Re: RE : ... blah lbah blah ... spam
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On Mon, Aug 07, 2017 at 08:11:08AM +0900, Mark Fletcher wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 06, 2017 at 04:58:42PM +0200, Thomas Schmitt wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > reading more about Gmail Smart Reply in
> > https://www.blog.google/products/gmail/save-time-with-smart-reply-in-gmail/
> > i got a new theory:
> >
> > The AI learns from the user's mail habits [...]
> As a gmail user, I've been reading those auto-reply options on mails for
> a couple of years now, feels like [...]
Scary, but plausible. Yeah, spammers are the flies and mosquitoes,
nasty, disgusting and perhaps sometimes transmitting diseases, but
the crocodiles are Google, Facebook et al.
> [...] genuine Muggles responding to spam [...]
Now this is a very nice way to put it. You made my day, thank you :-))
> the debian-user email address as sender. That also neatly explains why
> we didn't see the original mail -- it wasn't sent TO debian-user, it was
> sent AS debian-user.
Exactly. Or perhaps the spammer doesn't even care and is sending from
a domain long ago blacklisted by all self-respecting filters (to gather
evidence for or against that, one would have to pick through the
headers, in the hopes that the Muggles's mail user agents don't mutilate
too much. Dunno).
Those links lead to either (javascript-vectored) malware or some other
kind of nonsense. Typically they are short-lived (taken down quickly),
so they want to spread as quickly as possible.
> And the ironic thing is I doubt the spammer even expects to be able to
> recover the replies in the end,
[...]
No. They want the clicks. And, thanks to the blind "full quote" disease
(thanks, Microsoft), this link gets passed unharmed on in the "Muggle
bounce".
> I suspect debian-user has just made it into their lists one way or
> another and they probably haven't even noticed. So a bunch of hassle for
> a lot of people, and the perpetrators didn't even specifically intend to
> do it. (they also are supremely indifferent to the trouble they have
> caused)
Here I'm more of a cynic than you: I think inserting medium-to-high
volume lists (with a web-accessible archive at that!) is a welcome
multiplier to these folks. It's an industry, where livelihoods are
at stake: expect them to be resourceful!
Cheers
- -- tomás
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