Category: Computer Security

How, um, stupid is it to send an unsolicited commercial e-mail to someone touting how great your spam filtering software is?

Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.

Items in my inbox this morning: about 500.
Items that were spam: about 300.

Yeesh.

And that’s not counting the stuff that got automatically filtered out as spam.

Since I had a statistical universe of a whole week, here is a breakdown of the spam I received.

Note that this is about two thirds of it; the rest didn’t get filtered into the Junk folder and just got manually deleted.

Investment opportunities: 4
Credit repair/re-fi/mortgage/job ops/insurance: 26
Health/drugs: 19
Adult stuff: 9
Mailing lists to send my own spam to: 2
Security and anti-virus: 11
Computer supplies: 2
Septic tank supplies: 1
Miscellaneous: 16
Unknown based on subject line: 15

Some of my (repeatable) favorites:

I love Mondays.

Mondays are fun days …

• 53% Off Designer Thongs at Freshpair.com – This could get ugly.
• Only you , only you 🙂 – Or, maybe not. 🙁

• How to win in the “Foreign Yen” market – Buy Lo, Sell Hai? (And what the heck is the foreign yen market?)

• Tiffany & Co Inspired Clasp Bracelet Toggle – Can I pay with my Dollar Inspired Money?

• Earn up to $600.00 weekly – checking your email – That’s probably how much time I spend a week sifting through spam …

• Important Notice ** this needs Immediate Attention – This helpful note informed me that your E-mail address is being distributed without your approval and that I should send an e-mail to affiliates of theirs to get my name removed. Uh, yeah, right, let me confirm that this e-mail address is live …

The Direct Marketing Association has long opposed anti-spam laws. After all, their members make a living through direct marketing … i.e., spam.

Problem is, “big fleas have lesser fleas,” and the DMA members realize that folks are tuning out all commercial e-mail, solicited or un-, because of the inexorable flood of porn ads, quack medications, insurance/mortgage/pyramid schemes and the like.

So the DMA has announced that they’re now backing federal anti-spam legislation.

Of course, like Iraqi “unconditional” inspections, what the DMA has in mind as far as legislation goes is a bit different from what most people think.

For example, spam is not, in their eyes, simply unsolicited commercial e-mail. Why, that’s every DMA members’s God-given right to pepper us with. No, they would have only fraudulent e-mail, with forged headers, be considered spam.

And, of course, they insist on opt-out system (i.e., they get to send you stuff until you click on the little “remove me” link and hope that it doesn’t just spread your name to another dozen mailing lists, a/k/a the presumption is that anyone can send you spam until you tell each individual sender that you don’t want it) . The past proposals for an opt-in system (where you don’t get anything unless you explicitly ask for it) are, in the DMA’s eyes, a non-starter.

Now, that having been said, I’m opposed to most anti-spam legislation. Problem is, given the international nature of the Net, it’s not likely to appreciably reduce the crap that infests my mailbox daily (much of which is mailed from or through China, Europe, etc.). And, frankly, I don’t feel a great need to pass legislation to help DMA members compete more successfully than their less prosperous (but equally unsavory) brethren.

Still, if even the DMA thinks that spam is a problem … well, it does give one hope.

Dear Mr. Pasta Man,

First off, I must say that it was truly refreshing to find in my burgeoning spam folder something that said “Eat More Pasta!” as the subject line, rather than an admonition to refinance, obtain low-cost insurance, recover hidden money in Nigeria, spy on my friends, or observe barely legal teens doing what barely legal teens have done since time immemorial. It is also far more likely to actually occur.

That having been said, concluding the message with …

This was a ONE TIME E-MAIL you will not receive this e-mail again!!
If you still would like to be removed from our recurring e-mail list we will be happy to do this.

… sends something of a mixed message.

How about I rat you out to your ISP instead?

Sincerely,

*** Dave

I love this stuff.

• Want to promote your site with SPAM but afraid to? – Clearly you’re not.
• HOT BARELY LEGAL TEENS WANT TO [expletive deleted] – I’d say that pretty well sums up barely legal teens since time immemorial.
• fat burners marked down, penis enlargements breasts – There is something very disturbing about this subject line.
• Just Don’t Miss The Boat – Get A Better Mtg – Just fyi, most people think that “mtg” stands for “meeting,” not “mortgage.”
• You can order and design a single pair of customised shoes. – Ah, the wonders of modern science!
• What Do You Know about Nutrition – More, I daresay, than “Dr. Jame Dalton, Reseearch Dir.” knows about spelling and grammar.

I really don’t understand what’s going on with our corporate anti-spam gateway. I think they’ve turned it off again. The problem they have is that either they need a full-time staff to manually check the items that are filtered out, or some VP will get his or her nose out of joint because something they were expecting got delayed.

Of course, I’m also having grief with SpamAssassin Pro. The original UNIX-based program works great. The Windows port by Deersoft should work great, too, but they’ve made it into such a black box that I can’t tell why about half the spam I receive is getting through. Annoying.

Subject: Q. DOES YOUR FOREIGN ACCENT SIMPLY GET IN THE WAY?

No. And even though my strange, exotic, foreign accent clearly labels me as a newcomer to these shores, YOU DON’T HAVE TO SHOUT.

Today’s backlog of favorite subject lines:

My dear dave.hill — My dear scuz.ball.

Urgent: Ambitious People Targets! — Your marketing strategy?

And quoth the bottom of another unsolicited e-mail …

This is only one time E-mail and there is no need for removal request. Or you can Block the Senders E-mail Address.

Or I can report you to your ISP, you son of a bitch.

UPDATE: When you’re trying to sell me on your “authentic Italian recipes,” Maria, it would be much more impressive if you knew how to actually spell the Italian words you throw around. Or the English ones, for that matter.

Nothing like returning to the office to find a bucket o’ spam waiting for you. Some particularly choice bits …

• URGNET MATTER PLEASE — Sorry, this is the Internet. The Urgnet is across the hall, two doors down on the left.
• Stop credit card payments immediately! — You mean I can do that? Cool.

• `Why so many mortgage email? — I not know. Why so many?

• Make your own pile of cash — I can make my own pile, all right, and I’ll bet it’s worth more than the stock you’re touting.

• Get that Girl You’ve always wanted — I already did, neener-neener-neener!

• We have all the hottest sex toys and erotic adult novelties in the industry — And you don’t have anything better to do than send spam?

  Besides, I’ve got the Girl I’ve always wanted, so neener-neener-neener.

The heart-aches and heart-breaks of a spammer:

“My operating costs have gone up 1,000 percent this year, just so I can figure out how to get around all these filters,” said Balan, a former truck driver and pinball machine mechanic.
Five years ago, Balan says, he’d send 30 million messages in a day. Most would get through. He’d earn up to $10,000 in commissions for a good day’s work.
Now, even though Balan keeps a database with 240 million e-mail addresses, only about fifth get through the filters. An average mailing earns him a paltry $250.

Stand right there, guy. Let me go get a rock Kleenex …

We get spam …

• david.hemingway,Firmer, Larger Breasts in just 30 days. Um … no thanks.
• here is the link. Oh, thanks. Uh, did I ask you for a link? And why, if I opted in to your bulk mailing, does all the legalese at the bottom (necessary given your touting some obscure stock) note that the offer is not valid in about 30 states, of which mine is one?

• Adv:ce Unbelievable Discounts! Yes, you indeed tried to make the weasel-legal “adv:” prefix on the subject into something that might look like the word “Advice.” Jerk.

• LOOK ! Y O U are a W I N N E R here ! – Don’t miss out! I’m truly touched that you’re so intersted in my winning that I’ve received this message a dozen times in the last week, half of them evidently from the same guy (with slightly different e-mail accounts).

From this week’s Onion: Anti-Spam Legislation Opposed by Powerful Penis-Enlargement Lobby.

“The penis enlargers have shrewdly formed a coalition with other industries that depend heavily upon mass e-mail, including the American Association To LOSE WEIGHT FAST and the National Alliance To GET OUT OF DEBT NOW,” said Nicholas Lerman of the Cato Institute. “This coalition also includes the formidable National Organization To GO FROM AN A-CUP TO A D IN JUST 10 DAYS.”
Roger Skolnick, genitalia-enhancement editor of Newsweek, said the anti-spam bill would damage one of the few thriving sectors of the U.S. economy.
“Sales of penis-enlargement treatments and devices in 2000 totaled in excess of $600 million,” Skolnick said. “Cock-lengthening is, no pun intended, a consistent growth industry in the U.S., and this bill would severely emasculate it. As usual, it’s the little guy who suffers.”

I love these guys. I have no idea why my company’s firewall blocks them …

Y O U are a W I N N E R here ! 4392

Yeah, I know. That’s why four separate HotMail accounts have sent me this frelling note over the last two days, albeit with different tracking numbers.

I love those little tracking numbers, by the way. I wish to God Outlook’s stupid rules allowed me to send anything with a set of numbers at the end. I’d wipe out 90% of my spam in one swell foop.

Other winners from the past few days include:

Guaranted Peneis enlargement program

My only curiosity here is whether the mispellings are deliberate or not.

dave.hill,Reverse Aging 10 to 20 Years

It’s vaguely depressing that this is no longer a ridiculous number.

dave.hill,The Ultimate Anti-Ager!

Sounds like a super-hero identity.

Here is that link. 5492GpRh1-783pgoM1…

Uh-huh. Right. Oh, SpamCop …

Need to boost sells? (Well, maybe. My sells have been a bit unhappy, recently.)

Home run of a product idea 9934eNee6-008jsGF-16 (Hmmm. I like the product idea, but you might want to work on the name.)

When Depression Hits What Happens to You? (I feel the urge to send unsolicited e-mail to people. Stop me before I spam again!)

From: Christine Hall
Re: http://bears-cave.com
Did you know that http://bears-cave.com is not listed on some search engines?

No, I didn’t. Doyce is such a slacker.

TrafficMagnet is the market leader within the search engine submission industry. TrafficMagnet could automatically submit http://bears-cave.com to more than 300,000 search engines and directories – every month! Specialized in providing search engine submission services TrafficMagnet offers cost-effective web promotion solutions to customers all over the world.

Huh. I wonder why he hasn’t done it, then.

TrafficMagnet is offering its unique and competitive search engines submission services for as little as $19.95 per month!

He’s a slacker and he’s a cheapskate.

But he’s still a nice guy. You don’t have to work through an intermediary, Christine. You can just e-mail him directly. He doesn’t bite. Hard.

Of course, if you want to cut me in on some of that $19.95 per month action, I’d be happy to be a go-between …