September 23, 2003
Wtha's the fercqeuny, Kneenth?
Just like everyone else, I get a ton of spam. I've noticed an odd trend in spam subject lines lately: complete gibberish. I get more than a handful of spam messages a day with subjects like:
• mehchant millhnarian
• crayfieh fresso mwm
• lingupst beceptive dyu
• perment introspeqt luvd
• fonnet bustkrd xxszlbuvm
Those are all from today's email. As you can see, it's a thorough compination of slightly misspelled words and utter nonsense -- well, it's all utter nonsense, but in this instance I'm referring to the likes of "xxszlbuvm." I haven't bothered to open the messages to see whether the gibberish continues in the body of the email; I suspect it's more likely to be an offer for herbal Viagra or something.
A seeming permutation of this is for the subject line to be two real words with a short number sandwiched in between, e.g., "citric79bristol." Again, not sure what the idea is there, other than it possibly being some sort of tracking code for the spammers. Very odd stuff.
Reminds me of something my cousin Jerry sent me recently (under the subject line "Word Recognition"):
Acocdrnig to an elgnsih unviesitry sutdy the oredr of letetrs in a wrod dosen't mttaer, the olny thnig thta's iopmrantt is that the frsit and lsat ltteer of eevry word is in the crcreot ptoision. The rset can be jmbueld and one is stlil able to raed the txet wiohtut dclftfuiiy.
