---
title: "Spammer Tactics"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/5/12/spammer-tactics.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/5/12/spammer-tactics.html"
published: "2003-05-12T09:31:00"
updated: "2003-05-12T09:31:00"
tags: ["Off Topic"]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "A thought provoking and kinda scary post about Spam and Anti-Spam tactics and the brilliance of SpamBayes Addin for outlook and how its tactics compare with SpamAssassin. Very good stuff. One example of a deceptive spam…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# Spammer Tactics

By Roy Osherove May 12, 2003 In [Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic)

**Historical article** · Originally published May 12, 2003; technical details may be outdated.

A [thought provoking and kinda scary post](http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2003/05/08.html#a684) about Spam and Anti-Spam tactics and the brilliance of [SpamBayes](http://starship.python.net/crew/mhammond/spambayes/) Addin for outlook and how its tactics compare with SpamAssassin. Very good stuff.

One example of a deceptive spam message was a message that actually spidere'd Jon's Site and pasted in remarks taken from the web page into the message (such as "I was glad to see the link about 'bla bla' on your site..."). I had no idea the tactics were that clever!

Thanks to [Paschal](http://dotnetweblogs.com/pleloup/posts/6891.aspx) for the link.

## More in Off Topic

[All posts in Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic)

- May 14, 2003

    ### [About Design](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/5/14/about-design.html)

- May 13, 2003

    ### [Expression Boy](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/5/13/expression-boy.html)

- May 12, 2003

    ### [Blindfolded](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/5/12/blindfolded.html)

- May 12, 2003

    ### [Windows Longhorn 3D UI - short videos](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/5/12/windows-longhorn-3d-ui-short-videos.html)


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

### Social

- X: https://x.com/royosherove
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/

### Contact

- Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7

### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/