Odd spam email, any theories?

[Hal Bidlack]

For some time now, I've been getting these odd emails. I assume they are from a bot, looking for a response in order to get a good email address? I always bounce them, but I confess I wonder about them. Does anyone know about these things? An example is posted below...

Hello,
Y estos son los usos de Castilla y de Leon!to make its annual yield of cider.how he contrived to get there. It may be due to this that upon hisToo late he ordered his helmsman to put the tiller hard over andHe fetched a heavy sigh. A pity, he said slowly. Oh, blisteronce more to consider his surroundings.raid upon an English settlement. Unfortunately for himself and forruling England for two months and more.It is not your friendship only that I ask, Arabella. You heardThink of Cartagena! Think of the hell those devils will be makingtorpidity and awoke at the first words Blood spoke to him thathis head, and sat there considering, weighing, chin on breast. ThenPitt, the Somersetshire shipmaster. In addition to his ability asdragging at his feet, he went down the companion to give the orderto remain on deck with Hagthorpe.had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit

 

[Psi Baba]

I've seen worms that scan the "sender's" hard drive for documents and paste a random chunk of text into the e-mail message. Could be something along those lines.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Makes perfect splice the mainbrace sense and a bottle of rum to me!Pieces of Eight! Pieces of Eight! What is it make more sail there, Mr, Christian you find difficult avast behind to understand, Hal?

 

[AlH]

Probably random phrases set up to confuse and get past spam filters.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Well- hardly random. They seem selected at random from a book about sailing ships.

Does any of the material ring bells Hal? Would any of this stuff (unscrambled) occur on your pc for example?

 

[bignickel]

Hal! What did I tell you about giving Pillory your private email address?!


Anyways: the previous poster was correct. The worm takes a random document from the sources hard drive, and then sends an email with that gibberish in it to make sure it will get past email spam filters. It's 'payload' is usually an .exe or other file that you'll get tricked into running on your computer. From your description, it sounds like your email or virus scanner removed the offending file before it could cause a problem.

 

[wdsmith]

It's 'payload' is usually an .exe or other file that you'll get tricked into running on your computer.

I've also seen advertising spam which places the advertisement in an attached .gif.

Millenium hand and shrimp! Buggrit!