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Ask HN: Is there a list of definite spam words/phrases?

by throwaway000021 on 7/19/17, 7:51 AM with 1 comments

It appears to me that spam systems work out the probability that some item of mail is spam based on some sort of algorithms.

However, recently I have been processing hundreds of thousands of emails including hundreds of thousands of items of spam.

I can see in the spam emails that there are many words and phrases used in the subject lines that will simply never appear in any valid email that I care about receiving. For example:

H00kup

F*ckbuddy

Xenical

Viagra

BangBuddy

In addition to the single words, there are various phrases in the subject lines that would never appear in a legit email, such as:

Affordable lux Copy watches

accessories for cheap

Designer timepieces for all tastes

Time to look rich

So it strikes me that maybe there is a list of words and phrases that, if found in an email subject line, definitely identify that email as spam.

Does anyone know if such a list exists? A list of words/phrases that would only ever be found on a spam email?

  • by introvertmac on 7/19/17, 7:55 AM

    I came across this 'STOP words' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_words yesterday. Wiki says these word list can vary from services to services. There is hardly any chance you'll find a complete list, maybe common words are available.