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October 14, 2006

West African (and elsewhere) scam artists try to make their messages sound like personal appeals to the addressee. They want the addressee to believe that he or she has been luckily singled out from all people in the world (with email addresses, anyway) as the one to benefit from a fortune hidden away in a secret account blah, blah, blah.

Such is the tone of one I received today, which reads...

Dear Good Friend,

Compliments of the day and God's blessings .

I am glad to inform you that I have successfully concluded the transaction, the money has been transferred to Swizerland.It is done through the assistant of MR.JAMES who is a Swizerland base business .Currently I am in Swizerland with him and children.

However, I did not forget you because you are the source of my success,you made me what I am now though you are not there to complete this project with me but I gave all the credit and thanks to you. I know it is not your fault or rather your wish to back up on me and the transaction.

In appreciate of your assistance I have mapped out as a compensation and wrote on your favour a certified bank draft worth of $2,500,000.00 Million United States Dollar Only I left the draft with my Secretary MR.CHRISTIAN on my departure to Swizerland. I would like you therefore, to contact him on the below info so that he can mail it to you.

ATTN: MR.CHRISTIAN

Email: <removed_for_your_safety>@yahoo.fr

I would have love to call you from Swizerland where I currently reside but due to the recent terrorist attack Mr.Ferraro advice me not to call because all internatonal calls are been monitored by the Swizerland authority.

Contact my secretary in Republic of Benin so that he can release your bank draft to you. I will stop here. Once again, thank you very much and remain blessed with your family.

Regards,

MR.JAMES

Boy, I could use a break like that. Someone finally recognized me for my contribution to his success. Woohoo!

Except...

...this idiot included all 80 email addresses in this particular burst in plain view in the To: field of the message. Not BCC (where there may have been more, but you can't tell from the header). My address is in a block of "d" user names (a bunch of Dans and Dave/Davids).

So much for feeling special. No, Mr. James, you don't really care about me. You make me feel so insignificant. Boo hoo.

Plus, you really piss me off because if any of my 79 blockmates receive this message, and if their machines are infected with any one of thousands of pieces of malware (a 35% chance by some estimates), my email address will be harvested from their computers and added to yet more porn/medz/phishing/419/etc. spam lists. It's the Circle of Strife.