# New type of Spam



## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

Ive been getting lots of spam lately. It somehow tricks Thunderbird (and apparently the ISP's spam filtering) by substituting high ascii characters such as these:


> Your Cȓedit Score may ĥave beeñ updated.


and also tricks the email program into giving a bogus return address.

I have been unable to figure out how to get rid of this crap.

Anyone else have any luck?


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## kiknwing (Jun 24, 2009)

A couple of my email accounts have word/phrase filters, I've been able to manage it that way.


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## maartena (Nov 1, 2010)

I have seen this for years... 

V|âgra


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## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

Davenlr said:


> Ive been getting lots of spam lately. It somehow tricks Thunderbird (and apparently the ISP's spam filtering) by substituting high ascii characters such as these:
> 
> and also tricks the email program into giving a bogus return address.
> 
> ...


I filter my Comcast mail by sending it through g-mail.


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

In this case, its actually forwarded mail from Yahoo to my comcast email address.

When I check the headers, the FROM: and TO: are all scrambled, and creating a filter using those fields is pretty much ineffective. 

I have started just adding all the domains they are coming from as a filter, but some domains are pretty popular, so assuming the spammer lost their account, it makes filtering one hit/run incident hard.

What I dont understand, is why are they bothering? Surely no one is going to fall for that crap when its so obvious its spam.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

"Davenlr" said:


> In this case, its actually forwarded mail from Yahoo to my comcast email address.
> 
> When I check the headers, the FROM: and TO: are all scrambled, and creating a filter using those fields is pretty much ineffective.
> 
> ...


I said the same thing about Nigerian princes etc. They need a ridiculously small percentage to fall for it to make a profit.


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

I use Superantispyware, Malwarebytes, Uniblue Registry Booster, McAfee Security Scan Plus and Windows Security Essentials as security software in addition to sticking with Gmail as my email client. The frequent automatic scans that occur can be a bit of a bother at times, but I've yet to have a problem. Gmail's spam filter is very good.


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## dmspen (Dec 1, 2006)

I just won the New Zealand lottery. All I have to do is call and give them my banking information so they can deposit the $1,000,000.00 that I won.


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## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

dmspen said:


> I just won the New Zealand lottery. All I have to do is call and give them my banking information so they can deposit the $1,000,000.00 that I won.


Congrats!
When you get the dough, you can purchase a share of the $58,000,000 some childless diplomat has left me-out of the blue, can you believe my luck!!- as soon as I can send the expediter $150,000 to pay some taxes in Usponnaland to free up the estate. So, you send me $75,000 and you'll get $29,000,000. Fair enough??


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Davenlr said:


> Ive been getting lots of spam lately. It somehow tricks Thunderbird (and apparently the ISP's spam filtering) by substituting high ascii characters such as these:


This is a long, long-standing method of obscuring spam.

There are no simple rules for identifying it. Some programs that do identify it are looking specifically for what language the message is in and whether the character set is appropriate to that language.

If you need a comprehensive spam filter, don't reinvent the wheel. Try SpamAssassin or one of the products from the antivirus companies. If that doesn't work or looks to complicated, consider a spam filtering service like Google's Postini.


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## billsharpe (Jan 25, 2007)

dmspen said:


> I just won the New Zealand lottery. All I have to do is call and give them my banking information so they can deposit the $1,000,000.00 that I won.


Did you notice that these guys always include the zero cents after the decimal point?

Does that really make a difference?

MSN, Gmail, and Verizon all seem to be able to get virtually all my spam messages transferred to my Junk account.


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## fluffybear (Jun 19, 2004)

Davenlr said:


> What I dont understand, is why are they bothering? Surely no one is going to fall for that crap when its so obvious its spam.


I have always thought the same about Rachel and her friends who constantly call. Do you really think that calling me or spamming me over and over is going to make me want to do business with you?


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## dmspen (Dec 1, 2006)

:jumpingja:jumpingja


Laxguy said:


> Congrats!
> When you get the dough, you can purchase a share of the $58,000,000 some childless diplomat has left me-out of the blue, can you believe my luck!!- as soon as I can send the expediter $150,000 to pay some taxes in Usponnaland to free up the estate. So, you send me $75,000 and you'll get $29,000,000. Fair enough??


I am also a Nigerian winner several times over.

I guess I'm an internet millionaire! :jumpingja


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