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73 °F Forecast | Road Cams Tuesday, August 3, 2004 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Prime Times Wellness Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Rogue Valley's Finest EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People MARKETPLACE Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Classifieds Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend July 27, 2004 Since You Asked E-mail sometimes speaks spam’s language I wonder why so many Internet "offers" have so many blatant typos? Words are misspelled or come across as gibberish. Sometimes there are words in the message that don’t make any sense when strung together. Is this just a way to get readers’ attention? — C.G., Central Point Well, C.G., it’s more likely they are trying to distract your attention (and the attention of your anti-spam software) from the fact that they’re selling something or trying to get you signed up for something that your mother would not approve of. According to the www.(World Wide Worriers) Department here at Since You Asked, those apparently garbled messages are most often attempts at avoiding anti-spam filters. Spam, for the uninitiated, is the junk mail of the Internet, messages or advertisements sent out to thousands or millions of e-mail addresses at a time. Spammers also will substitute numerals, like 0, to replace alphabetic characters, like o, to escape detection. The computer geeks at Since You Asked say computer viruses also may cause messages to be garbled. Sometimes those messed-up messages come from foreign sources that use poor translating programs. Strings of unrelated words are often put in messages or on Web sites in an attempt to cause computer search engines to pick them up. Send questions to "Since You Asked," Mail Tribune Newsroom, P.O. Box 1108, Medford, OR 97501; by fax to 541-776-4376; or by e-mail to [email protected] . We’re sorry, but the volume of questions received prevents us from answering all of them. Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2004 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback ADVERTISERS A D V E R T I S E R S RESOURCES Oregon Road Conditions & Cams SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Since We Asked Food for Thought Wellness Connection Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Opportunities Prime Times