The best spam I've ever received

[chronic]

Subject:
best

Message:
your life is crap

 

[Father Luke]

Vodka has been two timing me?

 

[rjwink666]

I shall raid my inbox and pick the best out of my many SPAM's offering me a billion dollars if I give my bank details to a Tongan Princess or the Russian pharmecutical companies pushing Viagra my way

 

[Gerard K H Love]

I was always under the impression that all you have to do is open that spam mail to get more from them. Is this true?
Looking at it it does remind me of going through the trash or sewage. "My life is crap." :)

 

[Buzzcat]

Gerard, true. But, usually only if you open them as an HTML email. I never receive or send email in HTML. I could go into all the detail, but I'm kinda lazy...

 

[Gerard K H Love]

I would need all the detail cause I'm stupid. Well about the internetwork.

;)

 

[Buzzcat]

What email program do you use?

 

[roni]

I would need all the detail cause I'm stupid. Well about the internetwork.

In short:
there's a way to place 'active' components in a HTML-email. Opening such a mail is like visiting a website, where they'd run a script to locate you IP.
In case of an email, they'll be able to verify, that their mail arrived, so they know, the mail-addy they used is valid - which encourages them to send more...

If the security options on your computer are very low, they'd also be able to send you a virus/spyware/malware of any kind, that would (in the worst case) be able to totally hijack your machine.

 

[Gerard K H Love]

Thank you.

 

[Buzzcat]

Yes, thank you.

 

[roni]

sorry.
wrote that before i realized, you already started to answer him...

 

[Gerard K H Love]

What email program do you use?

gmail and another google based.

 

[Buzzcat]

sorry.
wrote that before i realized, you already started to answer him...

Actually, I didn't. I was taking the lazyass way out of typing all that. My thanks to you was quite sincere.


Ultimately Gerard, a clever email user wouldn't need any antivirus protection at all. It's all about knowing what to open and what to delete immediately. And, of course not using HTML. Which, both of the webmail programs you use use by default, if I remember right.

If on those two, gmail and google, you see anything in your Control Panel/User Settings that gives you the option to compose or read email in Text Only, do it.

I only use a email client program, not webmail, in particular Thunderbird and/or Courier, so I don't know about the settings in google and gmail. Perhaps someone else here can help on that one.

 

[Father Luke]

Meh. I use GMail.

The reason I like it is because it really does
have decent spam filters.

My problem is that if it ever gets hijacked,
a lot of people are gonna 'a be fucked.