Contact Me + Article About Spam

I've been getting some complaints that my email address isn't publicly available. If you got some sort of beef with anything I posted or did in some other manner, feel free to contact me. My address is covarr -(at)- gmail -(dot)- com. If your intention is to spam me, feel free either to jump off a cliff, because I don't read spam anyway.

So now, on to the
---On-Topic Article About Spam!---


Spam. Also known as junk mail, virus mail, and Paypal fraud. You've probably gotten quite a bit yourself, as these things seem to be good at finding email addresses. The question, then, is simple. What did you do with it? Did you open it? Did you delete it? If you're using GMail, it won't make a difference, as long as you stick it in your spam box first. Then you can read some of the most well-crafted messages without worry that it will give you a virus or verify your address. Of course, these things are often quite interesting. Here are some that I've gotten:

Subject: Papal account issue need resolved

Body:
Dear covarr,

Due to scammers all over the place we (Paypal) have needed to update our site with some changes. In order to keep your Papal account, we ask that you click here and enter in you're most recent information about credit card number and expiration date, name, social security no.mber, etc. For more information about PayPAl secuirty, visit here.

We thank you for your buisness, and we hope you can continue it.

Apart from the obvious "no.mber", there are some other, more minor mistakes they made. Did you catch them? Where to start?

• They refer to me as "covarr". PayPal would use my real name.
• They refer to my "Papal" account. I assume they know that I'm Catholic, as it's the only way that statement contains any relevance.
• They misuse "you're" in the second sentence.
• Near the end, Paypal is spelled "PayPAl".
• Most importantly, I don't have a PayPal account.
  

This email is actually about a year old, but I thought it was comedic gold, so I kept it. You may have noticed that the links in this do not actually work. I removed them for the protection of my visitors. Oddly enough, the second link in the email led to PayPal's actual security page, but the first link led to a fraudulent page disguised as PayPal. If anybody who got this email had clicked on the second link, they would have been taken to a page that would explain how to detect phishing attempts, such as this. It seems to me that whoever made this was trying to make up for the fact that nothing else about this email seemed official; surely a scammer wouldn't put in a link that says he's a scammer!

On to the second email that I want to post.

Subject: kk Save 82%: VIAGR*, AMBIE*, CIALI*, XANA*, RIVOTRI*, LEVITR*, CIPRO, MERIDI*, CELEBRE*, VALIU*, galena

Body: (Note, the body of this message was blank. All it had was a subject.

Now, I must wonder what the purpose was of this one. Brand name awareness? All it is is a bunch of viagra ripoffs, with their names censored. There is no link to buy them, no information about them, and not even a clue as to what they are. If I didn't know what Viagra was, I wouldn't know what any of this mess was. It's like these spammers aren't even trying anymore. Especially since I get like twelve a day of these things, all of which go straight through my spam filter.

Okay folks, now that you have my email, don't spam me. Also, I don't feel like writing anymore, so I'm gonna go get some lunch. Bye.