Virus Guy

Kurt wismer wrote:

> first:
> a spammer has 2 choices, he can make his spam more readable

but more filterable

> or he can make his spam more obfuscated

less likely to be auto-filtered, but also less likely to be opened

> while better readability is no guarantee of greater sales,
> less reach *is* a guarantee of fewer sales...

Reach is a function of the size of a spam run. That being equal, it
becomes a question as to what spam will suffer more from filtering vs
from failure to open the attachment.

> while pdf viewers may not be technically a standard part of
> the os they are *effectively* a standard part of the os...
> just as flash-based ads on the web are effective despite
> flash not coming pre-installed,

Poor example.

Flash content is (usually) auto-rendered on a web page. PDF content
is NOT auto-rendered as a component of a page being viewed.

> pdf-based spam can be effective without acrobat coming
> pre-installed...

And if it remains un-installed on a given system - what then?

> when it comes to formats this popular the question of whether
> the reader comes pre-installed simply does not matter...

You are not correctly appraising the importance or exposure of the PDF
format to the typical person who responds to spam.

I could say that people who knowingly install acrobat on their systems
probably belong to the demographic of people who are least likely to
act on or respond to spam.