As usual, most of the spam that gets trapped in my spam filter is a big pile of links to some site either offering me the opportunity to watch pornography or to buy ginurioc vigara (or something like that, anyway). But it’s always interesting to see any new methods of trying to defeat spam filters, [...]

Searching through my spam filter for anything of interest (in other words, spam which is slightly more original than the usual list of links) hasn’t generally been very rewarding of late, but recently there have been a few worthy of note. Our site support this blogSpammer Well, that’s nice to know. If you really support [...]

…it must be a diseased tongue, presumably. It’s time to see what spam has been washed into my filters recently. Learn to tipe online Hmm. My “tiping” may not be great (I’m a six finger, one thumb typist, although my typing speed is better than most non-trained people) but I reckon my spelling is ahead. [...]

I know some people have sent me e-cards before, and have wondered why I’ve not commented on them. It’s simple: I never open e-cards. It’s not because I’m rude, or obnoxious (I may indeed be those things, but that is not the reason in this particular case). It’s because it’s not worth the effort and/or [...]

So there I was, complaining the other day that for the most part, people who filled in a list of spam comments were just sending me a list of links to whatever it was they were trying to get google juice for (even if the use of rel=”nofollow” on all links in comments means that [...]

Spam comments used to be entertaining to read. You’d get some half-developed story — see Spam Stories for the sort of thing — with either a few random links thrown in through the article, or maybe just even in the commenter’s URL. However, as spam filters changed and we started to see less of these [...]

I’ve come across a lot of the above in the last few weeks, in social networks of varying types. It’s important not to confuse the three. The first two will always pose as someone they aren’t, in some way shape or form — either by using the same name as someone and attempting to pass [...]

Now, it’s perfectly understandable that a spam comment slips through now and again, particularly when it is one that looks at least vaguely on-topic, doesn’t contain a boatload of links and just uses the author URL (or at most this plus one other) to link off to somewhere else. However, I would have expected at [...]

In what might come as a shock to my security blogging mate, I am suggesting that if you live in the Gateshead area, and receive any scam letters, you should by all means forward them on. This applies specifically to suspected physical scams. [Update: nope, according to someone who heard something about it on the [...]

Yes, I’m back, and spitting out vitriol (‘cos you shouldn’t really have it in your mouth in the first place). Well, not exactly. It’s just that it’s been a busy christmas, so I thought I’d have a blog holiday, and I’ve been poorly too (culminating in the GLW getting me out of bed at around [...]