Subliminal spamming
p2pnet.net News:- Spammers may be leading the way in the revival of subliminal advertising, a technique first highlighted by Wilson Bryan Key in the 1970s. Under it, advertisers are said to bury messages in ads intended to reach targets – you – by ‘appealing’ to you below the threshold of your consciousness.
Now British security firm Sophos says it’s identified an animated .gif in a spam campaign designed to artificially inflate the price of shares in a company called Trimax.
“However, unlike the many other similar scam emails the graphic briefly flashes up a message saying “BUY!!!” approximately every fifteen seconds,” says the company. “The ‘BUY!!!’ message is comparable to the subliminal messages that have occasionally been used in advertising and political broadcasts to try and subconciously influence people.”
Subliminal messages, “often concentrate on the taboos of society – sex, death, incest, homosexuality, and at times, pagan icons – according to Key,” said MIT’s The Tech in 1990. “He claimed that, in one liquor advertisement, the images of a fish, screaming faces, a rat, a volcano, a lizard, and several other death symbols were embedded in ice cubes. Other examples Key showed included a man with an erection in an RJ Reynolds’ Camel advertisement, a battered skull in a Bacardi drink, and the word cancer in a cigarette advertisement.
“Key maintained that these messages do not appear by accident, coincidence, or as the work of an individual artist. Rather, advertising agencies spend three to five months and upwards of $50,000 to scrutinize every detail in each advertisement, he claimed.”
Animated graphics are being used in image spam to get past filters, “which may be attempting optical character recognition to decipher the messages that spammers send,” according to Sophos’ Graham Cluley.
“This message tries to be subliminal, but it is questionable whether it would successfully subconsciously influence armchair investors into buying more stock. Advanced anti-spam solutions, like those produced by Sophos, are capable of protecting against spam which uses these tricks.”
Can we soon expect to see messages from the RIAA and MPAA saying, “You’re a criminal and a thief – turn yourself in’ as a new form of DRM buried in ads planted on sites associated with file sharing?
They’d do it if they thought it’d work ;p
Also See:
Sophos – Spammers use subliminal messages in latest pump-and-dump scams, September 6, 2006
The Tech – Expert discusses the effects of subliminal advertising, February 23, 1990
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September 12th, 2006 at 5:19 am
The RIAA wont say turn yourself in, they will put messages saying. “Pirate Software Everyday!” Then they will start accusing people of piracy even though they secretly led them to it. They’re so evil.