"fuck" in Wash Post

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Fri, Jun 25, 2004 at 01:08:21PM -0400, Orin Hargraves wrote:
> Just a suggestion -- which would be very helpful to me, perhaps to others:
> when the f-word or some other vulgarism is the subject of a thread or posting,
> how about disguising it in the subject line: e.g., as "the f-word," or "f**k."
> My ISP's spam filter (about which I have otherwise only the highest praise)
> will not let things like this through when they appear in the subject line,
> though it doesn't seem to care about the content. If I want to read anything
> from such a thread I have to spring it from "Quarantine," which is unwieldly
> and not always dependable. Thanks!

Actually, I think that the right response should be for you to
complain vigorously to your ISP, or switch to another one. I'm
sorry that it's difficult for you, but this is a scholarly list,
and I don't want to censor it or misrepresent message contents
just to get around a prudish spam filter.

Perhaps not directly relevant, but I've just looked at my own
mail logs. Since 5:20 A.M. on 9 June, the last time I rolled
over my log (I won't bother searching my older logs, but I
think the results would be similar), I've received 15,583
e-mails; of these, the ones containing "fuck" in the subject
line (in any capitalization) are:

 panix2~ $ grep -i 'Subject:.*fuck' .procmail/log
 Subject: Every guy's fantasy is a girl who asks to be fucked in the ass! megal
 Subject: Hey! My Fucking Wife Gets F.U.C.K.E.D
 Subject: Looking for no strings attached sex? 1. Find 2. Meet 3. Fuck!
 Subject: Hardcoe Fucking and Sucking DVD's
 Subject: mom, daughter and son fucking!.. camellia
 Subject: you are the fuckfriend-bro  sari
 Subject: "fuck" in WashPost
 Subject: Re: "fuck" in WashPost
 Subject: Re: "fuck" in Wash Post
 Subject: Re: "fuck" in Wash Post
 Subject: Re: "fuck" in Wash Post
 Subject: Re: "fuck" in Wash Post
 Subject: Re: "fuck" in Wash Post
 Subject: Re: "fuck" in Wash Post
 Subject: Re: "fuck" in WashPost
 Subject: Re: "fuck" in WashPost
 Subject: Re: "fuck" in Wash Post

In other words, 6 messages of 15,583, or .03%, are spam with "fuck" in
the subject. Maybe my mail patterns are really weird, but from my
data it would seem that filtering on the presence of "fuck" in the
subject line is a pretty bad way of stopping spam. (And for what
it's worth, all six of those messages were caught by other means
by my spam tools.)

Best,

Jesse Sheidlower