General

When Spam is Good

Spam spam spam spam. Lovely spam! Wonderful spam! Spam spa-a-a-a-a-am spam spa-a-a-a-a-am spam. Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Spam spam (Viking Chorus from Monty Python's Flying Circus: The Spam Sketch).

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Associate Editor [March 18, 2001]

Steganography is the art of hiding information within other information. The idea is to hide a message for a few people to decipher, right where everyone can see it—and so it is with Spammimic.com.

Just like viruses can be hidden within large files, or trojans masked by innocuous images, so too can your private e-mail messages be disguised with spam-speak. Spammimic is a grammar-mimicking engine that takes a normal e-mail message and transforms it into spamminized gobbledy-gook before your very eyes!

Why spam works
So why would you ever adjust a perfectly normal e-mail to look like spam? Because e-mail snooping programs like Echelon and Carnivore don't bother to intercept spam-like messages traversing the Net.

Do you suppose this means that government e-mail processing initiatives can no longer ignore spam? According to Spammimic's FAQs - perhaps.

"Possibly, due to the existence of this little website, they can no longer ignore spam. Even if Spammimic only gets 2 hits a day; the fact that it's here might force the snoops to process terabytes of spam—making them spend a little less time on other mails. "

Granted, Spammimic works best to publicly encrypt belief e-mail messages. For example, Spammimic takes an e-mail message reading "don't let the FBI read this," and transforms it into:

"Dear Professional ; We know you are interested in receiving amazing announcement ! This is a one time mailing there is no need to request removal if you won't want any more . This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 1624 ; Title 9 , Section 307. THIS IS NOT MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING ... We are a BBB member in good standing ! Do not go to sleep without ordering . Sign up a friend and you'll get a discount of 10% ! Thanks."

If you cut and past the entire Spammimic-generated message in the decryption option on Spammimic.com, you would see our original message, once again. Unfortunately, more elaborate e-mails produce a Spammimic message that tends to repeat the same statement, over and over. However, there is no limit to the size of the e-mail messages you can encode/decode with Spammimic.

Also, don't expect to be able to decode spammimicked messages by yourself anytime soon. Spammimic will not release the source code because to do so would allow Carnivore and Echilon-like programs to readily decode its filtered messages.

The site's algorithm is inspired by Peter Wayner, a former Xerox PARC employee who currently works for OS Crypto Inc., an open source cryptographic software firm. Wayner is also the author of Disappearing Cryptography: Being and Nothingness On The Net.

—End