Why are phrases with punctuation getting through my Anti Spam content filter?

Question

I am noticing sporadic occasions where content explicitly specified in my restricted word filter is not being caught.
After interrogating the raw source of the message I notice that the phrase in question has punctuation appended to it; does this matter?

Answer

This example assumes that you have "Remove punctuation" checked from "Edit Mode" and the phrase in question has punctuation included, similar to…
ADV@RT

If you send a plain text message through the server with ADV@RT content, the filter will NOT catch this.
The reason being that with "Remove punctuation" enabled, the phrase is effectively scaled down to ADVRT prior to being content scanned.

There are two options available to overcome this:

• Disable "Remove punctuation" but risk allowing more spam through where this feature would normally come in handy.
• Try to find other content within the message to filter on.

See Also:

• Why do some words get pass the Restricted Words filter?
• Can I use regular expressions in the GMS Anti-Spam rwords file?
• Can I use wildcards in my restricted words file?

Keywords:anti spam rwords punctuation bypass phrase