Digital Cowboy

Digital Cowboy
Poker is life. Life is poker.

Spammers never cease to amuse me

July 23rd, 2005

I just got a spam email. Actually, I get a few dozen a day but I don’t see very many unless I choose to. Sometimes I read them just for fun.

(Though I have five active email accounts and sometimes get upwards of 100 emails a day, I don’t see very many spam emails because:
A) three of my active accounts are coming from a mail server that I run. (I highly recommend Spam Assassin. It catches almost everything and I’ve never had it give me a false positive for spam.)
B) my mail client also has very good spam filtering that is “trainable” and I have it well trained.)

Anyway, I just read one that I found fascinating. Here is the body of the message:

Hello my hope!
I am not sure you get this message but if you got I want you to know that I want to travel to your country to work in two weeks and I just want to meet right man.I live in Russia and my goal is to leave this country because it is impossible to live here for young pretty woman. if you have not wife or girlfriend ,maybe we could try to meet? I am Tayana ,I am 25 years old ,please write to me directly to my mail – lapa201@pochta.ru See you soon!!!!

That’s preposterous on its face but that’s not the really fun part. The email headers (even the part that wasn’t spoofed) shows the email as being from “Vera Goodson” who presumably sent the email from “YNUBEZUL@oorong.co.jp.”

Now, then. I’m a lonely, desperate guy. Should I just hit reply and send an email to Japan telling Vera Goodson that I would love to meet “young pretty woman” who’s also desperate to escape tyranny. Should I “write [her] directly to [her] mail” which is in Russia? Should I ask her why she says she is Tayana from Russia but is sending email from Vera Goodson’s Japanese email account?

It’s all so perplexing. In addition, she said right in the first sentence that she just wants to meet “right man.” I could be “right man.” But how would I know? Is she talking about right for her? Right on the political spectrum? (That opens a new can of worms – the American political spectrum or someone else’s?) Am I a man that’s just plain right? I “have not wife or girlfriend.” Does that make me right? (In 21st century America, it makes me smart, but I’m trying to figure out what she’s getting at.)

At the end she says, “See you soon!!!!”

She seems confident, this Vera/Tayana person.

I’m pretty sure if she sees me soon, she’ll be looking down the barrel of a gun.

Posted in Blog & Geek junk at 4:02 PM • 6 Comments »

6 Responses to “Spammers never cease to amuse me”

  1. Thus saith Difster on July 23rd, 2005 at about 7:33 pm:

    Don’t do it! What would Pink Kitty and Elana think?

  2. Thus saith digitalcowboy on July 23rd, 2005 at about 9:23 pm:

    But, what if I am “right man?”

  3. Thus saith heidi on July 24th, 2005 at about 5:05 pm:

    You are only “right man” if you geeve access to credit card and account information. Then you be very happy for short time. Then you be broke for long time. :)

  4. Thus saith digitalcowboy on July 24th, 2005 at about 11:57 pm:

    Heidi, you just described my marriage.

  5. Thus saith Elena on July 25th, 2005 at about 2:59 pm:

    *cracking up* Y’all make me guffaw… :o]

  6. Thus saith Matildah on July 25th, 2005 at about 3:29 pm:

    *gasp*
    And to think I was THIS close to getting my bus ticket!