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AOL Names Top Spam Subjects For 2005
JamesAlfaro writes "Donald Trump and "penis patch" were the most popular subject lines used by spammers this year, as the fraudsters grew more sophisticated in trying to trick consumers, America Online said Wednesday in its third annual Top 10 Spam List. Six out of the 10 top subject lines this year fell into what experts call "special-order spam," which pretend to be from a friend, or part of a legitimate, customer-driven transaction."
Sounds like the title of a children's book from Hell.
Garg
Alumnus, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
The topics/products that they are using must be effective because they keep the spammers in business. It's horrible, but since these spammers are in business, a LOT of people must be falling for them.
... you know, something really simple that would help the war on spam.
1) Clean up your 20 year old database of it's unused usernames
2)Blacklist any server/ip/whatever that sends email to x amount of disabled accounts (I would say x ==5 but any value really would work)
3) Publish said blacklist
There is no way a spammer could avoid an AOL address. Start doing this with hotmail, yahoo mail, netscape mail, whatever mail, and I think we would be able to lock off the "bad" senders a lot faster than projects such as spews.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
What I STILL cannot figure out is WHY some jerk off thinks I would refinance my mortgage with, or trust the health and safety of Mr. Happy to, someone who cannot even fucking *SPELL*!!
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."
I am suprised that paypal pfishing didn't make the article. I get these every day.
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
From the article:
How can anyone possibly fall for these ? I have the worst memory of anyone I know (or remember ;), and I have no trouble remembering if I have any bending applications or e-mail conversations.
Or are these things trying to make people think that they've accidentally gotten someone elses mail and might profit by playing along - are these messages trying to tempt people into trying to commit fraud in order to defraud them ? That would be ironic, and essentially the same tactic that Nigerian letters used - could the senders of Nigerian spam claim patent violation ?-)
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
At first I thought you meant AOL tops the list of spam subjects.
Me too!
Click here for Boobies!
I'm wondering if the spammers are changing tactics. I used to get one spam message at a time but now I get up to a dozen messages from the same slimeball, all with the same subject line. I can't figure out why they do this because it makes spam filtering easy, more than one message with the same subject line and into the bit bucket you go.
Anyone know why this is happening?
Ed Almos
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. - Tacitus, 56-120 A.D.
Paris Hilton never writes me any more :(
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Ever head of the many great realtime blackhole lists?
http://www.spamcop.net/bl.shtml
http://dnsbl.njabl.org/
http://ordb.org/
No need to roll your own. There is even one designed to list dynamic IPs (http://www.dnsbl.nl.sorbs.net/).
AC: Only on slashdot... could the sentence "My hovercraft is full of eels." be moderated "+4, Insightful
Oh yeah, they are getting really sophisticated in their trickery. Who wouldn't open an email with the subject line of "Donald Trump's Penis Patch"?
She's built like a steak house, but she handles like a bistro....
Penis Patches are of course for Penis Pirates (to go with the little penis parrots)
Yaaaaaaaaaaargggggh! Avast! I see booty
(etc etc etc)
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
You don't need to find the lusrs with pwned boxen. They, after all, are only doing what they've been told to do by us technical elitey types.
You just need to realize that the broadband providers are capable of stopping this problem by themselves, with their existing equipment, and the only reason they don't do it is because it would impact their revenue stream (well, that and the high correlation of greed with stupidity).
With Comcast's resources at my disposal, I could stop all spam and virus propagation from their networks in a month or less. But a certain number of customers (mostly spammers and other criminals) would stop paying their monthly bill as a result, and thus Comcast has a simple ROI equation: Screw you over, and get paid, do the Right Thing, and don't get paid.
Easy decision for them, because WE are letting them get away with it. Write your congresscritter, make Comcast (and their ilk) liable for running worm farms.
You are proposing that we block connections to port 25?
:P
Or some more complicated magic?
In either case, leave my ISP alone
AC: Only on slashdot... could the sentence "My hovercraft is full of eels." be moderated "+4, Insightful
I think "firing his apprentice" is Donald's term for working his penis patch.
A listing of this week's subjects:
10 Subject: Re:
4 Subject: IMPORTANT MESSAGE
3 Subject: BE INFORMED ( UNCLAIMED - PRIZE)
2 Subject: UK LOTTERY WINNING NOTIFICATION Batch: 074/05/ZY369
2 Subject: AWAIT YOUR URGENT REPLY
1 Subject: àúä äåìê ìâìåú àú îä ùàó àçã ìà øåöä ùúãò...
1 Subject: contact your claims agent
1 Subject: Your Urgent Attention Is Required
1 Subject: WINNING NOTIFICATION LETTER.
1 Subject: Urgent Funds for Investment.
1 Subject: TRUSTING YOU IN ACTUALIZING THIS
1 Subject: THANKS
1 Subject: REQUEST ASSISTANCE/PARTNERSHIP .
1 Subject: REPLY TODAY PLEASE!!!
1 Subject: RE: URGENT RESPONSE NEEDED
1 Subject: Please kindly get back to me.
1 Subject: PRIVATE AND URGENT
1 Subject: PRAY FOR ME
1 Subject: PLEASE TREAT URGENTLY-------
1 Subject: PLEASE ASSIST
1 Subject: ONLINE DRAWS
1 Subject: NOTICE
1 Subject: NEED YOUR REPLY
1 Subject: Mrs. Nora Walters(Benefactor).
1 Subject: Mrs Mary Koffi/ Michael son.
1 Subject: Martinez
1 Subject: MY INTRODUCTION
1 Subject: LAST WINNING NOTIFICATION$$$
1 Subject: INVESTMENT
1 Subject: Hope to hear from you soonest.
1 Subject: Good day
1 Subject: From: DR. JOSEPH
1 Subject: FROM DR IBRAHIM DABLA
1 Subject: FRANCIS SULE
1 Subject: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
1 Subject: FINAL WINNING NOTIFICATION!!!
1 Subject: Expecting your response.
1 Subject: Dear Friend.
1 Subject: Contract Payment From Central Bank Of Nigeria
1 Subject: Congratulations! You won...
1 Subject: COULD YOU BE ENTRUSTED WITH US$50,000,000 (?)
1 Subject: CONTACT YOUR CLAIM AGENT
1 Subject: CONGRATULATIONS- YOU JUST HIT THE JACKPOT.
1 Subject: CALL FOR LOTTERY CLAIM!!!!!!!!!!!
1 Subject: ATTENTON////Pascoe???
Apparently I get a different kind of spam than AOL.
Would it really be that much trouble to make one phonecall?
Example: Comcast (or other huge ISP) blocks port 25 by default. To unblock your port 25, call the 1-800 number and make the request. The End.
Yes it will add another hoop to jump through, and will undoubtedly complicate things for n00bs trying to setup whatever flavor of e-mail client they want/need to use, but the vast majority of subscribers aren't using this port.
For companies like Comcast, this is just another added line to the papers they stuff into your self-install kit.
just my 2 cents
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
...so they read the e-mails of their clients?
...so is this either "Top 10 Reported spam subject lines" or are they invading our privacy?
Let's say I get some great real-estate offers in my email account. I choose to report it as spam, once. AOL or anyone else gets this mail and they can analyze it or do anything they want with it.
The next day I get an identical mail and it gets sent to the SPAM folder. Do they have the ability to see this one as well? What if one that isn't spam gets marked as such, but contains sensetive and personal information?
Well, i for one am happy to see the makers of penis are fast to respond to the latest penis exploits.
For some time, I have been closely tracking levels of mortgage/lending/credit spam received on several email accounts. I am doing this because I am interested in the lending business and hope to see levels of spam correlate with activity in the industry.
Anyway you can find my data here:
http://www.perpetualbull.com/mortgage-spam/
Various regex are used to locate spams of this topic. Not 100% accurate but pretty good
In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penisses, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship.
http://bash.org/?203815
Thay're actually pretty heavy duty (I'm not going to discuss how I know). You'd have to be engaged in some pretty vigorous activity to damage one.
You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep.
While I'd prefer an approach that puts the burden on the infected PC owners rather than on people who actually have a clue, I'd be willing to make the phonecall.
And your method would be simple enough that even Comcast might conceivably be competent enough to implement it. Maybe. Unfortunately I am a customer, so I'm kind of pessimistic on that front.
What this will do is prevent zombie networks from sending out spam.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
where does aol fall on this list again?
You do realize that they send unwanted advertisements to their own customers right?
Its not as if they are related to AOL services either. For the right price your ad can be sent by AOL to an AOL subscriber FROM AOL
We seldom regret saying too little but often regret saying too much.
Always update your penis regularly with the latest patches. It is effective security against viruses and bugs. Just don't use Microsoft patches, as they cause shrinkage and floppiness.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Parent is absolutly right. These toys are often quite large and sturdy. Having some knowledge of them I can say with confidence: here in the USA, glass dildo breaks YOU.