Spamnation

419 vs LHC

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 08:51:55 -0500

Nigerian scammers are creative people. From imaginary hitmen to American majors with suitcases full of Saddam's gold, to enough deceased relatives to fill a cemetery, to entire armies of princes, politicians and dictators, there seems no end to their inventiveness. But now, it seems they have turned their talents to writing actual science fiction.

Reproduced below is the full text of one imaginative scammer's latest message. Because after all, when the Large Hadron Collider destroys the Earth, who better than a Nigerian scammer to see you safe and sound?

Anonymous vs. Spamhaus

Sun, 19 Dec 2010 13:48:52 -0500

Having been DDOS'd a couple of times ourselves (by Russian criminal gangs), we're not really big fans of DDOS attacks as an instrument of policy. And while Anonymous's collective heart is often in the right place, some of its members seem not to be exactly the quickest little ponies on the track. Point-and-click denial-of-service tools in the hands of the clueless: what could possibly go wrong?

Gawker hack - here comes the spam

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 12:34:37 -0500

The recent Gawker Media hack exposed a large number of usernames and passwords, many of which were promptly re-used by spammers for an Acai spam run on Twitter. In addition to sharing the password database, the Gnosis hacker group that pulled off the exploit also thoughtfully posted the email addresses of Gawker commenters for the benefit of any spammers who might care to use them.

Spammers have apparently now added the compromised email addresses to their mailing lists. I've just seen a Nigerian spam sent to a previously undisclosed address that was used uniquely for registration on a Gawker property. More will undoubtedly follow.

The lesson to learn from all this is that third-party user databases should be considered inherently insecure. Don't use the same username/password combination on multiple sites, and use disposable email addresses to register. That way when the site does get hacked, you aren't giving hackers and spammers the keys to some other part of your digital life and you can just dump the compromised address and move on.

Your password practices suck

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 09:03:23 -0500

Over the weekend, servers belonging to Gawker Media were compromised, and the usernames, email addresses and passwords for commenters on a number of popular sites (Lifehacker, Gizmodo, io9 etc) were posted. publicly. Although the passwords were encrypted, brute-forcing simple passwords once you have access to the password database is often a fairly simple task. As proof of this, spammers have already launched an Acai Berry spam run on Twitter by simply using usernames and passwords stolen from the Gawker databases to log in on Twitter. In a large number of cases, they seem to have succeeded. We can also expect spammers and phishers to start targeting the compromised email addresses shortly: I've already had email from one Web 2.0 startup "helpfully" letting me know about the Gawker fiasco: it's a judgment call whether that's good neighborliness or borderline spam.

Facebook Messages

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 21:55:21 -0500

At some point in the recent past, a weary anti-spammer, tired of explaining to people proposing their own Final Ultimate Solution to the Spam Problem (FUSSP) why their proposal wouldn't work, drew up a form letter outlining the major objections to their scheme, whatever it might be. Whoever wrote this was obviously very familiar with FUSSPs in all their forms.

Today, Facebook announced their intention to release a new messaging service with an email component, Facebook Messages. Some optimists are already hailing Facebook Messages as a FUSSP. Are they right?

How much is that free iPad in the window?

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 08:17:11 -0500

One type of spam that shows up occasionally is spam that advertises your chance to get the hot technology item of the day - currently, that's typically an iPad or an iPhone - for "free". Here's a typical example:

Subject: We are looking for iPad testers We are looking for people who will be willing to test the iPad. The testing period will take 60 days. You only need to review and looking for bugs. After test you get to keep your iPad. You have no obligations. Spots are closing fast, so hurry and confirm your email address.

Sounds good, right?

Rise of the spamateur

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 08:41:22 -0500

One of the most trumpeted merits of the Internet is that it has the power to turn anyone into a publisher. The flipside of this is that it also has the power to turn anyone into a spammer. Yet amateur spammers — 'spamateurs', for want of a better word — are surprisingly rare. You see the occasional piece of affiliate spam with a homemade look, but the majority of affiliate or syndicated network marketing abuse is well-organized, large-scale activity, involving rented servers at colocation facilities, not one guy sitting at home with a PC. The loose network of providers sending out spam on behalf of "Canadian Health Care" are clearly at least semi-pro. A few persistent spammers seem to be one-man operations - what anti-spammers used to refer to derisively as "chickenboners" - but the real home spammer, the person who sits down at their PC and says "Today I'll make some money from spam" seems to be a rarity.

Subject line of the Week

Sat, 06 Nov 2010 09:57:28 -0500

This week's prize for the best prize-pitch scam subject line goes to Ademola Johnson. It just reads:

Attention: Dear Prominent User of the Internet

I can't decide whether I should put 'Prominent User of the Internet' on my business cards, or on a T-shirt. Or both.

Spammerthink

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 09:22:41 -0500

From a company calling itself Voltage Search Media, using the manticoretechnology.com mailing service, comes the following gem of a disclaimer:

Our goal is not to SPAM you. Weve [sic] recently added your name to our database and want to share this information at no charge to you, but want to respect your privacy as well. Please opt-in to Voltage Search Media's online database by clicking the Opt-In button. You can opt-out now or at any time in the future. However, we request and encourage you to give us the oppotunity [sic] to prove our worth. You canOpt-in [sic] or Opt-out below.

I'm so glad that the sender has generously decided to share this precious information about the 'Voltage Search Media game changing revolution' at no cost to me. I'd hate to have to pay to be spammed.

Mr John Zhang

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 07:02:26 -0500

If you happen to own any domain names, you may one day be the lucky recipient of a message that begins something like:

I'm sorry to disturb you so abrupt. We are a domain name registration service company in Asia, On 25th October. we received a formal application submitted by Mr. John Zhang who wanted to use the keyword "blahblah" to register the Internet Brand and with suffix such as .cn /.com.cn /.net.cn /.hk /.asia / domain names. After our initial examination, we found that these domain names to be applied for registration are same as your domain name and trademark. ...

The message goes on to say that they 'have hold down his registration' for the time being (because apparently they suspect that Mr Zhang may be a 'domain investor' and see this as their duty as an 'authorized anti-cybersquatting organization'). However, if they don't hear from you in five days, they're going to go ahead and give Mr Zhang what he wants.

Somebody set us up the spam

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 07:34:05 -0500

Many spammers are not native English speakers, and some of their messages may be a little eccentric. Lately, however, they seem to have been outdoing themselves. Consider, for example, this text which appeared on a pop-up dialog on one of those sites that pretends to be scanning your hard disk for viruses so that it can trick you into downloading a virus:

Warning! On your computer detected the malicious code. Should immediately make sure that your system is safe! Killing Hazard (R) for Microsoft Windows XP immediately started to work.

I'm not quite sure what all that means, but it does make me wonder if they're getting Yoda to write their texts for them.

You can spam but you can't hide

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 07:25:02 -0500

The comedian Jon Stewart, in one of his more inspired rants about duplicitous politicians, once asked in all seriousness "Don't they know we're taping this stuff?" It's not too smart to tell bare-faced lies about what you said six months before when everything you said is a matter of verifiable public record.

Politik spams

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 07:05:51 -0500

"Politik kills, politik kills, politik kills", sings Manu Chao. But politik does something else as well. Politik spams. And with some kind of elections going on in Brazil, politik has started spamming up a storm.

The Facebook connection?

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 13:18:16 -0500

As previously discussed, the Chinese fake-storefront scammers who have been using other people's Hotmail accounts to send spam have also been hijacking Gmail accounts. Talking to people who have had their Gmail accounts hijacked has revealed one interesting fact: everyone we spoke to had used the same password for both Gmail and Facebook.

Mimic flood

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 06:18:21 -0500

Long-running spammer Canadian Pharmacy has a new trick, which it has been using obsessively over the last few days. It consists of sending out messages that exactly duplicate notifications from popular services (Amazon, Digg, Wikipedia, etc) but contain URLs that direct recipients to the pharmacy site.