Sometimes spam actually looks like the intent is to get under my guard and sell me something. I got one recently promising to improve my confidence and self-esteem (assuming that those are determined by one physical dimension) which came bearing the name of a blogger I read regularly. Thing is that it came to my other email address, meaning that this was probably random selection. That same blogger has noticed that spam is coming in bearing as the names of senders very strange collections of words. Her Feudalism K. Nobodies, like the Regicides P. Scrapbook who offered me the opportunity to buy discounted software, are simply not people anyone would buy software from. I don't think they are people at all.
These spam could be coming from a hive mind of net-connected computers, yours and mine perhaps, participating after being recruited by something like a virus. They could be coming from the voudon entities William Gibson foresaw, dwelling in the routers and backbone of the net. They could even be coming from beyond this Earth, and I recall the woman who passed thru my household a while ago who maintained that UFOs are demonic manifestations. The spam which Margi with a hard g got from her Mr. Nobodies contained a couple of phrases which she highlighted, phrases one might be tempted to read aloud. Don't. I implore you not to submit the odd assorted words which come as spam to a search engine, even tho I have foolishly done so myself. It may be that none that we get now have any power, or it may be that only if spoken by an electro-mechanical text to speech processor will they have any effect, but the cost of such caution is so low compared to the possible consequences that we can all feel better deleting spam without yielding to the temptation to open it.
posted Tuesday, 27 January 2004
Ipse keeps on Dixing it. This time he beat me with a comment on the way spam is mutating to get past the filters. He got one titled "nuisance circumpolar aniline euclid inclusive" and was curious enough to look up aniline, which I already knew was a coal tar die. I had gotten one entitled "sahara earthenware cosec genotype inclement" which produced no google hits, even with "cosec" (short for cosecant, a trigonometric function) left out, and another titled "brouhaha diatomaceous cowboy agriculture" which produced 167 google hits, of which 164 also contained "cowbell". These random words, along with the earlier practice of deliberate misspelling, may get the messages past the spam filters, but the old Mark 1 Eyeball identifies them immediately.
One recent submission had a title so bizarre I actually opened and read it. "Re: the red puddle" from Lenora Hastings, turns out to be an advertisement for The Banned CD, full all sorts of useful information - where to get fake diplomas, how to dig up dirt on your boss, all the stuff that sounds like freedom but will end up getting you in trouble. Another interesting feature of this one was the random HTML tags scattered randomly in the letter, often in the middle of words. All closing tags: [/actinium], [/o'connell] and [/lao], none of which work without having the corresponding opening tag earlier in the page.
A lot of spam are coming in backdated. That way I don't see them till I scroll thru my inbox to sort stuff. I guess they figure if I don't delete it right away, they win. The really smart probably filter for bad dates, the really lazy probably never even see this stuff, and the rest of us are sure to delete it when we find it. Another clever trick is the note from the long lost friend. Rest assured that if I had lost touch with Boxing E. Hilt, I would have tracked him down instead of waiting for him to offer me a drug I am pleased to report I don't need quite yet.
I also get a lot of spam from Korea, aimed apparently at other Koreans. I know Bool Googi, Kim Chi, and barley tea, but not `(±¤-°í)`ÃÖ½ÅCDÇÁ·Î±×·¥.µ¿¿µ»óDVD or (¼ºÀα¤°í)2004³â ½Å³âÀ» ³ë¸° ¾ß½ÉÀÛÀÔ´Ï´Ù..@#$%. And even if I did, I wouldn't buy my (±¤°í)½ÅºñÀÇ Àå³ú»ï ¹«·áüÇè À̺¥Æ® from a spammer.