Spam
December 8, 2006 by Lillie
Are you overwhelmed with spam these days? An article in the New York Times reports: “Worldwide spam volumes have doubled from last year, according to Ironport, a spam filtering firm, and unsolicited junk mail now accounts for more than 9 of every 10 e-mail messages sent over the Internet.”
And spam in blog comments is just as bad. I waste a lot of time every day deleting e-mail spam and moderating comments on several blogs. Dozens of the messages repeat the same message with different subject lines and different senders.
And now someone is spoofing e-mail addresses from YourInformationCenter.com, so I’m getting dozens more e-mails every day saying the messages I sent couldn’t be delivered. Of course, I didn’t send the messages with subjects like “Hector advice,” “it’s me elise,” “relative benevolent” … from addresses such as xqzm@….com.
It’s hard to believe anyone actually reads this junk, much less falls for it. But ABC’s Brian Ross & The Investigative Team Web site has videos showing how churches, a former Congressman, prominent doctors and lawyers, and other have been victimized in the billion-dollar Nigerian e-mail scams. If you receive an e-mail addressed to “undisclosed recipients” saying you’ve inherited millions from an unknown relative … hit the delete key! Greed – the possibility of getting something for nothing … or tens of millions for only a “small” fee … makes people gullible. As the old saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. The only people getting rich from these e-mails are the scammers/spammers. Another site for information specifically on the Nigerian and related scams is Nigeria – The 419 Coalition.
At least the scams have a somewhat coherent story, though usually the messages are filled with grammar and spelling errors. The ones I wonder about are the messages that don’t make any sense whatsoever. Words and phrases are randomly strung together. Paragraphs stop in mid-sentence, and the sentences or phrases don’t have anything to do with what the spammers are trying to sell. I figure they have files of words, phrases, and sentences, and they just pull a word from one file, a phrase from another, a few sentences from the next …
You’re probably wondering how I know so much about what these nonsensical messages say. Why don’t I just delete them en masse? Well, I always find a few legitimate messages among the junk mail, as well as lots of junk mail that gets through the spam filters. I have to read enough to sort them out – that is, if the subject is something other than “Milligan advice,” “it’s me helena,” “amidst displeasure,” and the like.
Lillie,
As you know, those Nigerian scams are still making the rounds–though thankfully, they are, as you’ve said, generally filled with grammatical and spelling errors–along with atrocious formatting–that help brand them as phony. I’m very sorry for those who have been fooled by them, but also surprised that they would be, because these e-mails tend to be very poorly conceived and prepared. It’s hard to believe that the prominent people and organizations you’ve mentioned would fall for these scams–particularly such supposedly savvy individuals as doctors, lawyers, and a Congressman! (But, I guess it just goes to show that the desire for monetary gain can often seriously cloud our judgment!)
The more ridiculous spam messages you mention–with subject lines designed to either pique your interest or make you think you know the sender, and unrelated strings of words and phrases within the body of the e-mails–are very annoying, to say the least. I receive these regularly. I’ve been wondering the exact purpose these e-mails can serve. There must be one, I assume–other than clogging our inboxes with spam–but I haven’t quite figured out how these nonsensical messages can benefit the sender. I simply delete them.
Thanks for the links you’ve provided to help us research the annoying–and often-dangerous–phenomenon of e-mail spam!
Very helpful post!
Jeanne
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