Mike Masnick ✅Nov 25, 2022
Has anyone ever seen this before? I posted something for sale on Craigslist, and someone responded with interest but (1) said they "don't reply from cl mail" and telling me to email a different address and (2) more weirdly, below all that is pages and pages and pages of what looks like a children's book text. The text is actually in white and I only saw it because I was in dark mode. I looked later in light mode and you don't see it at all.
Show threadMike Masnick ✅Nov 25, 2022

I should be clear: I get that the book text is almost certainly designed to get around spam filters. I see that all the time in... spam. But why is it in a CL reply?

And is it enough of a red flag to avoid?

Show threadXenoPhage Nov 25, 2022
@mmasnick I'd look at it another way .. Is there a legit reason to actually have that in an email? I wonder if it's a spammer who had it all set up for something else and because it's hidden, they forgot it was there when they sent the email..
Show threadAndrew M
@XenoPhage @mmasnick that's my guess - back when I did pen testing we'd test client training with phishing messages and I pasted Dickens into a comment block in our email template to add length and get around length heuristics in spam filters.
Nov 25, 2022 at 9:33pmWeb