…are the spammers going broke, or are there enough people out there who will a) take a drug OF ANY KIND provided by a spam sollicitation? Besides the usual, there are people out there offering fake vaccines, etc. b) get a mortgage from an online sollicitation c)write to people offering endangered purebred puppies or millions of Nigerian dollars d) buy a watch from a guy with watches lining his overcoat—or offering facsimiles of Swiss watches via spam. e) believe the lady who has been dying for at least the last 4 years and who wants to give you money with religious blessings….or f) earn easy money from real estate (tried to sell a house lately?) and g) earn money with your computer at home (become a spammer yourself).
I do wish there was an internet stamp you could get that replies to each of these: “I am certified not a fool.”
But then the traffic would probably crash the internet.
I sincerely doubt the people who are actually fingering the keyboards get much: the spam kings have their ways of soaking it all up (they nabbed one of the biggest lately)—but it’s also possible to visit a site and get your computer hijacked, so that during the off hours, your computer is busily sending out a flood of spam. I know a person this happened to, and when he complained about his account being closed, the internet provider asked him: “Do you have a teenager in the house?” Apparently one of the most infected sites appeals to teens, particularly young teens. He got it straightened out. But in the meanwhile, he’d been sending a lot of spam.
I so hate that stuff.
When I used to work in the anti-spam / virus industry, the studies we did showed that some spams have a 1 in 1000 success rate which is incredibly high. With regards to zombie networks and hijacking of machines to send out the spams, the latest tricks are embedding control strings into images (not executable files) which are used to control the infected machines. With the spread of advertising on the net, you do not even need to go to a dodgy website, you just need to compromise the adverts on a popular and well visited website.
Sometimes I think leaving the oceans was a bad move for our ancestors
My personal favorite was the job offer I got by email to be a financial manager…all I had to do was transfer funds that would be deposited into my account to the Cayman Islands…gosh, how could I possibly say no to such a legitimate sounding business opportunity? I just wish I knew where to send these emails to so they would be properly investigated and shut down.
Ranger, random question: is that Cale in your Gravatar? 😀
I like the Chinese spam I get: I can’t read a single character of it! One time I ran one of their messages through a translater and it said something about millions and rocket ships. Go figure.
Yes it is, LOL.
I got one offering freighters for sale. As in actual ships. (Out of my price range, even if I wanted one.)
That’s what we do: we pool our money, buy a ship, and wander the 7 seas…arrrrh!
Admittedly I’m smart enough to ignore all those offers, doing a blanket delete; I always forward the fake bank ones to the bank in question and figure they can run the buggers down. But the hijacking has me curious and rather concerned. My laptop gets shut down, turned off, unplugged and put away when I’m not using it and our wireless connection — which is plugged into a heavy duty surge protector — always gets turned off when we aren’t using the computer(s). We also have security systems and I run updates before I do anything else, plus routine scans. AND I’ve got backups of all the good stuff [mostly photos] on a Clickfree and a Seagate external. Am I being hopelessly naive?
If it’s not plugged into the internet it can’t be doing anything. We’re wireless, but when we’re off, we’re *off*.
Somebody who knows (I don’t) will have to explain how these hijacking things work, but apparently they infect your computer and then start sending unauthorized emails.
Anytime my machine starts working harder than I think it should I want to know why: usually the answer is a ‘hung’ program that’s got the CPU in a lather; but if your computer’s behaving oddly, it is a good thing IMHO to investigate why. Going to task manager can tell you what’s running on a Windows machine—but I’m not sure how good the camouflage is on some of these noxious programs.
Good to know that my grasp of somethings is good — off is off and gremlins can’t fuss with what isn’t hooked up to anything. I keep forgetting about task manager — that’s a good reminder.
This detailed account of spammer baiting is my fave. Be sure to read through to the very end — you will not be disappointed!
http://www.419eater.com/html/john_boko.htm
THAT is amazing. And justice seen to.
If anything looks like spam I delete it without a second thought. Now, the spam filter my employer has is pretty good, meaning I don’t see ANY spam at my job email. So, one day some months back I get an email from a person apparently named Allen Careless. The delete is almost automatic. I mean – who on Earth can have that name for real?!?! I get another one. And another one. Not often, but about once a month, for some time.
As things have developed I’m getting a bit near sighted around screens, and this last Monday I aim my mouse to open a mail. I miss the one and accidentally opens a just arrived Careless one. It appears to be a piece of official communication from one of the branches of the company employing me!!! What?!?!?!
I shout out, retelling this to my colleagues, who to a (wo)man tells me they too have received mail from this mysterious Careless person – mail they like me has deleted, promptly. So, not just me.
Quite fun, actually 😉