Small talk.

[Mark London <mr...@psfc.mit.edu>]

I started getting very short emails, such as "How are you?"  or "please. 
can we talk please?"   Ok, maybe the latter one is a bit suspicious.   
But in any event, has anyone encountered "small talk" spam emails like 
this before?   I have this big desire to respond and say "No, I'm not 
fine, and we can't talk".  But I doubt that will resolve the issue. :)   
I'm just curious if anyone else has encountered this.  Thanks. - Mark

Re: Small talk.

[Benny Pedersen <me...@junc.eu>]

Mark London skrev den 2018-10-25 06:59:
> I started getting very short emails, such as "How are you?"  or
> "please. can we talk please?"   Ok,

what to reply if not ? :=)

> maybe the latter one is a bit
> suspicious.

sender try to verify that email exists, and are willing to talk and 
play, payload comes later

> But in any event, has anyone encountered "small talk"
> spam emails like this before?

have seen it always for spam

> I have this big desire to respond and
> say "No, I'm not fine, and we can't talk".

now spammers know your email address exists, and thay harwaste more meta 
data on replys to try misuse later

> But I doubt that will
> resolve the issue. :)

want to know more ?

> I'm just curious if anyone else has
> encountered this.  Thanks. - Mark

being on mailling lists is good, help spammers is not good

Re: Small talk.

[RW <rw...@googlemail.com>]

On Thu, 25 Oct 2018 08:38:37 +0000 (UTC)
Pedro David Marco wrote:

>  
> 
>    >On Thursday, October 25, 2018, 7:00:00 AM GMT+2, Mark London
>    ><mr...@psfc.mit.edu> wrote:  > >I started getting very short
>    >emails, such as "How are you?"  or "please. 
> >can we talk please?"  Ok, maybe the latter one is a bit suspicious.  
> >But in any event, has anyone encountered "small talk" spam emails
> >like this before?  I have this big desire to respond and say "No,
> >I'm not fine, and we can't talk".  But I doubt that will resolve the
> >issue. :) I'm just curious if anyone else has encountered this.
> >Thanks. - Mark  
> 
> 
>  It is not easy to block emails just
> becasue they contating a  "how are you?"  sentence. 

Subjects that are unlikely to be in in bulk mail can be combined with 

  && (DCC_CHECK || RAZOR2_CHECK)

Re: Small talk.

[Pedro David Marco <pe...@yahoo.com>]

 

   >On Thursday, October 25, 2018, 7:00:00 AM GMT+2, Mark London <mr...@psfc.mit.edu> wrote:  > >I started getting very short emails, such as "How are you?"  or "please. 
>can we talk please?"  Ok, maybe the latter one is a bit suspicious.  
>But in any event, has anyone encountered "small talk" spam emails like 
>this before?  I have this big desire to respond and say "No, I'm not 
>fine, and we can't talk".  But I doubt that will resolve the issue. :)  
>I'm just curious if anyone else has encountered this.  Thanks. - Mark


Hi Mark... usually flushing a normal toilet in zero-gravity is not a good idea, but this time may be different..
Answer to that email and see what happens. That will give you the chance to observe how the spammer/hacker behaves.... 
It is not easy to block emails just becasue they contating a  "how are you?"  sentence. But in case any user replays, it may beeasier to detect the second spammer email...  far from perfect but a good FP/FN balance.

-----PedroD