(no subject)

[vyvyanx]

Over the last week or so, I've been receiving increasing quantities of a very particular type of spam to my cus account. It is apparently addressed to a single other person with a cus account, has a typical short spam title (eg. Stop that hair loss now! or Lose weight fast... or Add 4 to 5 extra inches!!!) followed at the end of the subject line by a short string of jumbled lowercase letters. The body of the message is unviewable in Pine, being apparently in HTML, and always has a length somewhere between 140 and 170 lines. I'm curious as to whether it's actually some kind of virus rather than spam, given the very specific format of it. Anyone here have any ideas? (It's now making up about 95% of my incoming mail.)

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Ye gods, really?
The lines of HTML will be the formatting for some ridiculous flashing banner setup designed to convince you by flickering in an irritating way every 0.26 seconds until you click on it that CrashDiet (TM) really is the answer to the worlds's problems. I've had one or two of those, but 95%? cus accounts aren't meant to get that much spam!

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

it could be either. If it's on your CUS account, report it to the Computing Service. That sort of spam doesn't usually end up on Uni email accounts, and shouldn't, if they're competent.

[lnr]

Have you *seen* how much spam there is these days? Every day I'm blocking 20-50 new open proxies, and at least as many addresses seen on actual spams, and they're still finding new ones and changing addresses quicker than anyone can hope to keep up. Some days over half the mail that arrives at the engineering department is rejected as spam, but there's still some getting through. We're fighting to stand still at the moment.

It would be ncie if we could blanket block everything from korea and china and yahoo, but that would definitely have false positives and in an academic context it's *far* more important not to block any real mail than it is to get every last bit of spam.

Sorry

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

Er, I wasn't saying it was the CS's fault. I've been getting spam for years, in gradually increasing amounts, in my cus account, and I'm sure there is indeed just an ever-increasing amount of it in circulation generally. I was just bemused by this particular very specific type of spam format, and the fact there's suddenly vast quantities of it. (I'm still getting "normal" types of spam as well, in more normal quantities.)

[lnr]

No, sorry, but it sounded a bit like Karen was... Never mind...

It was just a little rant, but I forgot the </rant> tag would get eaten in the HTML

[dryad-wombat.livejournal.com]

Indeed, spam seems to have increased out of nowhere! My Cornell account is absolutely deluged with it now too, and it was never this bad before. I can't work out what is going on at all. And they all seem to be offering the same implausible things.

Marisa dear, Richard and I are back from Wales now. Shall we Converge for a Coffee Experience? :) I think this weekend you have a wedding to attend, am I recalling right? I fso, perhaps next Tuesday be a good day?

XX

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

That sounds great. 2pm be okay for you? Where would you like to meet?

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Forward me a copy with all the headers and I'll take a look, if you like.

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

OK, I've sent you one now.

mwah

[hallucinagene.livejournal.com]

i got a piece of pron spam from 'neglectedpenis' the other day.

It ruled.