From: don-aitken@freeuk.com 
  
 On Fri, 23 Jan 2004 23:30:57 GMT, "Knack"  
 wrote: 
  
 >More and more newsgroups are getting spammed with absurdly nonsensical posts 
 >such as 
 > 
 >"Subject: Re: try not to mould a painter 
 >Every lost blunt teacher moves desks within Norbert's difficult 
 >pumpkin.  I was jumping to pour you some of my outer onions." 
 > 
 >Why is it? What's the purpose of it all? Is it a cyphered message? 
 > 
 No. It's computer-generated random text. The usual purpose is to 
 ensure that your spam messages are sufficiently different to avoid 
 automatic spam-cancellation (the original and strict meaning of "spam" 
 refers to *identical* messages, and says nothing about content). The 
 meaningful part of the message is usually a short come-on and a URL. 
  
 Of course, some people use it just to annoy; a sufficient number of 
 such messages can make a group pretty well unusable. This is 
 technically a DOS (for "denial of service") attack. All good news 
 providers eliminate great quantities of such stuff from their 
 newsfeed. 
  
 -- 
 Don Aitken 
  
 Mail to the addresses given in the headers is no longer being 
 read. To mail me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com". 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)