Bare-faced effrontery

[Farelf]

They can still sometimes surprise me - http://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=z1273053127zf...8c6bc2ae5550f2z

Only noticed because it was at the bottom of the spam which I happened to submit via the webpage - "NEVER SEND spam. IT IS BAD." Breathtaking. Many would think the name selected for the "Super Bingo Processing Officer", Christ Paul, is in particularly poor taste over the Easter period too. How can this be construed except as pure provocation? But for what purpose? I (still) think some spam is more akin to graffiti than anything else but presenting such as a "lotto scam" is a touch novel in my experience.

[rconner]

Many would think the name selected for the "Super Bingo Processing Officer", Christ Paul, is in particularly poor taste over the Easter period too. How can this be construed except as pure provocation? But for what purpose? I (still) think some spam is more akin to graffiti than anything else but presenting such as a "lotto scam" is a touch novel in my experience.

These guys are not the Best nor Brightest of the spam cohort, that much is for sure. I get a lot of these addressed to the contact addy for my spam website, which is relatively secure against harvesting, so I have to figure they read my site (perhaps even my page on 419 mail), and decided to send some to me. Go figure.

Your 'graffiti' notion is interesting ... I hadn't thought of spam in those terms before, but having observed the arms race between NYC transit and the graffitisti, I can see that the urge to mark territory can become an irrational mania for some.

-- rick

[Farelf]

These guys are not the Best nor Brightest of the spam cohort, that much is for sure.

Truth, and though they apparently reside below negative 3 sigma on the standard curve they're yet not quite alone. On a different tack and more in the line of "spammers lie" (even to each other), but with elements of serious stupidity driven by cupidity thrown in, is this 419 - http://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=z1278331089z2...;action=display

This includes the standard "kindly do not expose this information to any one else" yet the enclosed "3500.txt" file lists mine and 3,153 other email addresses (or it did before truncation), each of us presumably the simultaneous recipient of this same piece of breathless conspiratorial advice when (I think) many mail clients would reveal the appended list.

Note - 3,154 addresses, not 3,500 as it was almost certainly sold on as (that's a lot of fingers and toes to be counting on, to be fair). Well, maybe it's since been washed (but why?). There's at least one obviously munged addy left in there (right near the top of the list) and many mangled ones, not to mention what looks like a partial alphabet attack on the domain saco.de address list in a contiguous block accounting for a further 100, and 302 (non-contiguous) from brunet.bn; it is not a very efficient or random list in its present form.

Shouldn't read spam (why take risks, why ponder the imponderable, why give "them" the satisfaction?) but the file enclosure seemed unusual. Then it seemed just plain humorous.

[Miss Betsy]

I agree that there are some spammers who are doing it, as a hobby, just to outwit the filters. Those are the ones that sometimes don't seem to be selling anything or the links are broken so it is hard to see how they could make a sale.

Another large proportion are the 'wannaberich' who are sucked into buying a package and don't quite understand how to do it. That accounts for the file of names and the 'put random word here' spams. The lists they buy are not likely to be 'first quality'

Someone told me, IIRC, that true 419 spammers often evade the filters because they take the time to send each spam individually. The returns are obviously worth the time. They still even use snail mail.

Miss Betsy

[Farelf]

... Someone told me, IIRC, that true 419 spammers often evade the filters because they take the time to send each spam individually. ...

I would like to think so - "my" case certainly doesn't refute that, it is quite possible: http://www.senderbase.org/search?searchBy=...g=165.146.12.45

Volume Statistics for this IP

Magnitude Vol Change vs. Average

Last day 3.1 38008%

Last 30 days 1.1 289%

Average 0.4

From an average of 2.5 pd to around 1,260 pd sounds about right, if SenderBase is actually monitoring a good proportion of all mail from that address. Of course they might be using multiple addresses, actually sending out tens of thousands on multiple lists per day. Ah well, I might just pull up last week's "Madam and Eve" comic strips and stop thinking dark thoughts about our friends in ZA.