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I've been getting a lot of spam that purports to tell me something alarming about my house -- foreclosure, or tax problems (not convincing as I have no mortgage! and I pay my taxes automagically!), or my job (which I don't have) -- the boss has been fired, or the place has shut down. The address and name in the subject header are only correct a third of the time, and anyway if you get fifteen of these in a day you're bound to be suspicious, right?
I've also started to get spam that comes from "Impeach the President today." Notice "from." Why do spam people think anybody's going to open something that has exhortations in the "from" field? even if we agree with the exhortations? Exhortations belong in the subject header, or better yet, the body of the email.
I use Open Webmail, which gives you a list, containing date, sender, and subject fields. When you mouse over the sender field you get the email address that the piece purports to come from. And since even the most clever spam -- of which there is very little -- tends to use "bizrate@stockwatcher.com" or "agwporncw@opportunityknocks.com" types of email addresses, you almost never have to open anything. When you do open an email, it's open on the webmail server and not your own computer. But still, why would anybody ever open anything that's clearly not authentic?
Lastly, I got something eerie: something in my spam folder from "story:aftermath." I had to do a doubletake, because rejection/acceptance emails often have "story:x" in the subject header. And the novel I keep thinking I'm almost finished with is almost called "aftermath." So sleepyhead here has to mouse over the "from" field to see what email address pops up.
I've also started to get spam that comes from "Impeach the President today." Notice "from." Why do spam people think anybody's going to open something that has exhortations in the "from" field? even if we agree with the exhortations? Exhortations belong in the subject header, or better yet, the body of the email.
I use Open Webmail, which gives you a list, containing date, sender, and subject fields. When you mouse over the sender field you get the email address that the piece purports to come from. And since even the most clever spam -- of which there is very little -- tends to use "bizrate@stockwatcher.com" or "agwporncw@opportunityknocks.com" types of email addresses, you almost never have to open anything. When you do open an email, it's open on the webmail server and not your own computer. But still, why would anybody ever open anything that's clearly not authentic?
Lastly, I got something eerie: something in my spam folder from "story:aftermath." I had to do a doubletake, because rejection/acceptance emails often have "story:x" in the subject header. And the novel I keep thinking I'm almost finished with is almost called "aftermath." So sleepyhead here has to mouse over the "from" field to see what email address pops up.
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