RE: Image spam hits a new level...

[Larry Seltzer <Larry () larryseltzer com>]

> > The more I think about this the more I'm convinced that the spammers
are targetting something other than beating the odd site that has
deployed SpamAssassin's OCR plugin or the occasional rough equivalent. 

At the same time they're introducing what appear to be anti-OCR
techniques they're also throwing in randomized distortions that make it
impossible to take signatures (CRC/checksum) of the graphics. So they're
muddying the waters on their intentions. 

It's interesting that this ramdomization increases the CPU load on the
spammer end too; I wonder if it's done at the bot at some earlier stage.

Larry Seltzer
eWEEK.com Security Center Editor
http://security.eweek.com/
http://blog.eweek.com/blogs/larry%5Fseltzer/
Contributing Editor, PC Magazine
larryseltzer () ziffdavis com 

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