Category: Computer Security

In the movie Airplane!, a visitor to a suburban house is progressively mauled by the resident dog. The lady of the house repeatedly, but rather absently, scolds the dog, even as it continues its attack. “Shep! Bad dog!”

Congress, responding to the loud bone-crunching sounds coming from constituents overwhelmed by spam, is busy doing its own ineffectual scolding, having finally passed the CAN-SPAM Act. The bill, which Dubya says he will sign, stands for “Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing” — even though it does little of either.

Basically under the law, e-mailers are prevented from forging e-mail headers, and sending unsoliced porographic ads. Marketers need to include a return e-mail address or link to a web form to allow unsubscribes from the list.

How is this pointless? Let me count the ways …

First off, it only has an impact on US spammers. The answer will be that those who are not hosting their spam servers inside the US (or who are not US companies) will be effectively immune.

The most egregious spammers, the ones already peddling porn and quack medicines, are already subject to existing laws. If they’re not worried about being prosecuted for selling bogus erection medicine and dangly-bit enlargers, they’re not going to worry about being prosecuted for forging mail headers — especially since that will make it harder to get hold of them, with a maximum penalty of, in the most egregious circumstances, 5 years in prison if they are caught, and assuming anything but the most desultory enforcement takes place.

The law requires an “opt-out,” which means that the vendor — not the spammer — must give you an opportunity to tell them you no longer want to receive their e-mails … for a given product, or, maybe vendor. Well, la-de-dah. Legit vendors already do this (since they definitely don’t want to irritate their potential customers). Spammers don’t do it now, and even if they decide to comply, creating an infinite number of mailing lists is trivial.

“You’ve chosen to opt out of the Manly Man Eyebrow Plucker v1.3 (SKU 134965) Mailing List. Thank you for verifying this is a legitimate address. You will begin to receive multiple e-mails from us for our other 95,000 products (constantly being renamed and reidentified), as well as from this spammer for other vendors’ goods. Have a nice day!”

And, finally, the law preempts stricter state laws. Not that those laws have been any more effective (see above), but California’s opt-in legal requirement is now null and void. Direct Marketers really like that.

In other words, don’t deinstall that anti-spam software any time soon.

On the bright side, there was this little subject line treasure today:

Prized Davehill !!! Truly Free admittance and 60 $ reachable in the present day dear friend and associate! !!!

I mean, is that cool, or what?

On the other hand, there was an e-mail from “EarthLink Mail Watch” with the subject Important information about your email account. But if you look at the properties for the mail, the underlying mail address is MailWatch@extra.hu.

Somehow I suspect that Earthlink’s legitimate mailings do not come from Hungarian mail addresses.

The address gives a warning that your e-mail account is getting close to 10Mb (and is phrased very plausibly). It ends with: For instructions on how to do this, as well as on how to avoid exceeding the 10MB limit in the future, please visit: and the inevitable link turns into a fascinating little program that I choose not to try out.

So … careful what you open. Or click on.

Yet another installment of particularly noteworthy subject lines …

• Join the well hung men club, we will show you how! – I just keep imagining their monthly meetings …
• do you like boobs? – Is the Pope Catholic?
• Free – Best Golf Wedge – This was, without a doubt, the first golf spam I got. Amazingly enough, it’s not the last.
• Make Insane Money… Own ATM machines – You’d have to be crazy!
• Your message delivery has been failed. – It will have to repeat second grade.
• Hi! Striking adolescents – It’s tempting, I know, particularly when you’re the parent of one.
• SHE WILL WANT TO LICK YOU LIKE A LOLLIPOP. – As long as she doesn’t try (and fail) to find out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie-Pop …
• porn leecher – You mean it will suck all the porn from my inbox? Huzzah!
• ~ How do you do! straight away open this site or your Free of charge access will be crossed out! ~ – Egads!
• Don’t let Spam get You! – Don’t worry, I won’t.
• =?GB2312?B?sbG+qdeovNK3rdLrzfggIL3fs8/OqsT6zOG5qbet0uu3/s7x?= – This subject line, from the Beijing Chinese Translation Co., Ltd., lost something in the, well, you know …

I had 374 in my in-box this a.m. This is insane.

Of course, I also had these blogfodder gems:

• The Holidays are Coming – Email 3,000,000 People — Uh, no thanks. I’ll settle for sending cards to about 75.
• Dreaming of working at home? — No, dreaming of sleeping at home.
• B.reak Walls A.part With Your Hum.ungous Knob — You know, this just doesn’t sound appealing to me.
• Be more fulfilled, and make women scream! — “Get that thing away from me! It’s breaking my walls apart!”
• Effectively Spam Detecting — Why, look, it detects one right now …
• What is GEN.E.R-I-C V.IA.G.R.A? — Probably the same rip-off as the G.E.N.ERIC VI.A.G.R.A I was offered in an adjoining spam.
• Italian-crafted Rolex – only $65 – $140 — And worth every 35 cents!

Since I have such a large sample (ack!), some distribution, based on subject lines:

• 34%, over 1/3, were for online meds/pharmacies/etc., almost all of them flogging Vicodin, Xanax, and Viagra.
• 11% were for size increase meds/patches/techniques/secrets. Only 3 of those were for women.
• 9% were for debt reduction, mortgage rates, money earning schemes, etc.
• Only 5% was for pr0n, remarkably enough.
• Other big draw were spam/virus protection and e-mail distribution lists, inkjet ink, cable descramblers, cheap insurance, and weight loss methods. Oddball repeats included cheap gasoline, electric scooters, RC cars, and diploma mills. Amazingly, only one Nigeria 409 add.
• 16% could not be figured out from the subject line — either because it was too vague what was being sold (“A great deal!”), it was a deceptive draw (“I waited for you Friday”), or a random string of misspelled words (“dimond sufix vondle”).

Interesting.

Note that we do actually have a filtering gateway, that supposedly strips pr0n from the mix, which probably leads to that category being underrepresented. Though given some of the subject lines, there’s a good reason why it’s being replaced.

Yet another in a seemingly endless list of Fatal Micro$oft Security Errors That Can Compromise Your Machine, Drain Your Bank Account, and Spell the End of Civilization As We Know It.

Since the Windows Messenger service (which as nothing to do with Instant Messaging) seems to be a perennial target for hacks, just … turn it off. Follow the instructions at the link above and disable it. No, really. Just do it.

(Mutter mutter mutter Micro$oft mutter mutter)

More subject lines to scratch my head over.

• Still thinking? It’s time to e.nlarge you p.enis — Yeah, I’ve usually found that impedes my thinking, all right.
• make love like a teenager — Awkwardly and briefly? No thanks.

• You will never know if don’t try it! — I guess I’ll never know, then. Since that category could include “Can I outswim a shark?” and “What does molten lava feel like?” and “What’s the worse that Hells Angel could do to me?” I’m not necessarily sorry to miss the opportunity.

• As seen on Howard Stern — Because that’s likely to get me to open this.

• 62% memory improvement — Precisely.

• Stud Muffin in 5-15 minutes — Just set the oven to 350, beat two eggs into the mix …

• I think we should try again — No, I think we’ve tried quite enough.

• Beware of praying eyes — There’s a really scary story waiting to be written using that typo.

• Young winning men sensitive plants, the whole colony took alarm. The white petals kewurz — That, on the other hand, sounds like some bad 70s “New Wave” sf.

Some hot new technology news from BBSpot:

The creators of SpamAssassin, a popular spam prevention program available on the *NIX platform, have developed a new product designed to get rid of knocks on the door from unwanted visitors – HomeAssassin.
Theo Johnson, lead programmer for HomeAssassin, explained how the system works. “All you need is the HomeAssassin software, a webcam, a computer and one of our specially trained Ninja Assassins.”

Too fun.

There were 217 of the little buggers in my inbox this morning. Yeesh!

Some highlights:

• No need to worry about wrinkles! – Thank goodness, because I was about to buy some expensive skin cream I was told about in this e-mail I got, but if you say there’s no reason to worry about wrinkles, then I won’t! I feel so liberated!
• Get Visibly Larger – Heck, Margie can do that for me already. She just bakes a big batch of cookies and my waistline — wait, what did you think I meant?
• Is your friend sleeping with your boyfriend? – That would be disturbing … on a number of levels.
• Lengthen and Enlarge – Not to be confused with Engulf & Devour.
• What’s your spouse browsing on the web? – This.
• You got jipped on that loan – And you got gypped on your spelling education (not to mention your cultural sensitivity training).
• WOMEN, ARE YOU satisfied with your BREAST? If not then read it!!! – No, wait — let me — hold on, my eyesight’s not what it used to be — let me get closer …
• Wanna be a Bionic lover? – That implies, um, replacing parts that, uh, well, I’d expect a lot more than $6 million in compensation.

Subject lines of note:

• u will regret if dont talk to me qlcrfeu wxcky jjzpm o jr so
  zbcwqwpdznxr ew rwniuutomj oc psmik — You will regret calling me a wxcky jjzpm!

• Are You Rich Yet? — Which answer will get to stop writing me?
• Dave.hill, sick of deleting spam email !? Spam Remedy kills all
  spam automatically! — Obviously only incoming, not outgoing.

• DOES THE SIZE OF YOUR PENIS REALLY MATTER? — Since you asked me that several times over the weekend, evidently it does to you. And I find that rather disturbing.
• remember your vow — “Never open up spam. Never, ever, ever …”
• Davi – Nowadays I update my unbelievable page with myriad
  final absurd photos! — Unbelievable.

There is something seriously, seriously wrong when I come into the office after the weekend and have 151 messages in my inbox …

… and then, after my IHateSpam client finishes running, I have 8.

Seriously, seriously wrong.

UPDATE: I take it back. Two false positives. Make that 10.

I feel so much better.

SoBig knows. Bwah-ha-ha!

No, actually, the SoBig virus does not, officially, transmit any info from an infected machine to other machines in its attempt to reproduce itself. No info, that is, except addresses in the person’s mail system.

Craig, in Atlanta, has a broadband connection, from alantabroadband.com. He also has Sobig. And he’s been sending me between 60 and 100 infected messages *per hour* for the past couple of days. (He seems to turn his machine off at night. Thank goodness.)
[…] Given the number of messages I’ve received from him over the past two days, I’ve got a pretty complete list of the email addresses on his machine.
Not knowing the rag, I don’t know whether I’m supposed to be impressed that he is in contact with Intelligencer@NewYorkMag.com. He seems to be into self- promotion–premierlistny@aol.com and ratings@about-inc.com. And maybe trying to set up his own business (ezcreationsltd@yahoo.com)? He *does* seem to be trying to better himself, maybe get an education (ZZZZZZZ@learnlink.emory.edu and LearnLinkinfo@learnlink.emory.edu). He might be aware that something is wrong with his machine: he seems to be rather eclectic in terms of where he goes for help (hot-line@microsoft.hr, InfoService@microsoft.at, mssupport@gbrands.com, mswsgulf@microsoft.com).
All of this may be due to an impending marriage: is he searching for an engagement ring (info@shimmerandstone.com)? And, if so, does his fiancee know about help@nudesonline.com, sal@freexxx.ws, salform@freexxx.ws, sassyemail@yahoo.com, and support@bigbonerbonus.com?
Then again, maybe he’s a terrorist: mts@lebanon-online.com.lb.

Interesting, what sort of intel something like this can reveal about you. Makes me wonder what addresses might be lurking in folders on my machine …

(via RISKS)

Some fine historical retrospective, and current state-of-the-Net regarding the 25th Anniversary of Spam:

Spam fascinates me because it sits at the intersection of three important rights — free speech, private property and privacy. It’s also the first major internet governance issue (possibly in tandem with DNS) that the members of the internet community have been so deeply concerned with.
The reaction to it has been remarkable. By attacking something we hold dear, and goading us by using our own tools and resources to do it, spam generates emotion far beyond its actual harm, even though that actual harm is quite considerable.
Spam pushes people who would proudly (and correctly) trumpet how we shouldn’t blame ISPs for offensive web sites, copyright violations and/or MP3 trading done by downstream customers to suddenly call for blacklisting of all the innocent users at an ISP if a spammer is to be found among them. People who would defend the end-to-end principle of internet design eagerly hunt for mechanisms of centralized control to stop it. Those who would never agree with punishing the innocent to find the guilty in any other field happily advocate it to stop spam. Some conclude even entire nations must be blacklisted from sending E-mail. Onetime defenders of an open net with anonymous participation call for authentication certificates on every E-mail. Former champions of flat-fee unlimited net access who railed against proposals for per-packet internet pricing propose per-message usage fees on E-mail. On USENET, where the idea of canceling another’s article to retroactively moderate a group was highly reviled, people now find they couldn’t use the net without it. Those who reviled at any attempt to regulate internet traffic by the government loudly petition their legislators for some law, any law it almost seems, against spam. Software engineers who would be fired for building a system that drops traffic on the floor without reporting the error change their mail systems to silently discard mail after mail.

Interesting. It may well be that spam (and the reactions to it) will define the nature of the Internet in the next 5 years, as we increasingly become a community that realizes, sadly, it must keep its doors locked at night.

(via BoingBoing)

Alan Ralsky, the “Spam King,” made the mistake of giving an interview to the Detroit Free Press when he moved into his new 8000-square-foot house in the area — which house’s basement has a T1 line and a slew of PCs from which he controls spam servers the world over (he had to move the technical side of things off-shore, because of legal challenges in some states).

Some enterprising SlashDotters determined his new address, and used some Perl scripts to inundate his home with ads, catalogs, and brochures, all via snail-mail.

Ralsky, of course, doesn’t see the humor in all this.

“They’ve signed me up for every advertising campaign and mailing list there is,” he told me. “These people are out of their minds. They’re harassing me.”

Sometimes justice is sweet.

How utterly bizarre. I received through the mail (like, US Postal Service mail) adult spam — in this case, an invitation to solicit a “hand-drawn custom original” drawing. “$10.00 or less, just describe what you want.”

Of course, you get what you pay for, and the sample artwork provided looks like — well, just the sort of schlocky oversexed high school dreck what you’d expect. Yeesh.

I have no idea how this guy got my home address (all I can think of, in context, is having filled out some sort of contest entry form at the San Diego Comic Con last year which somehow fell into the wrong hands), but it’s certainly the oddest bit of mail to hit our box in a while.

Please note that …

• I do not want to get THE BANNED CD. I’d also be more impressed with this “final offer” if I hadn’t received a dozen “final offers” for it this morning, from different sources.
• I am happy with the size of my “male Organ,” and have received no complaints from anyone else on the subject.
• I do not want to steal digital cable.
• I am not interested in buying copies of Norton SystemWorks 2003.
• I do not need any new prescriptions written for me, particulary for Prozac or Xanax, though I do feel a bit stressed after receiving a dozen messages asking me if I do.
• I also do not need any anti-aging meds, any weight loss meds, or any Viagra. Or, at least, not by e-mail.
• My mortgage is fine. Really.
• So’s my cell phone reception.
• Did I mention I’m already happy with my mortgage rate?
• Putting my name in the e-mail subject is a lot more effective when it’s my name and not the name at the top of the twenty person CC list on the e-mail.
• Messages sound a lot more authentic when not suffixed by a tracking code. So a subject line of “Reply to your question” is plausible. A subject line of “Reply to your question 1e4ygh6a” is not.
• I really am not interested in the merchandise you say is waiting for me, since (a) I didn’t order it, (b) you won’t tell me what it is, and (c) I don’t trust you. Aside from that, how’s your day going?
• I really don’t want to start my own at-home e-mail business, even if e-mail is the cheapest, easiest way to reach zillions of customers. I’d hate to find my ad being discussed in disparaging tones on someone’s blog page …

Frickin’ spammers.

Whether you are in favor of the Iraq war or against it, you’ll likely be wildly enthusiastic about this particular court victory, where a federal appeals court upheld an anti-junk fax law. Especially since the reasoning behind the law would support anti-spam efforts.

Three cheers and a once-in-a-lifetime-mortgage-refinance-opportunity!

Joy. Spamsters seem to have hit on another category of UCE to send my way: mysterious ways to reduce my gas pump bills.

Of course, given that in California this past week, pump prices were in the low-mid-$2 range, maybe that’s not surprising. Granted, that’s not like British fill-your-sedan-for-$60 prices, but, still …