rp_photo wrote:
Do they really think that we'll take their e-mails seriously with subjects like "Newfoundlanddog interlocutor"?

What they are trying to do is manipulate the word-frequency statistics of their Emails to try to bypass statistical (bayesian) spam filters. What's funny about that, as you point out, is that it makes all their "important messages" completely
incoherent.

It's an interesting/weird fallacy of marketing that marketing has impact no matter HOW the message gets through. So marketers believe that if you see their credit card offer it's going to sell you - even if they have to hide it in a fake FEDEX-looking envelope and play other tricks so you won't immediately throw it away. They completely do not count how unlikely you are to buy something from someone once they have ANNOYED you.

I've got a couple of friends who are seriously into the anti-spam thing (they build anti-spam products) and they've spent a lot of time interacting with spammers. They say that the spammers are "genuinely puzzled" by the fact that so many people despise them; they feel they're "just trying to make a living" and so on. I find that amazing because if I worked in a field where so many people were actively trying to make me go away - I would.

mjr.

Marcus J. Ranum wrote:
So marketers believe that if you see their credit card offer it's going to sell you - even if they have to hide it in a fake FEDEX-looking envelope and play other tricks so you won't immediately throw it away.

There is an opposite to this as well. Rebate checks are often disguised as junk mail in the hopes that you WILL throw them away!

Spammers operate on a numbers game in that only a small percentage of responses are needed to make a profit. If you really want to find someone to blame for spam, look to the idiots that buy things from them!