> What if they were spies in the field, exchanging coded messages? Like posting classified ads in newspapers, it's one of those places nobody will look at.
I have wondered the same thing multiple times, having seen posts that either didn't resemble anything human generated, or were suspiciously crafted seemingly with steganography in mind. Spam itself could be used for that purpose; who would suspect that "6uy v1@gr@" from user XYZ read by an automated system that downloads groups regularly would actually trigger an action somewhere?
It could even apply to email - maybe some proportion of spam emails are just commands for botnets. Even if the email never gets past the spam filter on the user's inbox, it might trigger an action in the compromised MTA.
I have wondered the same thing multiple times, having seen posts that either didn't resemble anything human generated, or were suspiciously crafted seemingly with steganography in mind. Spam itself could be used for that purpose; who would suspect that "6uy v1@gr@" from user XYZ read by an automated system that downloads groups regularly would actually trigger an action somewhere?