Main Subject - Internet and Businesses Online

Report On New Spam Tactic

Anti-Spam experts at SophosLabs startled the world with a news item in the month of September (2006). Their systems detected a new kind of spam mail that uses animated

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

graphic images to lure their customers.

Nothing earth-shaking, one would say. One has learned to live with the nuisance; they are like flies hovering around your face, which you simply wave away with your hand

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

. The reason why this news became sensational and got picked up by all the news feeders was because of the word "subliminal" in it.

The news item that the spammers wanted to spread (and that got detected) was o

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

n Trimax Corporation, a small-cap stock. Such campaigns are dubbed "pump-and-dump" stock campaigns by people in the know. The trick the spammers deployed this time however, was to compose the main ad as a GIF im

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

ge. After doing so, they went one step further and composed three other frames; each of these frames were of the same size, same color level and same format as the frame for the main advert (basic prerequisites

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

for an animation to occur). These other frames had the word "Buy" placed randomly in two different hues, with and without exclamation marks for added emphasis. In the GIF construction program, they set these fra

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

mes to appear after every ten to forty milliseconds. So, when the advert appeared in the mail, you got to see the main ad, and then these lil "Buy!" frames popped up every now and then.

Cool, eh! There are quit

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

e a few of these lovelies in my spam box, as I write this piece.

Cat And Mouse Game

It is the same cat and mouse game. As anti-spam filters become stronger, spammers keep cranking newer and mo

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

e creative ways to beat them.

Up until two years ago, majority of the spamming community used text to communicate their love to us. Beginning last year, they came up with GIF messages which timid text-oriented

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

filters couldn't block. When anti-spammers built their OCR (optical character reader) plugins that were capable of looking at GIF spam eyeball-to-eyeball; along came these animated GIFs which did the same thing

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

- communicating their love to us - but now with a song and dance.

The trick that gives the spamming side an edge - for the moment, at least - is that the latest version of anti-spamming OCR plugin apparently on

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

ly looks into the first frame for specific keywords ["BUY" is a keyword! :)]. After having satisfied itself that the first frame is innocent, it waves ahead the entire cargo. And there it lands in your inbox, wa

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

ting for you to open it!

Is It Truly Subliminal?

By its very definition, for a message to be truly subliminal, the hidden text/ image should not be discernible to the conscious eye. But the of

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

fending advertisement's BUY message is. And since it is visible, even if the anti-spam filter allowed it into the inbox, you as an intelligent reader can immediately make out that the message is spam. Whatever v

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

alue the "pump-and-dump" spammers wanted the TRIMAX stock to shoot up to, I am sure it may not have succeeded. Or perhaps, may it have? (The latest ticker on Trimax is t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

ny.asp?TICKER=tmxo" target="_blank">here.)

By setting the delay period for successive frames to appear to even less value, would it have been possible to flash the "BUY" messages without the eyes consciousl

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

detecting it? Meaning, would the message have become truly subliminal? Would they have achieved what they wanted to achieve? Gaaa! When is the next anti-spam version due???

The Controversy Continues
y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products
trong>

The advertisers are out to get Subliminal Messaging by its balls, really. Right from the word go, sensationalism has followed subliminality like a faithful dog. Whatever be the motivation of the likes of
.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de
James Vicary or Vance Packard in the fifties, or the spammers in the twenty-first century, their shenanigans have only served to give subliminal messaging a bad name.

It is like a double-edged sword. Used corr
elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip
ectly, subliminal messaging can be, and is, a good self-development tool. So while the spammer-antispammer battle continues out there, let's improve and enrich our lives with those beautiful audio and visual CDs

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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Main Subject - Spammers Use Subliminal Messaging To Push Their Wares

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