Skip to main content

Getting back at the spammers

One of my fun emails this morning
I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets deluged with a daily dose of spam, though I probably get more than most as a reward for having one of my email addresses on my website. On the whole I just delete it without a moment's thought. It's part of the background that I don't really notice, like breathing.

I have to admit I was caught out once. I had just done something on eBay (can't remember what) and at just the right timing a spam email arrived asking me to log into eBay to check a query from my buyer. I fell for it for about 30 seconds, then hurriedly got into the proper eBay and changed my password. As far as I know nothing resulted.

However, when I'm in a less easy-going mood I want to get my own back. Take just a few of today's batch.

When I get told that I have 'irregular activity on my Internet banking account' at Barclays or HSBC (or some American bank I've never heard of) I want to take the spammers by the scruff of the neck, shake them, and say 'I don't even have an account with this bank, you moron!' Or better still, I want the bank in question to make good use of some of those obscene profits they make to trace the sender back through the net, pick them up, and lock them in their vaults.

Similarly when I get a message from 'Larry Grahams' at Canary Wharf that starts:

Attn: Dear Partner
I got your response to my proposal I am so delighted to Informed you that the Consignment’s in question is currently in the UN Cooperate fiduciary agent office in U.S. 
Upon your respond to this message i will put together a special arrangement to have the Consignment’s deliver to you directly in your door step with the same help of the UN diplomat.
I want to take 'Larry Grahams' and shove his consignment where the sun don't shine, taking similar action with all those 'no need to enter' lotteries and bequests from random people (mostly called something like Reverend Cheerybell Butterbucket or something) I keep receiving.

I realize I can't do anything, but I so want to get back at them. Is there no way? I want to irritate them back, to get the authorities kicking their door down, and quite possibly to have something illegal under various international conventions happen to them. But all I can do is delete their spam. It's not fair.

Comments

  1. Didn't they arrest some Russian who is responsible for half the world's spam?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Now they only need to catch the Nigerian who's responsible for the other half.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm with you, Brian. Furthermore, I don't understand the principal behind it. Do these pond scum dwellers get paid for this stuff? If so, how and why? What's the point?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's recent gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some ex

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5.  However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor

Which idiot came up with percentage-based gradient signs

Rant warning: the contents of this post could sound like something produced by UKIP. I wish to make it clear that I do not in any way support or endorse that political party. In fact it gives me the creeps. Once upon a time, the signs for a steep hill on British roads displayed the gradient in a simple, easy-to-understand form. If the hill went up, say, one yard for every three yards forward it said '1 in 3'. Then some bureaucrat came along and decided that it would be a good idea to state the slope as a percentage. So now the sign for (say) a 1 in 10 slope says 10% (I think). That 'I think' is because the percentage-based slope is so unnatural. There are two ways we conventionally measure slopes. Either on X/Y coordiates (as in 1 in 4) or using degrees - say at a 15° angle. We don't measure them in percentages. It's easy to visualize a 1 in 3 slope, or a 30 degree angle. Much less obvious what a 33.333 recurring percent slope is. And what's a 100% slope