[vox-tech] spam current events

[David Rosenstrauch]

Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> i'm getting hammered with email containing text designed to trick bayesian
> filters.  unfortunately, it appears to be quite successful in that endeavor.
> the email text is nonsensical, however the email has a gif image attachment.
> 
> at first, the gif was always named "image001.gif", and i was able to REJECT
> such emails when Postfix detected a gif attachment named "image001.gif".
> but whoever is sending this got smarter and now the gif file is named all
> kinds of things.
> 
> i'm not quite sure how to filter these things anymore other than to REJECT
> all gif attachments, which I'd prefer not to do if i can help it..
> 
> the gif image itself is mostly white with a few colored "threads" here and
> there.  i certainly don't see any text, so i'm not quite sure what their
> purpose is.  perhaps it's some kind of virus?
> 
> anyone else seeing these things?  i'm getting them a few times a day now.
> 
> pete

I'm getting loads of these too, and it's similarly brought down the 
effectiveness of Thunderbird's bayesian filter.

If anyone's got a solution, I'm all ears.

Maybe someone should ask Paul Graham for a solution.  :-)

On a more serious note, though, I used to use the Popfile 
(popfile.sf.net) bayesian filter a while back and it was (at least back 
then) very up-to-date in terms of updating the filter to deal with new 
kinds of spam that were coming out.  Might want to check the project 
mailing lists and/or source code and see if they've found any solution 
for this issue.

HTH,

DR