Spam served fresh every day

Forgive me, I have sinned. It has been 2 years since my last spam survey in January 2009. What can I say, time flies when you’re having fun, sanding off the bottom paint and removing the marine sanitation system (ew).

However, my predictions have borne fruit. In the face of a swelling thrust from many new and exciting categories, penis enlargement spam has been holding its own. It’s still at 11% of the total, but that now represents the leading category overall. Dicks are solid!

My other prediction was that the poor economy in the USA would result in a swathe of new, exciting categories. Hard Times when we’re faced with rising bills, bankruptcy, foreclosures, expensive tarts, no skills, and no work. There are now nearly 50 distinct categories up from 15. Crikey!

The fragmentation of the spam target audience, as defined by the subjects targeted is showing some interesting trends. Away from the interests of the young (posh watches, hot deals and handbags) and tending to the concerns of the older netizen (wrinkles, health concerns). Presuming the aged are joining the ‘net in droves. This I hadn’t specifically predicted in ‘09, but now that everyone’s mother and grandmother are on Facebook, this is gonna be the biggie. More of this later.

Big losers? The on-line pharma category has lost most over time, down from 56% to 19% to 2% now. On-line software “deals” that were steals are gone, from about 15%. The fake watches are in decline, down more than 10%. And diets have shrunk to almost invisible proportions. Perhaps no-one feels like dieting when the economy is depressed.

Here are the raw results*, with commentary. Remember the nasty things in your spam filter can be hazardous to your health, wealth and self-esteem. We risk ours so you don’t have to.

• 11% Viagra with discounts of 86%, 85%, 84%, 82%, 78% - all from same address on successive days. Presumably eventually it will either keep declining then drop off or shrink to nothing. Another missive has a mysterious (but true) statement, “They say impotence is a punishment for wrong deeds men do.” Indeed. Drinking, smoking, drug abuse...all help to keep your masculine personhood pointing down for sure.
• 8% Auto insurance...this must be a “Hard Times” category. “The insurance is too high!” Remarkable amount of it though. Man's best friend is his car.
• 7% Fake medical certification (pharmacy assistant, nurses)...obviously you can fake it and ca$h in! You’re a dolt for not doing it sooner, clearly. And look at all the free drugs you can steal!
• 6% Posh watches. Bewilderingly popular. Wear a $25 copy of a $25,000 watch that is not worth, er, $2.50.
• 5% Credit/bankruptcy fixing. I thought we’d have more of these, US economy being as it is. Nevertheless a respectable showing.
• 4% Russian wives. Another economic sign of the times in both USA and Russia. I guess interest in renting cheap tarts for 3 years has been aroused in the former. Probably a cross-promotion for cheap Viagra.
• 4% Laser eye surgery (throw away your glasses). Oh yes, I’m gonna use cheap lasers to fix up my eyesight. Might not need glasses at all after that. And worse things happen.
• 4% Extended car warranty...your most treasured family member might have a serious illness, act now!
• 4% Drug or other damages settlements. So you think you might wanna sue Big Pharma or the asbestos industry? Give us money first.
• 4% Film/photography schools in your area. Coming soon. This seems aimed at the sad geeks in anoraks. Usually a way for men to look closely at lightly clothed women in my experience, what with poking their light-meters in yer erogenous zones.
• 3% Satellite TV. Never pay for HD Sports again. TV is for non-participants in the game of life, apparently.
• 3% Work from home - divorced, broke, single? Sit on the couch crying, and make money fa$t?
• 3% DirectBuy complimentary visitors pass. Must be one of those new private prisons.
• 2% Replacements/”Pieces” - ambiguous replacement pieces for your things, presumably.
• 2% Life insurance. One promises, “No Waiting”. Hmm...so, if I insure with them, I’ll die now? Not a great prospect. I guess it’s all about timing?
• 2% Codeine/Hydrocodone. For heaven’s sake, get help if you’re thinking of buying pain killers on-line. Or perhaps get one of those pharmacy assistant on-line certificates.
• 2% Hybrid cars. Going for the upper-crust gullible yuppie here. C’mon...not gonna happen.
• 2% Gambling - you play, we pay. This has got to be the most unlikely promise. Except for all the other ones..
• 2% On-line Auctions. Send money away to strangers and in return...you’ll be sorry. Guaranteed.
• 2% JC Penney wants me to text him. Probably some weirdo stalker American. Pass.

Now we'.re down to the one-offs.

• 1% Cruise deals. Perhaps this should be in the Golden Age section. What’s 900 feet long and smells of urine? Answer: A line dance on a cruise ship. Stolen joke alert!
• 1% Scrapbooking...probably a false positive, it’s so...wholesome.
• 1% House of White Bitches - CLEARANCE...woo!... oh...on second reading that's Birches. Sadly this is actually about quilting and also probably a false positive. Thought I’d found my place on the intertubularities** for a moment there. I feel malignant now. Good name for a website though. Or a song.
• 1% Social Security Disability - or How to Cheat a Bankrupt Nation of Monopoly money. I’m not in the US so I can say, “Get back to work and pay your taxes, ageing slackers!”
• 1% gapkids deals from 2 for $12. Look, at this price, I’ll order a hundred and send them to the First World. There are people there “trying to have babies”. They might welcome the relief from the pressure, time of the month, temperature testing, shagging to a schedule, lack of restful sleep, crying jags when kids are present etc. They’ll definitely get more sleep now. Promise.
• 1% 2 years of quilting patterns. Gosh darn, that’s seriously too generous to pass up. Gotta be false positive?
• 1% Coupons to chain fast food restaurants. Get your obesity, diabetes, hypertension and heart disease at the lowest price possible!
• 1% Discover your body mass...whoa...I just put my hand “down there” and I discovered it! Yay!
• 1% Sign up for email jokes. No need of that. Almost all of my email consists of jokes, actually. In the 3 days this spam survey covers I got exactly 5 other emails, including one from an 18-year old Ghanaian admirer via Facebook, also spam. So I do not lack for humour in my life. Seriously.
• 1% Free psychic readings. I didn’t see this coming. What a dolt.
• 1% Health test. OK, you tested positive for Magrathea***, which is caused by a fat wallet rubbing against your thighs. Causes incompetence, incontinence and impotence. We can help.
• 1% Country Store. Far too...nice to be evil, surely?
• 1% “Is this still your email?” Yep.
• 1% Bathroom remodelling. Let’s say a few percent of people are doing up their bathroom. Most of the rest are fixing a broken toilet or sitting on it reading “Great Expectations”. Niche market surely.
• 1% “Have a look at this website from my friend Jamie.” Well he might be your friend, but he’s not mine. Last Jamie I heard of was a character on Dr. Who.
• 1% “Focus on what's right.” Is that “right “ as in correct, virtuous, libertarian or conservative? This probably belongs in a category called “to sad, puzzled persons”.
• 1% re: I hope you understand. No, I didn’t send an email hoping you would understand. Understand?
• 1% Abs diet. White meat only presumably. Food nazis, I fear. Or would that be the pecs diet? Er...
• 1% Home security. From break-ins or foreclosures I wonder?
• 1% Gap card. Card with a hole in it? Surely false positive.
• 1% Grocery coupons - could it be genuinely aimed at the kluless koupon klipperz?

Then there’s the stuff I call the Golden Age categories. Now the first boomer is turning 65 I predict a serious future for this group.

(I think I get most of these ‘cos I told facebook I was 90 years old and their security is about as useful as a proverbial silk stocking condom. They’re all about selling their users anyway. On fb I get ads for incontinence products, wrinkle removers and retirement homes. All good reasons not to go there.)

• 3% Erase wrinkles/dark circles. Hack no...I earned those b’tards. I intend to take them with me to my grave. Although in honesty this could be aimed at persons of any age after puberty.
• 2% Power wheechairs(sic) - clearly we’ll need these to whiz around the mall. Unless we have our incontinence pads on.
• 1% In-home care. Well what with the power wheechair stunt accidents I’ll probably need it.
• 1% Walk in tubs - ‘cos we can’t get a legover anymore, not even into the bath.
• 1% Dance schools. Old geezers, wheeing and wheezing along to Beatles and James Last.
• 1% 50 plus singles - that is code for “over 70’s hot to meet babes”. Using protection in these relationships presumably means the aforementioned incontinence products.

Update: In contemplation of all this, and in talking to a few not-so-computer-literate types, I think that it is obvious (as any fule kno****) that there are a lot of spam messages about older folks' concerns 'cos that's where the naive users are now. It's not hard to imagine my 80-year old mother clicking on a bunch of links promising quilting patterns. Well in her case, it is, but you get my drift.

So a lot of the main categories (e.g. ED) are probably mostly aimed at wrinklies.

* In the interests of Science, I should declare my methodology.

1. Open my gmail email spam folder.
2. Read the summaries of the latest 100 declared spam.
3. Count ‘em.

** Stolen joke alert! Pharyngula started it, afaik. After some beastly US legislator said the ‘net was just a bunch of ol’ tubes. Sauce! I spent much of my working life down these particular rabbit holes...

*** Also stolen.

**** Also stolen.

So...this is where those Compuserve and AoL folk have found refuge

The doombrains at BigCompany corp have the habit of sending out Korporate Kommunications from their Kommisars at regular intervals to their hapless "Associates". Always a text email, no illustrations, but a vast number of font, colour and style changes. Not to mention spelling or grammatical errors.

This made me feel almost nostalgic* for the start of the 'net. This one is for the Korporate EAP program (of course run by a different and half-way clued-in company).

*Not really.

Chumby

Chocolate truffle tart for Erin

Credit goes to Lucy Waverman for the idea in a Globe & Mail food column.

I brought this evil dessert along to the rowing club pot-luck supper yesterday. It's the single simplest and most impressive uncooked dessert that I know. The basis is ganoche which is heated cream with chocolate whipped in.

For 7 inch pan:

10 oz dark chocolate
1 cup whipping cream
2 tbsp liqueur (optional)
2 tsp grated zest of orange/lemon (optional)
1 cup cookie crumbs or nuts (e.g. ground almonds)
2 oz - half stick - butter
Decoration.

Prep time: about half hour plus time to set in fridge - 2-4 hours.

Use a 7 inch spring form cake pan to allow the dessert to be removed easily (but you can make this in any container as long as you line the pan with silicone paper or something like that). This dessert is very sticky at room temperature, but handles well once frozen. If you are taking it to a party you can cut it up when frozen and either serve frozen or thawed.

Method:
Make a crust with your favorite cookie crumbs mixed with melted butter (1 cups crumbs to half stick of butter). Or use half ground almonds instead of the cookie crumbs. Mix the crumbs and the melted butter and press into the bottom of the pan.

Heat cream to just about boiling. Remove from heat break the chocolate into pieces and addto the cream to melt. Stir well until smooth. Sir in the zest and liqueur. Pour over the crust. Leave to set in the fridge. Remove from pan and decorate as you like.

Stored well wrapped in a freezer, seems to keep well for 6-10 months. I find that if I make several at one time and keep them for special occasions it saves on mess and work.

Decoration suggestions.
I find taking the cake out of the pan painting it with orange marmalade and then sticking on sliced almonds looks nice. Add a few curls of chocolate or dried apricots or frozen raspberries...
At room temperature you can shape the dessert, so even if you have an accident, drop it off the plate onto the kitchen counter like we did on one memorable occasion, it can be repaired. Orange slices, mandarin segments, whipped cream...

Variations:

• You can build up layers of different flavoured ganoche, once the first has set. Adding a can of sweetened or unsweetened chestnut purée to the ganoche makes a nice contrasting colour. Or use different chocolates; better quality chocolate is expensive but worth it; milk or white chocolate can look stunning as layers.
• If you are covering the cake with nuts then just pour on the different layers and allow to set. Gently swirl them if you are not covering the with nuts so that the swirls show a nice effect.
• Different fruit toppings or swirl in something like gently crushed raspberries from Dentz farm. M-mm!
• Different liqueurs: orange is great. There's a really nice inexpensive orange flavoured drink from the LCBO called Monsard Orange & Brandy. This won't break your budget at $24, and it's nice to drink as well. Forget that over-priced French stuff...although remember "Absinthe makes the tart grow fonder.*"

Depending on the depth of the pan you can make this tart as deep as you like. Hmm...a deep tart...sounds like we could craft some kind of joke around that as well.

* - Stolen joke alert!

Jerk to inflate

Over the years we have acquired several inflatable PFDs all branded as "Sospenders".

The first 2, bought in 1995, included life harnesses and are auto-inflate. They have a water soluble "pill" which will allow a spring loaded pin to pierce the CO2 capsule and inflate the life jacket, hopefully, in the case where one plunges, unconscious, over the side. They are also suitable for non-swimmers because one doesn't have to have ones wits about one for the things to inflate.

The other 2 PFDs we bought in about 2000 are so-called manual inflation models. These are lighter (no built in harness, so no heavy stainless steel rings and clips) and they have to be inflated by pulling a handle. They are nicer to wear just for a quick run in the dinghy or on a calm day.

When we bought the PFDs we bought about 3 sets of spare gas bottles and retention plastic clips to prevent the handles from being pulled accidentally - you have to pull quite hard: the handle at the end of the cord says "JERK TO INFLATE", which for pathetic reasons I find hilarious.

The thing we noticed at the time we bought the second set was that the design of the inflators had changed and the plastic clips we had for the old ones are not the same for the new ones...same idea, but about 3 mm different in size.

So far so good. In 2001 we had one of the automatic PFDs serviced by Sporting Lives Inc. - a friend had tried out the inflation of the device (at my suggestion) and had pulled the cord off when it didn't inflate. Totally my fault - I had unscrewed the gas bottle to prevent accidental inflation, and had forgotten to rearm it properly. Must be the drinking.

So the inflator was broken and the servicing company had replaced it and serviced the jacket for $40 US including shipping, which I consider to be reasonable.

We have used all the PFDs sporadically for the last few years, but have always taken care of them. Check them regularly and inflate & repack them annually.

We then bought a new boat in 2009 - on board was a non-automatic PFD identical to the ones we already had. It had no gas bottle or plastic retaining clip. So we started the search for our spares (somewhere in the basement) unsuccessfully. No worries, we thought...the product says "Sospenders by West Marine" on it. We'll just hie ourselves to the nearest West Marine and get the bits.

Not so fast, boater...West Marine no longer carry the compatible retaining clips for the brand of inflators that is in all these PFDs. The company that built the PFDs (and serviced them) used other suppliers' inflators and is no longer in business, having been bought out by Stearns in 2005.

Hours of fruitless searching for these tiny plastic clips on the web later...f*ck it, I thought, the only purpose of these clips is to add a bit of impedence to the pull cord so that the thing doesn't go off accidentally when one is moving around. I have experimented with a piece of stiff stainless wire formed into a clip and it works very nicely. I think we can save ourselves a lot of fooling around and just use this for the ones that don't have plastic clips, or to re-arm them in future if we use the PFDs in earnest (which destroys the plastic clips).

So, a pair of needle-nosed pliers (Leatherman Wave, always in my pocket) and some stiffish 1mm thick stainless wire. Cut the wire to 2.5 cm, shape a curl in each end and put the ends of the wire in the holes replacing the clip. About 10 mins of experimenting, including trying the destructive test of pulling the handle and voilà! It is, in my eyes, a better design than the plastic clips, can be created by anyone, anywhere and reduces dependence on the manufacturers whims, design changes etc.

Of course the current generation of inflators has a tiny plastic peg in a hole, that will require some thinking to reproduce...if we ever get one of those.

One interesting thing: the professional servicing of these $150-$300 units seems to be non-existent now. I can't find anyone in North America who does this. Dozens of companies do this in the UK and Autralia, for example. Perhaps there is no market for this here. Perhaps in the UK, people are less ready to throw out an expensive item and take safety seriously so they have them serviced. Perhaps it's fear of litigation in NA...plenty of insurance companies will sue anyone they can think of if someone they insure is damaged by a defective PFD.

(We even heard of a Canadian marine surveyor who killed himself to save his family assets because he was being sued by a US insurance company. He had the misfortune to survey a boat that subsequently sank, killing a woman. However, I digress.)

Personally, having knowingly modified a PFD, I am willing to take the risk upon myself. So sue me :-)

Santa's helper - confession time

My conscience is troubling me - I fancy myself a rationalist, but in December I took part in the swindling of a little girl (aged 6). She'll hate me when she grows up I know. What can I do? I was begged by her lovely mother to help out:

Santa Claus
North Pole
H0H 0H0
Canada
24 December 2008

A Special Message from Santa

My Dearest Elizabeth,

I have thought long and deeply about the gift you want so much: a poodle. Not just any poodle, but a black poodle. I know that you have tried your best all this year and that you have been a very, very, good girl. Your mommy and daddy say you are a wonderful daughter!

Elizabeth, I am truly sorry, but Santa cannot give pets to anyone! My job is to give toys to good girls and boys - but a dog is not a toy! A dog it is a living, breathing animal that requires a lot of time, money, hard work and constant care and exercise.

Every Christmas there are dogs and cats given to children by their parents. Sometimes the children cannot care for them and the poor puppies and kittens have to go to the Animal Shelter: homeless! It makes them very, very sad!

If the time comes and your parents think that it is right for you and your family to have a pet, then you can talk to them about it. Until then you must be patient.

If you want to keep Santa's magic, please keep this message a secret from everyone except your mommy and daddy. Let me know what you think about it, you can write to me anytime, not just at Christmas.

I will be sure to bring you a special gift instead!

Give your little brother a hug from me!

With much love,

Santa.

National Do Not Call Disaster

For quite a while this thing has been bubbling under- the fact that the CRTC has sold the National Do Not Call list to a bunch of unscrupulous, possibly criminal elements.

On or around Oct 1, 2008, in my usual got-to-be-first geeky way, I added a couple of cell-phone numbers (Don's and mine) to this list, as soon as it opened for business. The transaction was completely on-line...add number, then another number. I also added another friend's home phone number. The security was so lax I could add any number I wanted. In retrospect I should have added the numbers of the CRTC privacy point person but we can't all be prescient.

Everything was fine for a couple of months. Then this story came from the CBC. People were receiving more calls on their phones than before. The CRTC said that it was "under investigation."

Then in January 2009, this report from Yahoo news Canada - the CRTC basically admitting that they had sold the list, the do-not call list, repeatedly, for $50 to telemarketers. It could then be downloaded.

Now as we all know, telemarketers are honest, decent types, who really don't want to bother you at suppertime.* Clearly they didn't really have a use for this list (of people they shouldn't call, right?) so perhaps through the magic of the internet, the list was, possibly a little bit sort of, passed on and downloaded by a person in the United States. Nothing technically illegal is done.

One doesn't need to be Inspector Maigret to work out what happens next, and what happens next is entirely legal in the strict sense of the word. Don and I started getting automated calls from machines in the United States. Every day. We have never, ever got nuisance calls before. We only use these phone to call one another (very rarely handing out the numbers to anyone). These calls now warned us of dire happenings because our car warranty is running out or some such guff. That this phone spam is automated is even more annoying (as we cannot ask to be taken off the calling list and they cannot pretend to do so).

Some research shows that these calls come from the most shady side of the outbound telemarketing world, probably run by organized crime. So Canadians who previously had anonymous cell-phone numbers are now being targeted by this traffic. Uurgh.

(I suppose it's only fair. For many years, boiler rooms run out of Canada were targeting U.S. citizens for stock purchasing scams. It took a lot of cross-jurisdictional wrangling to get that stopped effectively.)

So I got fed up and wrote to my Member of Parliament:

To Mr Guy Lauzon, House of Commons,

A question of privacy

Dear Mr Lauzon,

Late last year when the National Do No Call List was started, I registered some cell phone numbers, although I had practically never had any unwanted calls on these numbers. Perhaps one in 6 months.

This was clearly a huge mistake! And I am very upset about this.

We have since started receiving daily calls to our cell phones from numbers with area codes in the United States. These are automated calls, mostly from numbers that are reported to be part of some kind of phone scam e.g. involving expired car warranties (949 256 9179).

I feel that the CRTC, the organization that set up this registration scheme, has been dreadfully mismanaged.
Somehow they have allowed my cell-phone numbers to be given to unscrupulous persons (probably organized criminals).

In addition, when I actually put my numbers on the system using a computer, there was no security
- I put several numbers on, and one for a friend. (I think that this mistake has since been remedied,
but it clearly exposes how poor the implementation of this scheme was).

When I answer these calls, I get to pay for the connection. If I don't answer calls, then I may miss
something very important. I feel that my only recourse is to get another cell-phone number for my phone,
which will leave me paying additional costs and be a serious inconvenience.

If this had been a commercial company and not a federal government agency, I would probably try to
get the transfer fee back from them or some compensation, but I probably don't have that option.

I find this very frustrating and a serious betrayal of my privacy to be exposed like this.

What can be done about this?

Sincerely,

Susan Welsh.

cc. vieprivee@req.lnnte-dncl.gc.ca, privacy@req.lnnte-dncl.gc.ca
(email addresses for the CRTC and Do Not Call list privacy staff)
---

Perhaps something will come of this. Perhaps pigs will fly.

* IMO telemarketers are pond-slime, second only to email spammers in their evil ways and deserve to be eliminated (see previous spam-related entries). That's right...I'm a pacifist - but we're only talking about eliminating pond-slime so no harm done.