[Spambayes] [slightly OT] spammer 'random' words that are addressee-related?

[Denis Haskin]

(This isn't *quite* a spambayes question but I think there are 
knowledgable people here <grin> who can point me in the right direction 
to get more info.  Feel free to declare this too off-topic and send me 
someplace else.)

Like many of you (I'm sure), I'm sysadmin/network ops/hardware 
tech/customer support/etc for my family's home network.

My wife showed me some spam she got this morning that included the usual 
'random' words in the subject, but she was wondering if the words maybe 
weren't so random.

The words seemed related to 2 email lists she's on.  Now maybe this is 
just complete coincidence, but is it possible in fact that her email 
address was harvested somewhere and words were picked up from the 
harvesting context to be used when constructing spam to her?

This seems like a lot of effort for not a lot of return...

Also, we're *pretty* sure that both of these email lists are pretty well 
protected (e.g. they're not archived in any public place as far was we 
know).  Also, they're obscure and small enough that I find it hard to 
believe it would be worth spammers' while to 'infiltrate' these lists 
(as they do with yahoo groups).

It also occurred to me that perhaps someone else on these lists has a 
virus which is harvesting this from a local PC and sending it off to a 
spammer?

Anyone have any thoughts?  Is there any web site that catalogs known 
spamming tactics?

Thanks,

dwh