Posted January 30th, 2009, in: Computer Problems and Fixes| Evil Robots| Ideas, Observations, Opinions, Rants Etc| Spam and Scams| Technology| Web Browsers

I was glancing at something over at The Pirate Bay and maybe I clicked on a banner or something but damn… What is this?  I’ve never seen anything like this on a Mac.  Is this new?  Are there new threats for Macs?  Or just new Warnings? 

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Posted November 26th, 2008, in: Ideas, Observations, Opinions, Rants Etc| Marketing/Advertising In The Cloud| New Media| SEO, SEM, SMO Etc| Social Software and The Social Graph| Spam and Scams| Technology| Web 2.0

I like many NPR programs.  And this post about Weekend Edition’s mis-use of Twitter is just a way of pointing out a flaw in how one organisation is using Twitter so that we, and hopefully they (are you listening?), can learn from their mistakes.

1. I clicked to “Follow” Weekend Edition.
2. I got a weird impersonal messages sent “to me” via an “@ Reply” about how they’re getting the next episode of their show ready etc.  (why would they send that to me?  Smells like a strategy: “When someone starts to ‘follow’ us, respond to them with the latest tweet…” …a lot like automated thanks-for-the-add comments on MySpace, right?)
3. I responded suggesting they aren’t really using Twitter correctly.  
4. I gave it a day thinking I’d get a little response from their Team… Nope.  (What’s even worse than misinterpreting a medium, is not paying attention when people try to help.  Hello?)

Why would I want to be getting “personal,” direct messages from a media brand that wont respond to my own “personal” messages, when all of this is taking place via a platform in which I‘m already subscribing to a stream of anything that brand wants to say???  

Arghh!!

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Posted October 6th, 2008, in: Scam Email Mashups| Spam and Scams

I find this one interesting because it doesn’t actually promise any money.  Instead it offers an opportunity to help build a church in Africa, and accuses the reader of needing redemption, being a sinner (who isn’t, right?) etc…

From: david@teceng.net

I am Prophet David Johnson, I went for a prayer mission in HAITI and the Lord revealed so many things about you to me.

I see things and I reveal to people, something terrible which I have seen will happen to you, I just have to tell you, you will lose two important people you love very much, and evil will visit you personally, troubles and problems will leave with you, the things you never never believe that can happen to you, will happen. It has been dated when it will start very soon, sooner than you think.

The Lord reveal everything to me, and your email address appeared to me, after reading this message, if you believe me keep this message for your self alone do not share it with anybody, but if you don’t believe me delete this message and talk to your family, friends and relatives, tell them about the message so when things start happening to you, they will be informed, everything that will happen to you is spiritual, nobody will understand, when you even tell people what is happening to you they will never believe and understand because it is spiritual.

I have warned you now, we can prevent all this, but only if you believe God, but if you don’t believe God, wait and see what will happen.

Lord has done so much for you, that you have failed to recognize and you have been cheating God, at this time your email address was revealed to me three times, that’s why I am contacting you, do not think this is a joke or just an email because I know what will be going on in your mind, you are free to believe and disbelief this message, but when evil starts happening there is no going back, I warn you it has been destined and dated, it will start sooner than you think.

As you are reading this message I still see doubt in you, but I will stop here. If you want to prevent all this evil that will hit you soon, I will know and I will tell you what to do.

God reveal to me that you have a lot of doubt in your mind that you will doubt this message.

The reason for writing this message, is because of the strong challenge which you must have to follow to prevent all this evil which will surround you sooner, you will not see them and you can never see them, because it is spiritual, when it starts it cannot stop, it will be as if God has giving you to Satan.

Look this is not a joke, this is what I have seeing and the only prevention is for you not to doubt and do what I will tell you to do, for your soul to be covered in God’s harms. We have to take you back from the Satan if you are ready to follow God’s instructions I will tell you what to do.

I can still see even as I’m writing this message that there is plenty of doubt inside your heart and mind, but you can over power your doubt, only if the evil leaving in your heart will allow you, it will be very difficult for you to do what God’s want you to do, but you can do it only if you put doubt aside.

God told me that we will win you back, but it will be difficult because your heart has been eating by doubt, my only advice to you to remove doubt and keep this message to you self, if you don’t take my advice wait and see. This is the only way out for you to avoid this evil, you have to sow a seed in the house of the Lord, there is a church we are building in Africa, and we want you to sow a seed in contributing on that church where your name will be writing as one of the people that contributed to stand the house of the Lord where people will enter everyday and pray for you who contributed to put up the structure.

The only way out of this predicament is you must have to contribute for the building of the church, your name must be writing in the church as one of the sponsors that is where your name will be written in the book of life, the book of joy and the book of happiness things will now turn around, when the church is completed everyday service your name will be announced for the church congregation to pray for you.

So you have to sow that seed that is the only message that will take you out of this evil, you name must be writing in that church before it is completed. There’s no way back we will beg you to do this because this is the only way for the evil to turn around, I’m a prophet I don’t talk too much. But if you fail to do what you have been told now, when the predicament start even if you give all you have to the church at that time it will not work, I am warning and begging don’t ignore this message.

The church will go on 40 days fasting for you starting from the day you sow a seed for the building of the church. Contact Pastor Emmanuel Anderson, tell Pastor Anderson that you want to contribute for the building of the new church, do not tell him about what I told you, just tell him you want to contribute then ask him how you can sow a seed, do this as quick as possible, nothing is too small and nothing is too big for the Lord do not cheat God again, do this I have told you.

Give what you have never giving before, give what you feel your heart tells you, remember nothing  is too small and nothing is too big for the Lord, contact Pastor Emmanuel Anderson on this e-mail (pastoranderson@faithconvenantministry.co.cc) and tell him you want to sow a seed, after you have done that, then wait and see how blessing will rain upon your life each day, how you will swim in the rivers of success and joy.

I have given you the information and message which I was asked to give you, so now it is now left for you to believe it and do what you where told or forget it. I will never write you again or reply you, I have told you what I have to tell you, after reading this message you only have two things to do, either you follow the message or not.

I wish you the best in life.

Have a blessed day.

Regards,

Prophet David Johnson.

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Posted September 30th, 2008, in: SEO, SEM, SMO Etc| Semantic Web| Spam and Scams| Technology

IDEA: A MicroFormat for when it may be necessary to link to a Malicious, Dangerous, or Unethical Site?

Funny, the first thing that came to mind was using rel=”spam”  …but really what brought this up was a site that isn’t necessarily “Spam” in the traditional sense.  The site was a pyramid scheme, the operators of which were posting ads on my local craigslist for “social media” something or other.  This isn’t by definition, Spam.

The Wikipedia currently says:

“Spamming is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages…”

The quantity is what makes spam spam, not the uselessness of what’s being promoted.

Maybe rel=”mal” as in malicious??

I’m not the only one thinking about this idea.

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Posted September 30th, 2008, in: Computer Problems and Fixes| Evil Robots| Ideas, Observations, Opinions, Rants Etc| New Media| SEO, SEM, SMO Etc| Spam and Scams| Technology| Web 2.0

If your blog has been deleted suddenly by WordPress.com, DON’T PANIC!  …that is, unless you use your blog for phishing scams or spam-commenting or anything else that brings down the experience of other people on the Web and/or makes it harder for people to find the information they need.  In that case, panic.  Scream and cry.  I hope your blog is permanently deleted, and everything you eat for the rest of you life tastes horrible. The Web is our garden!  

Assuming you are an ethical participant of The Cloud, pretty soon you should get an email from WordPress.com explaining the nature of the take-down.

[Anyway, my blog is back, obviously.  I guess I need to start backing up my blog? Jeeez.  What a hassle.]

[begin story]

I regularly blog about scams/spam on the Web.  It’s a way for me be discovered by, and to provide guidance to, people who happen to be googling around about some questionable content they find or are emailed.

One example of this is this search result for “paypal-cgi.com,” a site that mimics PayPal in order to trick people into handing over their paypal login info.  I come up number one for the search, and the title of the result makes it clear that you shouln’t trust PayPal-CGI.com… If you click thru to my post, I explain why these things exist and how to detect this kind of crap.

You see, I’m actually doing something good here.  And it’s good for me too.

Anyway, recently I encountered some scam crap on craigslist and blogged about it. And since my blog post contained a link to the spam/scam site I was exposing, WordPress.com’s evil-detectors went ape shit and my blog got automatically removed by wordpress.com.  

I was in the middle editing a post and suddenly my category selection buttons stopped working.  And there was a thing saying somethin like “you do not have permission to edit this..” or something like that.  When I refreshed the page, I got “The authors have deleted this blog. The content is no longer available”

…and my blog had been completely removed leaving only this scary screen saying: “This blog has been archived or suspended for a violation of our Terms of Service.”

Ironic. I got banned for merely exposing something malicious.

Current Spam-Filter technology isn’t context-aware. This is a slippery slope: Using words or links alone, without regard to context, to define what is untrustworthy content.

See the post in question for yourself HERE: 

Fortunately, about an hour later, I got a message from WordPress.com: 

from: Anthony – WordPress.com:

Hi,

Your blog was automatically flagged, as links to overnightcashexplosion.com were detected (and these are certainly not permitted). The blog is back – please remove all such links.

Best,

Anthony

Automattic | WordPress.com

I responded with:

if it’s a url in text, is that different in the eyes of your spam defenses from an actual link?  I’d like to leave the url if possible so I can still come up in searches for that url. 

WHat’s your take on that?

Thanks for communicating with me.

-A

Anthony from WordPress replied:

Hi,
Sure, you can leave it – I understand the context.

Best,
Anthony
Automattic | WordPress.com

So, there is a layer of discretion here?  That’s good I guess.

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Posted September 27th, 2008, in: Scam Email Mashups| Spam and Scams

This spam email was just too funny to me not to do.  Gosh!  I feel so sorry for anyone that is so computer illiterate that they could fall for something like this.

Good Day,

I have 100% legal lucrative business 
proposal which will be of mutual benefit to 
us,If you are Interested, kindly mail me at 
(curtisanthony212@ymail.com)  for more 
details.
Thanks and awaiting your response.
Curtis Anthony

Business Proposal

From: honyeeee1@singnet.com.sg

Subject: 100% legal proposal

Date: September 27, 2008 2:42:04 AM PDT

To: curtisay@wlla.com

Reply-To: curtisanthony343@jmail.co.za

MORE SCAM EMAIL MASHUPS

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Posted September 1st, 2008, in: Evil Robots| Spam and Scams

Here in one post, I will start collecting curious little spam messages and emails I get.  These aren’t interesting enough to get their own posts, but I still like to be found in searches for their emails, urls etc.    

Hi sweetie!      

I’d like to avoid any confusion, I’m writing this on behalf of my mother. She was searching for guys online and came upon your irresistible profile (her words). She’s single and HOT! She wants to experience new things, meet a great guy for dating and more! She’s very alluring, men turn around when she walks? she has very nice curves. She likes going to the movies, drinking coffee and enjoys smart conversation. She plays a few musical instruments but prefers the cello. She’s humorous, romantic and easy-going. I’d like to add that she’s a very perceptive and spiritual person. I hope you’ll write back, you sure won’t regret it. FYI, this is MY account, so don..t reply directly to this message Instead, please use her email address, MarieBashor at gmail..

Well thank you very much

http://myspace.com/269092691

Via Email From tonybenson02@yahoo.com.hk

You can now email me at: sgttonybenson002@yahoo.com

- Dear Friend, I know you would be surprised to read from someone relatively unknown to you before now. My name is Tony Benson, a master sgt. of The U.S. Marine, deployed to Iraq in the beginning of the war in 2003.I would like to share some highly personal classified information about my personal experience and role which I played in the pursuit of my career serving under the U.S ARMY which was at the fore-front of the war in Iraq. Though, I would like to hold back certai n information for security reasons for now until you have found time to visit the BBC website stated below to enable you have insight regarding what I intend to share with you, believing that it would be of your desired interest in one way or the other.Here is a BBC news listing that confirms what I share with you.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2988455.stm Also, could you get back to me having visited the above website to enable us discuss in a more vivid manner to the best of your understanding. I must say that I’m very uncomfortable sending this message to you without knowing truly if you would misconstrue the importance and decide to go public.In this regards,I will not hold backto say that the essence of this letter is strictly for mutual benefit of you and I and nothing more.I will be more vivid and coherent in my next email in this regards. Meanwhile,could you send me a mail confirming you have visited the site and understood my intentions?Standing by for you r response. warm regards, master sgt.Tony Benson secured email:tonybenson02@yahoo.com.hk

 

From MySpace

is it u there?:

http://ofthehub. com/go/ms. php?ch=cb8c411a8037611c46a0b5fba697c260 

(ofthehub.com appears to be a virus thing)

I keep getting this email from “Solomon Guei solo.guei1@gmail.com in an email asking me to open an attachment: 

PLEASE OPEN THE ATTACHMENT TO SEE DETAILS.
FROM SOLOMON

the attachment reads:

From: Solomon Kone Guei          

I am Solomon Kone Guei from Coted Ivoire. I am 26 years old; I lost my father a couple of years ago. My father late General Robert Guei was a Ex-Military head of State of Ivory Coast until his untimely death,(You can visit http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2269238.stm for complete report on this incident).

He was assassinated on the 19th of September 2002 by an unknown group of heavily armed gunmen following the political uprising. To be brief and straight to the point, before his untimely death, he deposited with a finance security company a metal safe box containing

the sum of (Twenty Million United States Dollars Only) $20 million meant for the purchase of heavy artilleries, armored tank, ammunitions and security equipments.

The security company do not know the real contents of the metal safe box is money, because he convincingly told them at the time of deposit that it only contains African Artefact treasures and computer security consumables that does not need air and sun rays, that

will be ship to his foreign business associate in abroad. 

I want you to do me a favor to claim the box as my late father foreign business associate overseas in your country, so that I will come over to your country for investment and resettlement, since the present administration is no more in cordial relationship with my families. 

I will go into partnership investment with you in your country, such as Real Estate and Hotel ownership this is my reason for writing to you. Please if you are willing to assist me, indicate your interest in replying soonest, I will offer you 30% only for your kind and honest assistance. Do kindly send me your direct telephone and fax numbers for an easy communication-mail me:

solo.guei@gmail.com

Mr. Solomon Guei

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Posted June 28th, 2008, in: Data Portability (DataPortability)| Evil Robots| Spam and Scams| Technology| Web 2.0

I just glanced at my DataPortability email digest and apparently they got some sexy girls hot sexy pictures and nude videos going on in there.   WTF?

Uh… 

Is that Portable Data?

We are constantly trying to come up with new ways to battle those entities whom have absolutely nothing to contribute.  

In the coming age of more intelligent computing, within the cloud of service providers and throughout the Web Of Data or Semantic Web, will the penetration of irrelevant solicitors be the same?  

Surely there will always be Spam, but will structured data and the services that utilize it help to make barriers, at least of relevance? Or at all?  

Just some shit to think about.

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Posted June 25th, 2008, in: Evil Robots| Ideas, Observations, Opinions, Rants Etc| Spam and Scams| Technology

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Posted May 20th, 2008, in: Evil Robots| Spam and Scams

from: nade05@uku.co.uk

reply to: johnram555@gmail.com

 

Hello

Please I’ll like to know if your ITEM is

still available. I want to buy it for my wife

as a Britday gift.Email me or call me as

soon as you can so that we can proceed

because I’ll be leaving town in few days

time

cole.

Phone: (915)-808-3485

They don’t say what the item is or ask any questions about it.  The telephone number is a Texas Area Code and is disconnected. I suspect this is a spam-bot that responds to all craigslist ads of a certain parameter, and then collects the email addresses of the people that respond.  Or something like that.  I hate this.  

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