[extropy-chat] Spam

[J Corbally]

>Message: 11
>Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2003 11:38:07 -0800
> >From: "Spike" <spike66 at comcast.net>
>Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Spam
>To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Message-ID: <000001c3cf0c$73d9b2f0$6501a8c0 at SHELLY>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> > Harvey Newstrom
> >
> > ...You will also see a bunch of these
> > whenever a new version of a spam engine is released, as thousands of
> > spammers start testing the new software... Harvey Newstrom...
>Spam engines. Oh, evolution help us. Next it will be
>spam guns, then spam bazookas, and inevitably, spam
>nukes. We can be confident such things are coming,
>for there are plenty of people who would be delighted
>to see the internet come crashing down. How many of you
>did most or all of your holiday shopping on the internet?
>I did. The on-line stores are eating the lunch of the
>local merchants, who must pay ruinous sales tax to the
>state. The internet's biggest threat is not spammers
>trying to sell things, but spammers trying to get the
>proletariat off-line and back into the tax-generating
>local stores, churches, sporting events, commercial
>television, facing Mecca, etc.

Can't say I shop much online.  The poor state of my credit card sees to that.

I'm sure if online stores start losing out, they'll form some kind of lobby 
to get the problem "fixed".  Who knows, maybe it IS the local merchants who 
are doing the spamming.

>Here's one to watch for: one day you get a spam which
>shows a shocking image of child pornography or abuse,
>which pops up without your doing anything. Then a
>message comes up a little later which claims to be from
>a government agency of some sort, saying that it has
>detected an illegal downloaded image of child pornography
>on the hard disk, making the owner of that computer
>punishable by 10 yrs in the slammer, etc.
>It would not surprise me if as many as 10% of the proles
>were to fall for that trick, toss the whole infernal device
>into the trash. Actually Im surprised something like that
>hasn't already happened.
>spike

Actually, I've seen a pun based on that idea.  It's a small Dos-based file 
that you send to the victim attached to an email.  When the unfortunate 
recipient gets it and runs it, the screen turns black, the speaker blares 
out a warning, and a message informs the user they have access illegal 
pornographic content, that IT and security have been notified and to stay 
at the machine.

Needless to say, the look of abject panic on the face of the jokee is 
priceless...



James...


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