Blank Spams

[Keef]

My trusty Spamcop account traps 99.9% of all known germs for me. I just have to clear it out once a day. It's been that way for many years. I've grown used to all the regular spams that occur daily/weekly - indeed, there's something endearing about them. The lady who has cancer and two months to live - she still does, five years later. Same name, different e-mail addresses.

But this week, a new trend has started. I'm getting about 100 a day "blank" spams - there is absolutely nothing there: no headers, no subject, nothing.

I'm curious - what are they? Mr Google says they're spammers testing random addresses to see if they bounce, but that doesn't explain the sheer volume I'm getting.

Anyone know?

[Milo Minderbinder]

If you look at the source code for the mail, there probably is some hidden code, or maybe a a web bug - a 1x1 pixel image (probably white) stored on a server with a unique address. If you read the mail, the bug is "read" and your address is confirmed.
Sounds to me that whoever has got hold of your e-mail address has screwed up on teh mail spam run and duplicated it. Best to delete them all without opening

[Keef]

There's nothing whatever to see there - no source code, no headers, no addressee, no sender, nothing. They sit in my Spamcop "held mail" folder with a reference number, but that's all there is. If I tell Spamcop to forward them, it queues them but nothing arrives.

They started on 27th Feb, when I got about a dozen. The rate increased to about 100 a day by 1st March, and has been there since.

I'm just curious as to what they are.

[Milo Minderbinder]

which e-mail provider is your mail account with? Hotmail by any chance?

[bnt]

Well, spams are automatically generated by programs, and programs can be written ... badly. One misplaced comma in a script, one person gets an inbox of inanity.

[mixture]

There's better things out there than Spamcop. The spammers have probably just found a way around the spamcop filters. The old cat and mouse game continues.

[FullOppositeRudder]

This works: Mailwasher Free Spam Filter Software: The Reliable Free Spam Blocker | MailWasher - Mailwasher Free (http://www.mailwasher.net/)

[Keef]

which e-mail provider is your mail account with? Hotmail by any chance?

Nope. I don't use Hotmail - never have.

I have several ISPs for different purposes, most of them routed via Spamcop.

[green granite]

The sender might be trying to send in Microsoft Rich Text or HTML format and your user can only recieve in plain text.

[mixture]

Surely if he could only receive plain text, he would just see the unparsed HTML source ?