3D Printing

A warning from xkcd

Aardvarks Top Zebras in Spam Stakes

A British researcher has found that email addresses that start with ‘a’ get the highest proportion of spam.

Richard Clayton from the University of Cambridge collected data from eight weeks worth of email traffic from a UK internet service provider – over half a billion messages – earlier this year.

He found that email addresses starting with ‘a’ received more than 30 per cent spam, while those starting with ‘z’ received less than 20 per cent spam.

The best way to avoid spam, the study found, was to have a number as the first character of your email address.

Of the 550,596,270 emails assessed during the study, 56 per cent were deemed to be spam.

(abc online)

Looks like I will have to change this blog to “Zarchie’s Zarchive” – – –

Then I read the figures again and wonder at “a”s receiving “More than 30% spam”. How can the total be 56% spam if letters below a got less than 30%.

Hmmm, maybe 56% should read around 25% or less.

Or have I been out of class too long?

It Couldn’t Possibly Be Spam

My reputation for probity and reticence is preceding me.
I have been contacted in an extremely confidential manner to assist someone in the handling of a $17.5 million account in Iraq which has been sitting there since before 2003.

The letter ends

“I cannot directly transfer out this money without the help of a foreigner and that is why I am contacting you for an assistance. As the Account Officer to late Walter Eric Hammond, coupled with my present position and status in the bank as Head of Retail Banking Group , I have the power to influence the release of the funds to any foreigner that comes up as the next of kin to the account, with the correct information concerning the account, which I shall give you.

All documents to enable you claim this fund
will be carefully worked out and there is
practically no risk involved, the transaction
will be executed under a legitimate arrangement
that will protect you from any breach of law ,
If you accept to work with me, I want you to state
how you wish us to share the funds in percentage,
so that both parties will be satisfied.
If you are interested, contact me as soon as you
receive this message so we can go over the details.
reply to :al_saadiarm@yahoo.co.in

Regards,
Mr.Alsaadi Armin.”

I am especially impressed with the fact
that there is “Practically no risk”.

Whoo Hooo – Millionaire Row, here I come – – –

Happy Birthday, Spam – now FOAD!

Spam – the scourge of every e-mail inbox – celebrates its 30th anniversary this weekend.

The first recognisable e-mail marketing message was sent on 3 May, 1978 to 400 people on behalf of DEC – a now-defunct computer-maker. The message was sent via Arpanet – the internet’s forerunner – and won its sender much criticism from recipients.

Gary Thuerk sent the first junk email and it was to publicise new additions to DEC’s System-20 minicomputers. It invited the recipients, all of whom were on Arpanet and lived on the west coast of the US, to go to one of two presentations showing off the capabilities of the System-20. Reaction to the message was swift, with complaints reportedly coming from the US Defense Communications Agency, which oversaw Arpanet, and took Mr Thuerk’s boss to task about it.

Despite Mr Thuerk’s pioneering spam it took many years for unsolicited commercial e-mail to become a nuisance.

In 1993 it was named Spam by Joel Furr – an administrator on the Usenet chat system. Mr Furr reputedly got his inspiration for the name from a Monty Python sketch set in a restaurant whose menu heavily featured the processed meat.

Thirty years on, spam has grown into an underground industry that sends out billions of messages every day. Statistics gathered by the FBI suggest that 75% of net scams snare people through junk e-mail. In 2007 these cons netted criminals more than $239m (£121m). More than 80%-85% of all e-mail is spam or junk and more than 100 billion spam messages are sent every day.

April 1994 saw another pioneering moment in the history of spam when immigration lawyers Canter and Siegel sent a commercial spam message to more than 6,000 Usenet discussion groups. The Canter and Siegel e-mail is widely seen as the moment when the commercialisation of the net began and opened the floodgates that led to the deluge of spam seen today.

The majority of these messages are being sent via hijacked home computers that have been compromised by a computer virus. A lot of modern spam is deliberately malicious, aiming to steal your bank account information or install malware.”

I Am The Spammer From Hell

I apologise to some of the people who reasonably expect me to comment on their posts.

It seems the WordPress’  anti-spam program “Akismet” has decided I am the Spammer from Hell – or from Nigeria or from the worlds largest pharmaceutical  manufacturers with a viagra sales agenda or from the all the big porn sites at once.

My comments are not even going to “moderation”. They are being dumped straight into the “Spam” basket!

I have no idea how long this problem will last and so I have to hope that some of you will take the time to check your spam list. I, or other WordPress commentators, may be trapped in there.

He Sees Sea Spam on the Sea Shore