{“If you use a spam filter such as “,” or “,” (and really, you should), you may have noticed that a message hawking phony pharmaceuticals has managed to make its way past your filter. It has because it includes the Habeas header.
The “,” It’s like this: A company called “,” has developed a scheme that attempts to guarantee the legitimacy of email by implanting identifiable information — in this case, a haiku — in each legitimate message. When a spam filter sees this haiku, it gives the message a thumbs up and, pretty much regardless of what else the message contains, it’s passed along as The Real Deal.
Habeas markets its scheme to those who send large volumes of email that isn’t spam. Those who sign on for Habeas are asked to swear that they won’t use it for the purposes of evil. To add some muscle to its message, Habeas vows to vigorously prosecute anyone who uses its scheme to pass on spam.
Which brings us to today. At least one spammer has chosen to ignore Habeas’ threats and includes the Habeas haiku. This is the aforementioned phony pill spam most of us receive on a regular basis. By default, SpamAssassin and SpamSieve treat messages that contain the haiku with respect. Given that Habeas has been compromised by this spammer since the middle of January and this crud continues to blight our In boxes, you may wish to tell your filter to be more wary of Habeas messages.
SpamSieve’s creator, “,”preference (which you’ll find in the Filters tab of SpamSieve’s preferences). Those who use SpamAssassin have found it to be more effective when you adjust its score for messages that contain the Habeas header from -8.0 to -0.1.”}