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February 18, 2013

I have stated in several previous posts (and, of course, in the book) that the more a spammer professes that the unsolicited message you just received is not spam, the more likely it really is spam.

The tactic continues in the modern day, as demonstrated in a spam message selling bulk SMS messages for delivery to African countries. Check out this disclaimer at the bottom of the message:

P.S. This is an advertisement and a promotional mail strictly on the guidelines of CAN-SPAM act of 2003. We have clearly mentioned the source mail-id of this mail, also clearly mentioned the subject lines and they are in no way misleading in any form. We have found your mail address through our own efforts on the web search and not through any illegal way. If you find this mail unsolicited, please click on Unsubscribe link Below if you want to Opt-Out from Our Mailing List and we will take care that you do not receive any further promotional mail

Unsubscribe

Not only were some requirements missing from the message (conveniently absent from the itemized compliance list), but the "Unsubscribe" text is not a link. I don't mean a broken piece of HTML, but complete non-link markup for the word.

February 03, 2013

Thanks (not!) to having to reconstruct my custom spam filtering from scratch (due to a server move), I'm temporarily viewing a lot of spam that used to be blasted away before ever seeing the surface of a disk. This has allowed(?) me to see some oldies but goodies that I had only read about. Like this one:

From: Don Vanuchi The Killer
Subject: YOUR LIFE IN DANGER..REPLY NOW. I AM HIRED TO SHOOT YOU.

Am very sorry for you my friend, is a pity that this is how your life is going to end as soon as you don't comply. As you can see there is no need of introducing myself to you because I don't have any business with you, my duty as I am mailing you now is just to KILL/ASSASINATE you and I have to do it as I have already been paid for that.

Someone you call a friend wants you Dead by all means, and the person have spent a lot of money on this, the person also came to us and told me that he want you dead and he provided us with your name, picture and other necessary information's we needed about you. So I sent my boys to track you down and they have carried out the necessary investigation needed for the operation on you, and they have done that but I told them not to kill you that I will like to contact you and see if your life is Important to you or not since their findings shows that you are innocent.

I called my client back and ask him of you email address which I didn't tell him what I wanted to do with it and he gave it to me and I am using it to contact you now. As I am writing to you now my men are monitoring you and they are telling me everything about you.

Now do you want to LIVE OR DIE? As someone has paid us to kill you. Get back to me now if you are ready to pay some fees to spare your life, If you are not ready for my help, then I will carry on with my job straight-up.

WARNING: DO NOT THINK OF CONTACTING THE POLICE OR EVEN TELL ANYONE BECAUSE I WILL KNOW. REMEMBER, SOMEONE WHO KNOWS YOU VERY WELL WANT YOU DEAD! I WILL EXTEND IT TO YOUR FAMILY, INCASE I NOTICE SOMETHING FUNNY.

DO NOT COME OUT ONCE IT IS 7:30PM UNTIL I MAKE OUT TIME TO SEE YOU AND GIVE YOU THE TAPE OF MY DISCUSSION WITH THE PERSON WHO WANT YOU DEAD AFTER YOU HAVE COMPLIED WITH MY DEMANDS, THEN YOU CAN USE IT TO TAKE ANY LEGAL ACTION. GOOD LUCK AS I AWAIT YOUR REPLY

Don Vanuchi
Reply in all this emails below...
[removed]@zoho.com
[removed]@bk.ru
killer_agents[removed]@rocketmail.com

This extortion scam has been around for many years. The message body is an attached base64 encoded .txt file.

I feel confident that I'll be able to take out the trash after 7:30pm tonight without risk. Besides, here in California, the Super Bowl will already be over by then. Depending on the outcome, I'll either have lived a full life, or won't have anything left to live for. Seems like a waste of money and bullets to me.