python spam filter: random words?

[Ben Finney]

On 10 Aug 2003 18:13:53 -0700, revyakin wrote:
> I know fighting spam is like fighting global worming, but still..
                                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Given that some spam contains e-mail worms, the typo is appropriate :-)

> 50% of spam I get these days contains a random combination of letters
> at the end of the subject line. Has anyone tried using that feature in
> antispam filters?

My experience has been that this practice is dropping off, since
Bayesian statistical-analysis filters will glide right by random words
as "not statistically significant.

What I'm seeing now is spam with words taken straight from the "likely
good" word lists of Bayesian filters :-)

> I am also wondering why spammers add that stuff to their subject lines
> anyway.

To defeat spam filters that check for the occurrence of a known spam
message they've seen before.  As noted above, though, these are being
superseded by Bayesian word metric analysis.

-- 
Ben Finney