blinking, etc.  Also, with the pump & dump scams they seem to keep you
> "updated" on the rising price of the stock as time goes on.
> Any of those
> would change the hash.  I am already computing the log of the
> size (then
> truncating to an int).  I suspect that would be less
> sensitive to minor
> changes in the image.
> 
There also was an article on a murdered Russian spammer, who randomly
changed the colors of a few pixels in each copy of the image to defeat just
this tactic.


-- 
Jim McMaster
mailto:jim.mcmaster at gmail.com