Inside the "Ron Paul" Spam Botnet.
posted on Dec 5, 2007 - View this thread

Artistic renditions of spam subject lines — A Flickr photoset (of sorts)
posted on Nov 9, 2007 - View this thread

When Ron Paul email spam started hitting inboxes in late October, UAB Computer Forensics Directory Gary Warner published findings on the spam's textual patterns and the illicit botnet used to spread it -- findings which were picked up by media outlets and tech websites like Salon, Ars Technica, and Wired Magazine's "Threat Level" blog, the latter in a set of followup posts by writer Sarah Stirland: 1, 2, 3.
posted on Nov 5, 2007 - View this thread

It's not spam, it's BACN. A web-term that was influenced by the proliferation of web 2.0 social networks used to describe "notifications you want, just not right now." Twitter requests, facebook notifications, bill-payment receipts, etc. Even though you're expecting the e-mail, *and* you want to read it, now is just not a good time to click the "read" button. You want to; you just don't have time right now. Hopefully the video and numerous blog postings in the last 24 hours will help to bring awareness to this new web-term recently brought to light this past weekend at Podcamp Pittsburgh.
posted on Aug 20, 2007 - View this thread

The New Yorker dives deep into the world of Spiced Ham: "'You buy your spamming program and your spamming network. You obtain a list of mailing addresses. Anyone can do this in an hour. Then you put them all together and set up a Web site or go to a service provider. You can buy a server for a few hundred dollars and spam from that. Usually, the provider will shut you down quickly and you will be blacklisted. But then you move on to the next.' Among the systems that have been infected by networks of remote computers in the past two years were computers at the weapons division of the United States Naval Air Warfare Center and many machines operated by the Department of Defense."
posted on Aug 3, 2007 - View this thread

Why science fiction is hard. Inspired by reports of a creative new, Rube-Goldberg spamming technique in World of Warcraft, MetaFilter's own Charlie Stross imagines trying to explain gold farming to someone from 1977. (Previously: 1, 2, 3)
posted on Jul 20, 2007 - View this thread

Just when you thought virtual reality couldn't get any worse, it's 3D Email! "Immerse yourself in 3-D as you read and write your mail. Hang with your mail poolside, or feed your spam to the sharks! Deleting spam is so much fun, you may wish you had more! ...It's an email metaverse!"
posted on Jul 18, 2007 - View this thread

How Many Ways Can You Spell V1@gra? Building on previous research (Cockerham, 2004), Brian Hayes attempts to find the limits of Viagra-spammer ingenuity.
posted on Jun 27, 2007 - View this thread

Spam University. "Are you tired of your dead-end job? Want to make some big-time cash without actually working? Earn the money you deserve in the exciting and fast-growing spam industry," but only if you meet the rigorous admissions criteria. Check out the lovely campus amenities and meet the alumni. If you're athletically inclined, you might even want to join one of Spam U.'s championship-winning teams!
posted on Jan 30, 2007 - View this thread

Spam Paint repurposes comment spam.
posted on Oct 10, 2006 - View this thread

What News Corp doesn't want you to know about myspace is that the much of the success of myspace was due to a large successful advertising campaign and it wasn't grass roots at all. They also don't want you to know that Tom Anderson didn't really create the site and that it is more spam 2.0 than anything else. The article is written by a 19 year old web journalist called Trent Lapinski. Has everyone just been had? Does it matter? (via Digg and Valleywag)
posted on Sep 11, 2006 - View this thread

Subliminal Spam. It's rather crude, but I wonder if we'll start seeing more of this, and done more subtly.
posted on Sep 6, 2006 - View this thread

Recipes of the Damned. Whet your appetite with Fruit Cocktail-SPAM Buffet Party Loaf or perhaps a nice cold, thick meat-milk shake.
posted on Jun 9, 2006 - View this thread

Blue Security shuts down It was just a few days ago that Blue Security was beating their chest, straight off a 'victory' over spammers. Now though, the company is conceding defeat.
posted on May 18, 2006 - View this thread

An unwelcome guest of spam. As thanks for his efforts against link spam, a guestbook spammer uses infotech writer Michael Pollitt's name in its autosubmissions, flooding his inbox with confirmation emails and soiling Google's search results for his name. A special word of gratitude goes out to Ev1Servers for his troubles.
posted on Apr 27, 2006 - View this thread

Stock Spam Effectiveness Monitor Spam comes in, graphs come out. You are not buying stock based on spam, but surely someone must be, or else you wouldn't be flooded with more spam everyday. This tracks one user's inbox and the stocks spammed therein. A bit more analysis here and here
posted on Apr 26, 2006 - View this thread

"Each day, tens of thousands of our precious domain names are bought by greedy corporations and squandered for non-sustainable commercial development." But the Domain Name Preservation Society wants to help. Donate your names after you no longer need them, and they will retire protected within the sanctuary. Otherwise, what domains will our children be left with if we do not protect the endangered domain names of today?
posted on Jan 19, 2006 - View this thread

Christian PepsiBlue. "Reviews" of a book with very similar content are all over the place. The author says she had to get special permission from God to write parts of the book. Is this definitive proof that God condones blogspamming?
posted on Jan 6, 2006 - View this thread

Register article on Greek arrest of well known programmer I'ved been watching this story since it surfaced at the rixstep.com page here and here; also covered at Techdirt.com in a couple of threads. Worth a look.
posted on Nov 2, 2005 - View this thread

Spam Stock Tracker Haven't you ever been just a little curious if you could "D0UB1E Y0UR |M|0|N|E|Y| EVERY WEEK!!!" like the the email said? [via NPR's Marketplace]
posted on Oct 16, 2005 - View this thread

Russian spammer beaten to death.
posted on Jul 26, 2005 - View this thread

"Israeli technology firm Blue Security has set up a scheme to batter spam websites with thousands of complaints. The plan is to fill order forms...offering pills, porn and penile health tonics with complaints about the products advertised for sale in junk messages." I signed up.
posted on Jul 23, 2005 - View this thread

Research finds that 87% of internet users are unfamiliar with "podcasting" and 91% have never heard of "RSS". The study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project also found that only 3% of users still don't know what spam is. Here's a PDF of the findings.
posted on Jul 20, 2005 - View this thread

“Thank you for your recent E-mail. I appreciate your concern. However, I am, at this time, completely satisfied with the size of my penis.” Says a Gizmodo post: Now I consider myself fairly well versed in penis lengthening—a skill introduced to me, inadvertently, by my 6th grade math teacher—but I did not realize one could become a medical doctor and specialize in the topic. They also point to a similar device mentioned in an earlier post. Ow.
posted on Jun 24, 2005 - View this thread

"I just read about CNN Headline News in us weekly. Those guys at the football game were total jerks." --Thoth
posted on Apr 25, 2005 - View this thread

SCANDAL!!! Wordpress caught with Spam and Hot Nacho! Blogosphere Cheesed! (Waxy investigates)
posted on Mar 30, 2005 - View this thread

I often say that blogs are currently where the web was in 1998, with history repeating itself only this time with blogs. The latest sign: spyware and viruses are now being transmitted via blogs, specifically, random blogs on blogspot.com, found via the "Next Blog" button. Remember, just because a delightful purple gorilla wants to read blog entries to you doesn't mean you should click on him.
posted on Feb 21, 2005 - View this thread

Spamusement! Sort of like Exploding Dog, if all the suggestions came from spam subject lines.
posted on Feb 7, 2005 - View this thread

Interview with a Link Spammer. [via] Get to know one of the scummy linkpimping bottomfeeders who abuse our referrer logs and weblog comments, then take measures to protect yourself. AnnElisabeth.com has much more (just keep scrolling), and of course, check your own weblog software for rel="nofollow" updates.
posted on Jan 31, 2005 - View this thread

Not only is pop star Ashlee Simpson lip syncing and manufactured, but so are some of her fans:
"I just read about Ashlee in us weekly. Those guys at the football game were total jerks." -- mandyc19

Welcome to the world of message forum viral marketing, "street team" advertising, and corporate shills. That "fan" posting in forums about Court TV, The Smoking Gun, or shows on Fox isn't a fan at all -- just another type of spammer -- only this time employed by giant media corporations.
posted on Jan 25, 2005 - View this thread

Google, others announce attempt to fight comment spam. Take away the PageRank bonus and they'll stop, right? Right?
posted on Jan 19, 2005 - View this thread

Boasting 166 canned meats, the Potted Meat Museum.
posted on Dec 21, 2004 - View this thread

Bwahahahahaha - Take a shot back. Bill Gates promised to end spam. Now lycos is letting you take a shot back ala SETI. Get your copy and make love not spam.
posted on Nov 29, 2004 - View this thread

We've all recieved one of those Nigerian Email Scams, but now we have it in a video format (qt format) I almost wanted to help him out, but then he never did leave any contact info.
posted on Oct 30, 2004 - View this thread

Ze Frank, nigerian 419 scammer. [Quicktime]
posted on Sep 29, 2004 - View this thread

putting spam to good use
posted on Sep 25, 2004 - View this thread

Spamusement Poorly-drawn cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines. (via The Ultimate Insult)
posted on Jul 31, 2004 - View this thread

85% of all email is spam. 83% of all email is spam. Between 80 and 90% of all email is spam. 80% of all email is spam. 76% of all email is spam. Between 64 and 78% of all email is spam. 64% of all email is spam. 63% of all email is spam. 60% of all email is spam. 52% of all email in 2004 will be spam. 50% of all email is spam. By 2006 98% of all email will be spam.
posted on Jul 6, 2004 - View this thread

1,300,925,111,156,286,160,896 ways to say Viagra.
posted on May 4, 2004 - View this thread

More on the boom of Friendster, Orkut, Tribe, et al:
  Meet "snam," the junk email generated by social networking.
It's sort of a snowball effect. I just wonder if the name will catch on (?) (It's not as catchy as "spam," is it?) Social networking within organizations is briefly mentioned but interesting: Companies such as Contact Network, Spoke Software, Interface Software, and ZeroDegrees collect individual contact data from a company's employees, then merge it with those workers' past employment histories...
posted on May 3, 2004 - View this thread

For those that use SpamAssassin, you may have noticed a degrading service since January 2004. As usual, Google has the Answer - it seems a spammer paid $200 an overly helpful geek on Google Answers to detail exactly how SpamAssassin works... I wonder if said geek ever got the money?
posted on Apr 25, 2004 - View this thread

Can Spam Save the World? Mark Cuban, broadcast.com billionaire, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and Donald Trump wannabe (though he says he's not) is set to host a new "reality" show called The Benefactor. The winner gets $1 million bucks. This guy, who bought the terribly optimistic cubansmillion.com domain, claims he has a "well thought-out" 4-step plan to use the money to save the world. It sounds to me like it was conceived by the underwear gnomes. He fails to explain just how sending 50 million spam emails a day "generates 250 million dollars annually for charitable causes . ($5 in annual earnings per member enrolled.)" I'd be interested in hearing what others with experience in email marketing think. A viable idea or just crackpot self-promotion?
posted on Apr 20, 2004 - View this thread

SpamKing: Out of the Inbox and Into the Closet? I wan7 my XXXXXXXL sh1rt N0W.
posted on Apr 20, 2004 - View this thread

Viral marketing done well: First, identify your market of choice. Second, offer an online petition about an issue that is important to them. Make sure that your privacy policy allows you to send the visitor email. Each target should be encouraged to spread the petition's address amongst their friends, selecting other similar marks better than you ever could. Better still, the suggestion to visit your site will come from a trusted source. Third, take your list and sell access to it. Is it still spam? If you do your job right your mark won’t even know they’ve been hit until the email starts to roll in, and perhaps not even then. There’s nothing to be ashamed about, right?
posted on Apr 12, 2004 - View this thread

Thecycles.com is evil and must be stopped. The proper comeuppance for a bogus content aggregator which inflates its own pagerank while spamming referrer logs? It shoots itself in the foot with its own aggregator.
posted on Mar 30, 2004 - View this thread

Typekey. Centralized weblog comment identity authentication system. By Six Apart. Coming soon. [Is this good?]
posted on Mar 20, 2004 - View this thread

The Man Who Loves Spam "[Orlando] Soto routinely comes home to some 150 e-mail pitches, and he loves getting them all. The 45-year-old grandfather opens most of them. He answers spam questionnaires. And he buys stuff pitched in spam e-mail -- again and again." Ugh. Thanks a lot, Mr. Soto. You're keeping this industry alive. (WSJ link, via Obscure Store.)
posted on Mar 15, 2004 - View this thread

Microsoft, AOL, Earthlink, Yahoo sue hundreds in six lawsuits More here (registration req'd). Nation's largest spammers targeted in first lawsuits under Congressional Anti-Spam Legislation.
posted on Mar 10, 2004 - View this thread

The scum behind the spam "These anti-spammers, most of them are unemployed people. . .No life, miserable. They thrive on attention. They have their little newsgroups, and they argue with each other. They're their own worst enemies. I used to care what they think, but not anymore." Now, presumably, Scott Richter may have Metafilter to add to his list of projected insecurities.
posted on Feb 2, 2004 - View this thread

Why yes, I would like to rip my Lancaster County Prison CD. Viking Components invents a whole new form of spam, courtesy of Amazon's Guides feature. [more]
posted on Jan 30, 2004 - View this thread