Good luck, Mr. Gorsky.

Someone just used the email form on the Stop the War on Fun site to send this gem. I assume it's an attempt at spam? Well, if it's a legitimate question, I'm sure someone on the SF Board of Supervisors can help them. They seem like people who would be knowledgeable about cell phones.

From: addesee <jansuto+dikige@gmail.com>

To: Gavin.Newsom@sfgov.org, Mark.Leno@sen.ca.gov, Bob.Hartnagel@sen.ca.gov, Tom.Ammiano@asm.ca.gov, Tara.Mesick@asm.ca.gov, Heather.Fong@sfgov.org, sfpd.online@sfgov.org, George.Gascon@sfgov.org, sfpd.commission@sfgov.org, Eric.L.Mar@sfgov.org, Michela.Alioto-Pier@sfgov.org, David.Chiu@sfgov.org, Carmen.Chu@sfgov.org, Ross.Mirkarimi@sfgov.org, Chris.Daly@sfgov.org, Sean.Elsbernd@sfgov.org, Bevan.Dufty@sfgov.org, David.Campos@sfgov.org, Sophie.Maxwell@sfgov.org, John.Avalos@sfgov.org
Subject: Stop the War on Fun
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:34:12 -0800 (PST)

Zip code: 123456

I recently acquired an unlocked iphone 3G. I'm sort of new to cell phones, but i know the plan i want. It is a pay as you o rogers plan. How exactly do i activate my phone with pay as you go.

And this one that I received last night is equally puzzling. How does this spam turn into money? Needless to say, there is no such discount offer and we've never heard of these people, so how does trying to piss off my customers with a lie help them? Why would they send this? There were no links.


From: Mike <infoanswer@eadvertise1.com>
Date: November 30, 2009 12:39:01 AM PST
To: booking@dnalounge.com
Subject: DNA Lounge,
Reply-To: Support@eadvertise1.com

Save 10% on your next visit to DNA Lounge.

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Print this page and bring it with you for a 10% Savings.



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To Opt-out put Unsubscribe on the Subject line and return.

YOU ARE NOT COMPETENT ENOUGH TO BE A SPAMMER!
How does that make you feel?

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8 Responses:

  1. krick says:

    I think they're fishing for warm bodies. If you respond, they sell you as a "verified" email address.

    • lionsphil says:

      Yeah, the "for details"/"to unsubscribe" part look like exactly that, and are wonderously unsubtle. They didn't even give a web address with a unique ID on the end. Amateurs.

  2. hadlock says:

    i get these on occasion, registering on my wordpress site. i think they're trying to grow the email address' "reputation", i.e. have forum registration/form completion confirmation emails (typically only generated for human email accounts) in their inboxes so they're not immediately dismissed as spam accounts. the more human-like activity they appear to generate, the harder it is to outright dismiss it as a botnet account.

  3. dasht says:

    Why would a "competent spammer" necessarily want a direct return on the spam sent? They injured you politically. That's worth something, to someone.

    -t

  4. g051051 says:

    Perhaps it's innocent...the first guy might have types the wrong address in his email, and the second might be a poor attempt ad advertising their business, maybe to send you and example of their services.

    • wisn says:

      I'm curious how somebody can earnestly believe that twenty different prominent politicians with United States and San Francisco-specific email accounts will be able to provide tech support regarding a Canadian cellphone network.

      • g051051 says:

        I just meant that they may have fat fingered something in crafting the email and accidentaly sent it to the wrong list or group.

  5. gryazi says:

    In a numbers station sort of way, it's fun to think it might be this.

    But the 'reputation' idea sounds most plausible - my first thought was 'but who on earth uses PageRank for spam[mer] filtering?' and my second thought was 'Oh, right.'

    Now go build a probabilistic command-and-control system that works through blog comments.