Jun 23 2008
Spam and Subject Lines
You can be pretty sure you are looking at spam if the subject line includes any of the following:
- The word “free”
- The word “viagra”
- The words “you won”
- The word “lottery”
- The word “[Subject]” - sometimes it is () around the word or other symbols
- Any mention of prescription drugs
- Any mention of cheap watches
- Any mention of cheap jewelry
- Any mention of body parts
- Anything of a sexual or explicit nature
- Words with numbers of funny characters in the middle of the word, like “V1agra”
I have gotten asked why someone sending email would put a number of funny character in the middle of a word on the subject line.
This is an attempt to get passed the spam filter. Spammers know that some spam filters mainly look at keywords. So if the program is looking for “viagra” then it will miss “v1agra”.
Of course, there is spam that doesn’t fall into one of the above as well, so you can’t just use the above rules. Our Total Mail Defense spam filter looks at much more than keywords, so we catch all these attempts too.
Want more survey results for my Email Spam Survey, will only take a few minutes if you don’t mind.
