Re: Question about AI generated spam and prompts

Ted Mittelstaedt <[email protected]> Sat, 30 May 2026 17:49:23 -0700
Newsgroups gmane.mail.spam.spamassassin.general
Message-ID <[email protected]>
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The only way that kind of email offering works is a mandatory quarantine 
interface.

I used to use MaiWatch as a front end to Mailscanner.  It works very 
well in building a personalized trained database per user.

But after a while I realized I was spending as much time building the 
database as just deleting the spam.

Ted

On 5/30/2026 9:39 AM, Charles Sprickman wrote:
> Tangent: I am getting this same sort of spam like crazy, so if there's 
> any tips, secret rulesets, etc., I'm all ears.
>
> It feels so targeted - I add/adjust RBLs in Postscreen to just drop a 
> ton of stuff at the front door and things let up for a few weeks and 
> then it all comes back, same stuff over and over again - clearly the 
> same little spam gang. I guess they just find a new set of 
> "bulletproof" hosts to switch too whenever they see a certain amount 
> of rejections across the board? It truly sucks how the spammers are 
> yet another partner in driving people to put all their email accounts 
> in the hands of the dozen or so providers that have the resources to 
> build their own functional internal spam filtering solutions. No 
> little 2-man shop that just wants to offer email as a bonus for some 
> other service or a hobbyist has the resources to be cobbling up their 
> own little special rulesets every day...
>
> /rant
>
> C
>
>> On May 30, 2026, at 12:07 AM, Tom Williams via users 
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> Hi!  A friend of mine is getting hammered with Costco, AAA, Lowe's 
>> and similar spam.  I don't know how they got her email address, but 
>> she's getting flooded.  Her email account is on a shared hosting 
>> platform (Hostgator) and while Spamassassin is installed and 
>> configured, it's blocking only so much of this.
>>
>> Anyway, I'm writing because tonight, she started getting messages 
>> that contain the text of a prompt for an AI engine to generate the 
>> spam email.  lol
>>
>> My questions:
>>
>>  1. Is having access to the prompt text useful in helping
>>     Spamassassin detect and filter out AI generated spam?
>>  2. Would it be worthwhile to create any kind of rule to look for the
>>     prompt text to help in filtering out the messages?
>>
>> I have a few samples of these if anyone is interested.
>>
>> Thanks in advance!
>>
>> Peace...
>>
>> Tom
>>
>
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    <p>The only way that kind of email offering works is a mandatory
      quarantine interface.</p>
    <p>I used to use MaiWatch as a front end to Mailscanner.  It works
      very well in building a personalized trained database per user.</p>
    <p>But after a while I realized I was spending as much time building
      the database as just deleting the spam.</p>
    <p>Ted</p>
    <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 5/30/2026 9:39 AM, Charles Sprickman
      wrote:<br>
    </div>
    <blockquote type="cite"
      cite="mid:[email protected]">
      <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
      Tangent: I am getting this same sort of spam like crazy, so if
      there's any tips, secret rulesets, etc., I'm all ears.
      <div><br>
      </div>
      <div>It feels so targeted - I add/adjust RBLs in Postscreen to
        just drop a ton of stuff at the front door and things let up for
        a few weeks and then it all comes back, same stuff over and over
        again - clearly the same little spam gang. I guess they just
        find a new set of "bulletproof" hosts to switch too whenever
        they see a certain amount of rejections across the board? It
        truly sucks how the spammers are yet another partner in driving
        people to put all their email accounts in the hands of the dozen
        or so providers that have the resources to build their own
        functional internal spam filtering solutions. No little 2-man
        shop that just wants to offer email as a bonus for some other
        service or a hobbyist has the resources to be cobbling up their
        own little special rulesets every day...</div>
      <div><br>
      </div>
      <div>/rant</div>
      <div><br>
      </div>
      <div>C<br id="lineBreakAtBeginningOfMessage">
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          <blockquote type="cite">
            <div>On May 30, 2026, at 12:07 AM, Tom Williams via users
              <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:[email protected]">&lt;[email protected]&gt;</a> wrote:</div>
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                <p>Hi!  A friend of mine is getting hammered with
                  Costco, AAA, Lowe's and similar spam.  I don't know
                  how they got her email address, but she's getting
                  flooded.  Her email account is on a shared hosting
                  platform (Hostgator) and while Spamassassin is
                  installed and configured, it's blocking only so much
                  of this.  </p>
                <p>Anyway, I'm writing because tonight, she started
                  getting messages that contain the text of a prompt for
                  an AI engine to generate the spam email.  lol</p>
                <p>My questions:</p>
                <ol>
                  <li>Is having access to the prompt text useful in
                    helping Spamassassin detect and filter out AI
                    generated spam?</li>
                  <li>Would it be worthwhile to create any kind of rule
                    to look for the prompt text to help in filtering out
                    the messages?</li>
                </ol>
                <p>I have a few samples of these if anyone is
                  interested.</p>
                <p>Thanks in advance!</p>
                <p>Peace...</p>
                <p>Tom</p>
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