Moving junk mail that contains only a graphic "text" file

C

Craig Deutsch

I have a question concerning junk mail for which the body looks like text
but which really is just a graphic (.gif or .jpg).

The junk mail idiots have found a way to get email to my InBox (as opposed
to Entourage classifying it as junk), and there's no way to set a rule on
the sender basis because they change them all the time.

Meanwhile, the body of the email contains nothing but a graphic file that
looks like text.

I tried creating a rule that moves any email that is delivered with a blank
"message body," but Entourage doesn't allow it.

Anyone have any experience with setting up a rule to handle such crap?

Wish I could find a WMD for these moronic spammers.

Thanks.
 
B

Barry Wainwright

I know what you mean, I am getting a few of these myself.

It would be possible to do with a script. Set up a rule to run this script
on every mail that has an attachment...

tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
repeat with aMess in current messages
if length of (get content of theMess) < 10 then
set category of theMess to category id 1 -- junk mail
move theMess to folder id 6 -- junk mail folder
end if
end repeat
end tell
 
C

Craig Deutsch

Wonderful, Barry. Thank you. I've created the script and set up the rule.
We'll see if it hits the mark or is too aggressive. But I think your
criteria of <10 characters is pretty right-on; legitimate messages that
contain attachments usually also have some comment that takes at least that
many characters.

Now, until the spammers get wind of this, it should be good!

Appreciate your reply.

Craig
 
B

Barry Wainwright

Hmmm...well, it would have worked, except that many of the messages contain
a bunch of garbled text after the graphic file; since this is legitimate
text, the rule can't be applied.
Click to expand...

Yes, that is fairly common in spam, to defeat the Bayesian spam filters.
Any other suggestions, or is this just something I have to live with? And
why is Entourage's junk filter no longer catching them? It was for the
longest time.
Click to expand...

Because the Entourage spam filter contains fixed 'rules', as spam gets more
sophisticated the rules need to be updated. There have already been a few
updates to the JMF, one combined with the SP1 updated, one on it's own. I
would expect that the JMF will get another update when SP2 is released later
this year.

The JMF rules are populated by MS analysing all the spam that passes through
hotmail.com - a pretty good spam net! If the JMF does get updated with SP2 I
would expect you to see a marked improvement.
And another thing I can't understand: The "To:" line doesn't even contain
my proper email address, and the headers don't indicate any other email
address but mine. Any clues as to why I get these anyway? The address is
unmistakably not mine.
Click to expand...

This is how BCC works - you only see the 'To' & 'CC' headers, not the BCC.
The address information is in the SMTP delivery 'envelope', not the message
source. Spam engines work in a similar manner.
Sample email attached.
Click to expand...

That's fairly typical of a lot of the stuff I get. Pity we can't filter on
meaningless attachment names!
 
C

Craig Deutsch

Thanks for the detailed reply, Barry. I guess we'll have to wait for SP2
and see how much it improves.

What's amazing to me is that in order for spamming to be a viable business
model, there must be enough suckers out there to think that they've found
the deal of the century or the breakthrough stock, or whatever.

Are there really that many people using PCs today that are that gullible
anymore? Seems anyone who's been using a computer for even a few months
ought to have either (a) developed a sense for what is spam and/or (b) been
burned by some of the offerings. One would think that over time, the
spamming business might well, be, not so viable.

Maybe I'm just being naïve. Guess there's a sucker born every minute.
 
B

Barry Wainwright

It's a matter of cost:return - the cost for sending out millions of emails
is negligible, especially when they piggy-back on compromised systems all
over the owrld to do the donkey-work of mailing out the spam (not every
spammer does this, but some do).

If they send out 10,000,000 emails a day, and get only 1 in 100,000
responses that's 100 'sales' a day, which more than pays for the effort.
This sort of ratio does not exist in any other form of marketing yet
invented, which is why we are stuck with an ever spiralling tide of spam.

Unfortunately, until the human race stops breeding suckers, I can't see any
way out...
 
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