Spam spam spam spammity spam

[gothwalk]

Sometimes, I really can't work out what spammers are after. A list I'm on was vigourously bombarded - about 50 copies got through before an admin got on the case - with a listing of reg codes for Microsoft stuff, up to and including a beta build of Longhorn. I can see why someone might send a single copy, but not 50. And there's no benefit in sight.

And there's a very well written one in this morning to Swiftpay from "Elizabeth Richson", saying that she writes for a website, has linked to us, and would we be interested in linking back to her? Apparently she found us by searching for a given search term, which is one that you'd reasonably find Swiftpay on. If it wasn't for the slightly klunky line of "My site is all about Finance - Misc too", I wouldn't even have glanced at the headers. But it turns out to be from a non-existent domain, and in something mildly mindboggling, googling for that name gives a total of two results, neither connected in any way to finance sites. So a mail asking for a link to a site which doesn't seem to exist, from an email address that can't be replied to, which was generated by a clever program tripped up only by the fact that the category the site is listed under didn't fit as a natural language noun. Why? How can anyone possibly profit by sending this?

Comments

talking about spam ...

[graylion.livejournal.com]

this gave me a slight shock:

Nigerian 419

Re: talking about spam ...

[silja.livejournal.com]

I get those all the time!
Though usually, they are from the widow of a dictator/oil explorer/diamon miner, who wants me to help.

Or, lately (no idea why), I get a lot of spam similar to the above, except addressed to me as a cleric, from a African person who has found G_d and wishes to give me a certain amount of money for my ministry, but they need 1000 dollars or similar amount first to release the account. Lol- sometimes, they even say "your congregation need not know...."

Re: talking about spam ...

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

There are some very sinister ones of those going about which seem to target young women. They purport to be from a young West African man who wants to start a romantic relationship. And, wouldn't you just know it, his dad turns out to be the former Foreign Minister of Nigeria, or he needs an operation, or he wants you to send him the airfare so he can come over and woo you... horrible, insidious little emails playing on people's prejudices and insecurities.