Spam

The word “splog” is starting to crop up a lot. What are splogs? Splog is short for “spam blog”, and is used to describe what is essentially a garbage website, put up for the sole purpose of either displaying ads such as Google’s Adsense ads, or for the purpose of creating search engine […]

Internet marketing may have a chance to untarnish its reputation. First King of Spam Scott Richter stepped down from his throne, and now Queen of Spam Laura Betterly has turned in her tiara.
Or so she says.

Aunty Spam is very pleased to announce her newest ebook, “How to Stop Spam, for Windows Users”.
Are you overwhelmed by the onslaught of garbage which is clogging your inbox?
Embarrassed by the smut and insulted by the scams?

Call it what you like, the act of transmitting a message, image, sound, or any other data, to someone’s Bluetooth device via that Bluetooth, without their permission, is spamming - Bluespamming to be precise - pure and simple. (It’s also Bluejacking.)

f you go to a movie in New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles, that vibration you feel in your pocket may not be someone trying to pick your pocket (or, hey, something else) but may be a bluetooth promotional kiosk in the movie lobby sending something to your cell phone via bluetooth.

Like the Christopher Pierson, the Tsunami Spammer before him, some sicko has decided to take advantage of the recent bombing in London, and to use them as a hook for his (or her) spam, which carries a Trojan horse to the victim’s computer.

Oh, the sweet recursiveness of it all. A petition to “Save NPR and PBS” is making the rounds by email. And like the Craig Shergold’s Postcards and Mrs. Field’s Cookie Recipe emails, “Save NPR and PBS” emails have been around a long time. The first recorded sighting for the Save NPR […]

Now here is a real irony: as Aunty reported here previously, Spam King Scott Richter has filed for bankruptcy.
Now his company, OptInRealBig.com must notify all potential creditors (that’s people to whom he owes money or whom believe that he owes them money) about the bankruptcy.

I am constantly amazed at how callous the purveyors of 419 can be. They use the dead, the dying, and/or fugitives in order to make a quick buck for themselves. Since I know this, then I know I shouldn’t be surprised, but today I got just such an email claiming to be from someone […]

Tens of thousands of users woke up today to find German hate propoganda spam in their inbox. Piggybacking on the recent increase in activity of the Sober worm, the German hate spam is thought to take advantage of the trail left by the Sober worm, but is not a worm itself. Instead it […]

If you have a blog, read a blog, or heck, have even heard of a blog, then you are probably familiar with blog spam. Blog spam is where the spammer posts spam, usually containing links to their websites, to someone’s blog using either the comment feature or the trackback feature.

Gevalia Coffee has been known for years in the anti-spam community as the poster child for bad spamming practices. Gevalia’s efforts to deflect spam accusations to their affiliates and hired spam guns have made far more of a name for Gevalia among anti-spammers than their coffee could ever hope to.

Whether it’s the world’s largest auction house, Paypal, or the world’s most believed and mourned pontiff, Pope John Paul II, spammers and scammers are not above invoking their name in an effort to relieve you of your money.
Even before Pope John Paul II’s body was laid to its final rest, spammers spamming online scams were […]

As Aunty wrote recently, top spammer Jeremy Jaynes was sentenced to 9 years in prison last week. The sentence which Jeremy Jaynes received, under Virginia law, is thought to be the toughest sentence yet handed down to a spammer (those must have been some ticked off jurors). Jaynes is free on bail, […]

Some of you may recall the trial of notorious spammer Jeremy Jaynes in Novemver of last year. Jeremy Jaynes was considered to be one of the most prolific spammers around, pumping out an incredible 10million pieces of spam a day from his suburban Raleigh, North Carolina home.

The state of Florida, through Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist, and with Microsoft’s assistance, has sued two prolific spammers, Scott Filary and Donald Townsend, whom are accused of sending at least 65,000 pieces of spam, some 48,000 of which were sent after the passage of Florida’s new anti-spam law last year.

Many of Aunty’s readers will remember that last year Aunty featured an exclusive interview with Spam King Scott Richter, during which he stated that “I actually do not do what I do for the need of money,” and also that he was sued for spamming by both Microsoft and New York State Attorney General Eliot […]

According to an analyst at Radicati, and related reports by InformationWeek and the BBC, “user ignorance” and “bad behaviour” is the leading cause of spam. According to Marcel Nienhuis, an analyst with Radicati, “Major advancements in technology approaches that routinely achieve 90%-plus catch-rates are becoming widely available, yet no technology in the world […]

It’s finally happened. Send-Safe, the choice of spammers the world ’round, has finally been kicked off the MCI network. Of course Send-Safe had a safe harbour in MCI for way too long - Send-Safe was able to to provide safe sending services to spammers through the MCI network despite months of pressure from […]

The FBI is warning the public about malicious e-mails designed to appear as if they were generated by the law enforcement agency, CNET News.com reports. Here is the actual warning from the FBI’s Web site:
Washington, D.C. - The FBI today warned the public to avoid falling victim to an on-going mass e-mail scheme wherein computer […]