![\"6292](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/6292-spams.webp?resize=1024%2C274&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\nDeleting 6292 spam emails has a surprisingly calming effect over me. Maybe I’m just in a mood. I deliberately let these spam emails accumulate on the off chance that someone sends me an email and misspells the first half of my email address. Misspelled emails would go to the catch-all, which is where all this spam goes. I monitor these in the old Alpine text-only email to avoid setting off alerts to the spammers by loading single-pixel gifs or other media content hidden in the mails.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
For gits and shiggles I asked ChatGPT to explain the subject line of the last email. Here is what I learned:<\/p>\n
As a spam email subject line<\/strong>, this text is doing something very specific and very common.<\/p>\n \u5f00\u4f4f\u5bbf \u221a \u9910\u996e\u66dd<\/strong><\/p>\n This is deliberately malformed, mixed-signal Chinese<\/strong> used to:<\/p>\n Evade spam filters<\/strong><\/p>\n Mixing symbols (\u221a), uncommon characters (\u66dd<\/strong>), and truncated phrases<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Avoiding full grammatical sentences<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Using industry keywords without context<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n Signal certain scam categories<\/strong> \u4f4f\u5bbf<\/strong> (lodging \/ hotels)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \u9910\u996e<\/strong> (food & beverage \/ restaurants) fake business opportunity scams<\/p>\n<\/li>\n fake supplier \/ wholesale offers<\/p>\n<\/li>\n fake licensing or \u201cexposure \/ promotion\u201d services<\/p>\n<\/li>\n phishing aimed at small business owners<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n Create curiosity without clarity<\/strong> \u66dd<\/strong> by itself is abnormal in subject lines; it\u2019s shorthand for \u66dd\u5149<\/strong> (\u201cexposure,\u201d \u201cvisibility,\u201d \u201cpromotion\u201d).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \u5f00\u4f4f\u5bbf<\/strong> is incomplete; it implies \u201copen lodging\u201d<\/em> or \u201cactivate accommodation status\u201d<\/em>, which only makes sense in:<\/p>\n admin panels<\/p>\n<\/li>\n regulatory notices<\/p>\n<\/li>\n scam messages pretending to be official platforms<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n This subject line strongly indicates:<\/p>\n Automated spam<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Not written for native readability<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Designed to bypass filters, not communicate<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/p>\n You can safely treat this as low-effort Chinese commercial spam<\/strong> and ignore or filter it.<\/p>\n I next fed ChatGPT the complete HTML content of the email, without the headers. The headers contained email addresses of deceased friends who used to have POP3 email accounts @sorabji.com. This may be of interest only to me but here is the content of the email followed by ChatGPT’s assessment:<\/p>\n <HTML><HEAD> This is a classic spam \/ probe message<\/strong>, and its structure is actually more informative than its content.<\/p>\n It is not meant to be read by a human<\/strong>.<\/p>\n It is almost certainly one (or more) of the following:<\/p>\n A mailbox-validation probe<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/li>\n A spam-filter evasion test<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/li>\n A dead-drop \/ signaling email<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/li>\n A failed or intentionally stripped payload<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n GBK<\/strong> is a Mainland China character encoding.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n This aligns with the Chinese subject line<\/strong> you showed earlier.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Often used in bulk-mail tooling still running on very old Windows systems.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n This is Internet Explorer 11\u2019s rendering engine<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Strong signal of:<\/p>\n very old automation<\/p>\n<\/li>\n commodity spam kits<\/p>\n<\/li>\n or malware-adjacent tooling<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n Legitimate senders do not<\/strong> generate email this way anymore.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n This is deliberate.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Purpose:<\/p>\n Make the email technically \u201cnon-empty\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Avoid triggering \u201cblank email\u201d heuristics<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Push real content far down where scanners may not parse<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n This is intentional obfuscation<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Breakdown:<\/p>\n Arabic numerals: Chinese numerals mixed in:<\/p>\n \u4e00 = 1<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \u4e03 = 7<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \u4e94 = 5<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n This pattern is commonly used to:<\/p>\n defeat regex-based spam rules<\/p>\n<\/li>\n encode a campaign ID<\/strong>, routing code<\/strong>, or sender fingerprint<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/li>\n act as a marker for automated replies or later follow-ups<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n It is not<\/strong> meant to decode to a sentence.<\/p>\n This is very likely:<\/p>\n a batch ID<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/li>\n a recipient hash fragment<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/li>\n or a delivery confirmation token<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n These are commonly used so the spammer can later:<\/p>\n correlate bounces<\/p>\n<\/li>\n identify \u201clive\u201d inboxes<\/p>\n<\/li>\n target follow-up phishing or scams<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n This is the key point.<\/p>\n Your address was being tested<\/strong>, not marketed to<\/p>\n<\/li>\n The sender wanted to know:<\/p>\n Does this mailbox exist?<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Does it accept HTML?<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Does it auto-load content?<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Does it bounce?<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n If you open<\/strong> it:<\/p>\n That alone can mark your address as \u201cengaged\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Especially if images or tracking pixels were present (even if you don\u2019t see them)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n The earlier subject line:<\/p>\n \u5f00\u4f4f\u5bbf \u221a \u9910\u996e\u66dd<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n paired with this body strongly suggests:<\/p>\n Phase 1:<\/strong> probe with nonsense content<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Phase 2:<\/strong> later send a real scam only to responsive addresses<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n This is very common in Chinese commercial spam pipelines<\/strong>.<\/p>\n This email contains no hidden message<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/li>\nWhat it\u2019s trying to do (not what it literally says)<\/h3>\n
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\n
\nThe keywords are chosen because they correlate with:<\/p>\n\n
\nThese are commonly used in:<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
\nThe subject line is intentionally ambiguous so recipients open the message to \u201cfigure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nWhy the wording is odd<\/h3>\n
\n
\n
Practical takeaway<\/h3>\n
\n
\n
\n<META content=”text\/html; charset=gbk” http-equiv=Content-Type>
\n<META name=GENERATOR content=”MSHTML 11.00.9600.21615″><\/HEAD>
\n<BODY>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P>13\u4e0006\u4e0315\u4e9418<\/P>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P> <\/P>
\n<P>328540<\/P>
\n<P> <\/P><\/BODY><\/HTML><\/p>\n
\nWhat this email actually is<\/h2>\n
\n
\nKey indicators and what they mean<\/h2>\n
1.
charset=gbk<\/code><\/h3>\n\n
\n2.
MSHTML 11.00.9600.21615<\/code><\/h3>\n\n
\n
\n3. Almost entirely
<\/code><\/h3>\n\n
\n
\n4. The strange mixed-number line<\/h3>\n
\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n13\u4e0006\u4e0315\u4e9418
\n<\/code><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
13 06 15 18<\/code><\/p>\n<\/li>\n\n
\n
\n5. The trailing number<\/h3>\n
\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n328540
\n<\/code><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
\n
\nWhy the email has no message<\/em><\/h2>\n
What it means in practice<\/h3>\n
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\n
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\nRelationship to the subject line<\/h2>\n
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\nBottom line (plain English)<\/h2>\n
\n
![\"spamspamspam\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/spamspamspam.webp?ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/h2>\n