TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Spam Surge Drives Net Crime Spree

Re: Spam Surge Drives Net Crime Spree

Dan Lanciani (ddl@danlan.com)
Thu, 28 Dec 2006 15:54:57 EST

bbc@telecom-digest.org (Mark Ward, BBC) wrote:

> The type of spam being sent has also changed, said Mr Druker. In 2004
> only a small percentage of junk mail messages had images in them. Now,
> said Mr Druker, the figure is 25%.

> "A lot of spam is in the form of images and HTML documents that are
> designed to get beyond the filters," he said.

> Filters are good at analysing plain text to spot the tell-tale signs
> of spam but they struggle if the text is in an image. Techniques are
> being developed to help them read images but none are widely deployed
> yet.

Interesting. I assume that a message with an image from someone I
don't know is likely spam and bounce it with an appropriate error. Is
the use of images with text in anything _but_ spam common enough that
learning to read them is important?

Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What about when someone emails a
screen-scraping to you of an html page (that you may have requested)?
Chances are likely there will be .jpg or .gif files on that page with
some text in them. You cannot really risk throwing it all away unseen.
PAT]

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