April 26, 2003 at 3:58 pm · Filed under Spam, Leonard Richardson

Weird, Weird Spam Alert:

eBay Auction Education --  elaeocarpus family

It does appear to be marketing for some kind of “auction training course” for “creating multiple sources of income,” but why tack Australian flowering trees on the end? To fool spam filters that are just going to block it when they see “eBay auction” in the subject line anyway? Also, there are (as always) a bunch of random strings after the link in the email itself–like “p r dq dhcyjgpmc rthhqbmaknycekzehm,” which I also assume is supposed to fool filters. But are there really email protection systems that look for random garbage as proof that it’s not spam?

The mentality behind email marketing is so weird and convoluted now. I think spam is the new Dada.

Up until now, I’ve always used screen caps of the subject line when talking about spam, but I’ve switched to Crummy-style pre tags instead. The idea behind it originally was that a screen cap would lend credence and establish that I wasn’t making it up, but really, it’d be just as easy to fake it in PSP as it is in Notepad. Also I was kind of tired.

Speaking of tired, I realized the other day that I now prefer raisins in my cereal to marshmallows. What the hell am I supposed to do now? Retire?

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