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» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Community   » Film-Yak   » What kind of spam is this??? (Page 1)

 
This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2   
Author Topic: What kind of spam is this???
Ken Lackner
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1907
From: Atlanta, GA, USA
Registered: Sep 2001

- posted 01-17-2007 06:42 AM      Profile for Ken Lackner   Email Ken Lackner   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Over the last six months or so I have been getting an increasing rash of spam to all of my email addresses, incuding work. I'll get 3 or 4 EVERY DAY at work. (How they hell do they get that address???) This spam is not like your typical spam used to be. The messages do not make any sense, and they all follow the same format: A random name and strange address in the From line, a random subject line that often makes no sense, an image at the top of the body, and anywhere from a couple lines to a couple paragraphs of text that makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. What the hell is this crap, and what does someone get out of sending it? Here is a partial screen capture of one of these messages. I'm sure I'm not the only one getting this junk. Anyone else care to share thoughts?

-

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Mark Lensenmayer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1605
From: Upper Arlington, OH
Registered: Sep 1999

- posted 01-17-2007 06:52 AM      Profile for Mark Lensenmayer   Email Mark Lensenmayer   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
It's a stock pumping ad. They put in the random text to get passed SPAM filters, then put the information they want you to pay attention to in a graphic, which the filters don't see. Most are sent by "bot" computers controlled by spyware or viruses.

These promote a small stock, which the spammers have already bought. They send out these things, wait for a rush on the stock to move the price up, then sell at a profit. Most of the time, the companies aren't even aware of what is going on.

I also understand that this is a legal activity. There is nothing illegal about suggesting that the reader buy something.

They must get enough hits on these things to make it worthwhile...I also get quite a few every day, usually with odd titles from people I have never heard of.

I've gotten some recently with fake weather warnings: "TWELVE INCHES OF SNOW EXPECTED - WARNINGS POSTED"

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Stephen Furley
Film God

Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002

- posted 01-17-2007 07:16 AM      Profile for Stephen Furley   Email Stephen Furley   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
You're lucky if you're only getting three or four a day.

The latest thing I've been getting for the past month or so have a subject that's a random collection of biblical sounding words; like these examples from my 'Deleted items' folder:

And said, unto my sword, of Israel that forsake said: if the God

unto my name, of his own sake O Lord, in righteousness

From Hamath; is like a kid of Nathan the spirit drieth the gold

I really can't see the point in sending this stuff; it's obviously junk, so it gets deleted, without even looking at it. I'm sure most people would do the same. If they want people to open it why not use a subject line that at least makes some sense, rather than just random words? Something like 'I've found some lost property which I belive belongs to you.' might persuade more people to open it. Even then you still have the problem (from the point of view of the spammer) that they will still know that it's junk as soon as they open it and see the contents.

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John Walsh
Film God

Posts: 2490
From: Connecticut, USA, Earth, Milky Way
Registered: Oct 1999

- posted 01-17-2007 07:36 AM      Profile for John Walsh   Email John Walsh   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Yeah, it's a trick to get past spam filters. The message they want you to see is a jpg picture, which spam filters can't 'see.' The text is random, but does have sentences and puncation, so the filters see what they think is a real message (notice they would never put the word 'viagra' or 'penis' in the text part, since it would be rejected.)

Last year, there was a news story about how filter were winning the war against spam, but that completly turned around this year.

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Ken Lackner
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1907
From: Atlanta, GA, USA
Registered: Sep 2001

- posted 01-17-2007 08:07 AM      Profile for Ken Lackner   Email Ken Lackner   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Um...okay....how the crap am I supposed to know what to do with the information contained in the picture? (Not that I want to, I'm just thinking from the point of view of the spammer.)

quote: Mark Lensenmayer
These promote a small stock, which the spammers have already bought. They send out these things, wait for a rush on the stock to move the price up, then sell at a profit. Most of the time, the companies aren't even aware of what is going on.
Which companies?

quote: Stephen Furley
I really can't see the point in sending this stuff; it's obviously junk, so it gets deleted, without even looking at it. I'm sure most people would do the same. If they want people to open it why not use a subject line that at least makes some sense, rather than just random words? Something like 'I've found some lost property which I belive belongs to you.' might persuade more people to open it. Even then you still have the problem (from the point of view of the spammer) that they will still know that it's junk as soon as they open it and see the contents.
I completely agree. Of course smart Internet users, like most of us are, will delete it anyway. But to others, a subject line that at least makes sense would make the message more likely to be opened. I just don't understand why all this random nonsense!

Where are these people getting the email addresses from? I can udnerstand my Yahoo! address because I use that everywhere, but my work address???

Why the random text in the body? Why not just the picture if that's what they want you to see?

Yahoo!'s filter is pretty good at catching these, but the ones that slip by are caught by McCaffee when the messages are downloaded to Outook on my computer at home. Very few, if any, make it to my Outlook inbox.

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

- posted 01-17-2007 09:31 AM      Profile for Randy Stankey   Email Randy Stankey   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Dump Outlook Express/Entorage and get Thunderbird instead.

Set T-Bird NOT to display remote images in incoming messages and to truncate all messages over 100 KB in length.

After about a week's worth of e-mail the built-in spam filter will be trained well enough to block 90% of this crap. The remaining 10% won't matter because they will either have images or will be larger than 100 KB.

You can set T-Bird's spam/message filters to whitelist any names in your address book if you want to.

Almost every single person I have gotten to switch to Thunderbird instead of Microsoft has seen their spam problem greatly diminish if not disappear all together.

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Jeffry L. Johnson
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 809
From: Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Registered: Apr 2000

- posted 01-17-2007 09:31 AM      Profile for Jeffry L. Johnson   Author's Homepage   Email Jeffry L. Johnson   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Why Am I Getting All This Spam?
FTC Spam
Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email
Anti-Phishing Working Group
TrustedSource
Abuse.net

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Mark Lensenmayer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1605
From: Upper Arlington, OH
Registered: Sep 1999

- posted 01-17-2007 01:45 PM      Profile for Mark Lensenmayer   Email Mark Lensenmayer   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Many of the viruses the past few years have harvested Outlook address books. If your address is in that book, and that computer is infected, the spammers have your address.

I got spam on a Gmail account that had never been used! I think sometimes they just put together likely combinations of letters and send them out...doesn't cost them anything to have things bounce.

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Carl Martin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1424
From: Oakland, CA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

- posted 01-17-2007 02:36 PM      Profile for Carl Martin   Author's Homepage   Email Carl Martin   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
let's post our favorite subject lines from these emails. i've got

potty astronomer
peacock-feathered omnibus driver
with this, she can use your cock as huge toothbrush!
Bizarrely, the movie gives their dispute a gay subtext.

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David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

- posted 01-17-2007 02:54 PM      Profile for David Stambaugh   Author's Homepage   Email David Stambaugh   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
  • Which destroy the eyeball
  • Killer Spiders Prefer Malaria Mosquitoes
  • But nordhoff a irresolute
  • servant David's head of his own head
  • When Tyson was pulled over for driving erratically, cops saw him wiping away loose tobacco and a white powder from his BMW's center console
  • to a and with now it were astonished, among the
  • He of cauliflower
  • The yorktown at chubby
  • pump your member!
  • size your meat!

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Wayne Keyser
Master Film Handler

Posts: 272
From: Arlington, Virginia, USA
Registered: May 2004

- posted 01-17-2007 04:28 PM      Profile for Wayne Keyser   Author's Homepage   Email Wayne Keyser       Edit/Delete Post 
Question 1 - Why you even open or read a message with a nonsense subject line? Lord only knows what opening some malicious emails will do (without even opening any attachments)

Question 2 - "how the crap am I supposed to know what to do with the information contained in the picture?" - Might be that the only thing they really want is to know who downloaded the image in the email - the sender can log who downloaded it (that's why IE7 has a setting to block images in emails unless you agree to download them) - then they would know yours was a valid email address and you'll be flooded with spam cause you'll be on the newest, freshest compendium of "send spam to these guys" addresses.

3 - Maybe I'm wrong about you. Maybe you're interested in v1a-gra or C1a-l1s, maybe you're receptive to emails with subjects like "Hey impress your girlfriend why so short?", or emails from "Jessica" subject "Want a date tonight?". I understand - personally, I only open ones titled "hottest young girls."

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Ken Lackner
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1907
From: Atlanta, GA, USA
Registered: Sep 2001

- posted 01-17-2007 06:16 PM      Profile for Ken Lackner   Email Ken Lackner   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I don't use Outlook Express. I use Outlook. I know people have complaints about it, but I love it. I don't like Thuderbird. (Although I use Firefox and love it.) I have McAfee (sorry, spelled it wrong in my last post) Internet Security Suite, and it filters all these messages to a spam folder.

I don't open messages about v1a-gra or C1a-l1s, or any messages of that nature. These are not those. Mabye I'm asking for trouble, but the sheer randomness of these messages makes me curious. Nowadays I don't open anything in my spam folder unless I recognize it and it's not supposed to be there, but before I had McAfee, I would get these in my Inbox and sometimes I would see them. I wanted to open one today to take a screen shot for this thread. I usually just delete them.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

- posted 01-17-2007 06:27 PM      Profile for Joe Redifer   Author's Homepage   Email Joe Redifer   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
How the hell can a spammer tell if you looked at an image? Does the e-mail program send them confirmation that the image has been downloaded?

Also, when I got spam I opened all of it, downloaded every attached program and double clicked them many times. Lots of them were .pif files, whatever those are. Nothing ever happened. I never got a single virus. That could be because I have a Mac. And Macs are absolute shit on a stick! They can't even run .pif files! I need to get a better computer, one that will run .pif files. Yeah!

Also, Ken, you really need to take that plastic thing off of the xenon bulb. A bare bulb being held, or preferably waved around with one hand would be much better.

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Ken Lackner
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1907
From: Atlanta, GA, USA
Registered: Sep 2001

- posted 01-17-2007 07:33 PM      Profile for Ken Lackner   Email Ken Lackner   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
LOL! Unfortunately it doesn't look like anyone who has recently uploaded a new pic of themsleves has had their member picture changed, so I haven't bothered to do that yet. Brad, what's up with that?

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Chad Souder
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 962
From: Waterloo, IA, USA
Registered: Feb 2000

- posted 01-18-2007 11:29 AM      Profile for Chad Souder   Email Chad Souder   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Will Thunderbird work with hotmail or other html based email servers?

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