MetaFilter posts tagged with spam

419 spam received; put down, flipped, reversed.

heeeraldo — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:31:19 -0800

Marian Bantjes, typographer, designer, and Layer Tennis competitor, received a 419 spam email and turned it into this print. She's also written a number of interesting pieces for Speak Up; my favorites are the ones on design clichés, posters from the War Effort, the design language of heraldry and a (satirical) critique of the alphabet.

Inside the "Ron Paul" Spam Botnet.

chunking express — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 18:04:01 -0800

Inside the "Ron Paul" Spam Botnet. This is a pretty interesting look at how botnets work in general.

I had to tell some one.

brett — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 08:24:17 -0800

Artistic renditions of spam subject lines — A Flickr photoset (of sorts)

Ron Paul Spam

brownpau — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:16:05 -0800

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. The Ron Paul fan response was swift and decisive: clearly the botnet was the work of anti-Ron Paul hackers trying to discredit his campaign, and Rudy Giuliani had paid Stirland (and not UAB Computer Forensics) to do a smear piece -- as claimed by a YouTube video pointing to posts on RudyGiulianiForum.com. Thus proving, once again, that the Ron Paul campaign's greatest liability is not so much his far-right conspiracy-driven antifederal libertarianism, but rather the spittle-flecked anger of his own noisiest supporters. Beets are great! Ron Paul!

It's not spam, it's BACN.

punkrockrat — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 07:32:19 -0800

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.

Spiced Ham

JPowers — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 19:18:26 -0800

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."

But what about the flying cars?

straight — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 13:38:11 -0800

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)

It's an email metaverse!

verb — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 12:41:50 -0800

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!"

You say Viagra, I say \/!@&2^

Horace Rumpole — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 10:06:08 -0800

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.

If You're Toilet-Trained And Have Less Than Three Felony Convictions, Spam U. Wants You!

amyms — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 19:45:41 -0800

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!