So while browsing through my spam-basket I came across an interesting message that was caught by SpamAssassin.  The headers from that message follow (edited slightly to remove addresses and to emphasise details):

Subject: §Ú¬O¤@­Ó·Å¬Xªº¨Ä¨Ä¤k«Ä.·Q´M§ä¨ë¿Eªº­ô­ô±z³ßÅw¶Ü?¡ð20·³
X-Spam-Status: Yes, score=63.4 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_99, DATE_IN_FUTURE_96_XX, FORGED_MUA_EUDORA, FORGED_QUALCOMM_TAGS, FROM_ILLEGAL_CHARS, HEAD_ILLEGAL_CHARS, HTML_30_40, HTML_IMAGE_ONLY_08, HTML_MESSAGE, HTML_MIME_NO_HTML_TAG, HTML_SHORT_LINK_IMG_1, MIME_BOUND_DD_DIGITS, MIME_HTML_ONLY, MIME_HTML_ONLY_MULTI, MISSING_MIMEOLE, MSGID_SPAM_CAPS, NORMAL_HTTP_TO_IP, RCVD_DOUBLE_IP_SPAM, RCVD_IN_BL_SPAMCOP_NET, RCVD_NUMERIC_HELO, REPTO_QUOTE_QUALCOMM, REPTO_QUOTE_YAHOO, SUBJ_ILLEGAL_CHARS, UNPARSEABLE_RELAY, URIBL_JP_SURBL, URIBL_OB_SURBL, URIBL_SBL, URIBL_SC_SURBL, URIBL_WS_SURBL, X_IP, X_PRIORITY_HIGH autolearn=spam version=3.1.7
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2038 11:14:07 +0800
X-Spam-Flag: YES
X-Spam-Level: **************************************************
From xxxx.xxxxxxxx@xxxxxx.com.br Tue Oct 24 16: 43:51 2006
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.7 (2006-10-05) on xxxxxx.xxxxxx.com
Message-Id: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----------=_453E7B09.452041D8"
To: support@xxxxxxx.com.tw
From: mailto:¼ÐÃD¡G¡m¥¨¨Å°Ï¡n·s¼W¡m»a¤«ªÅ¡n±j¥´·s¤ù¡A¤ù¤¤¦³¦o¸g¨åªº¼é§jÃèÀY¡I³ôºÙ¥L§@«~¤ºªº¤W¤W¤§¿ï%20(¡m¥¨¨Å°Ï¡n·s¼W¥i·Rµ£ÃCÄ_¨©¡m»a¤«)

I can honestly say – that has got to be the worst message I ever received.  Most of my spam emails never get above a spam-score of 20!  What gets me is that the sender of the message somehow managed to completely mess it up.  So this is an example of the fourth (I think) rule of software development – always test what you are doing (or trying to do)!

I mean, come on now… If you are stupid enough to construct a message that sets off that many spam-traps, you really are an idiot!  It is things like this that give me hope that we will eventually win the war on spam.  Hell, look at the kinds of people we are fighting! 🙂