Dictionary attacks - an afterthoughtWell, I said that "we added all of these harvested addresses as aliases to our spamtraps but actually they very rarely get hit", and guess what? One (of perhaps 20 or so such addresses) got hit yesterday. Never seen that particular address hit by spam before and I know it was gathered during a specific dictionary attack here in March...
Here's the thing that concerns me. The spam was not herbal viagra, penis enlargement, HGH, RX meds or anything like that. It did not come through a raped proxy or with forced relay via SMTP AUTH (will write again on that subject later). In fact there was no third party abuse at all. It came from a spammer for hire, advertising the wares of a popular, global manufacturer of automobiles, with the evident sanction of said manufacturer of automobiles, and entirely in Dutch!
The address is not one that could have been typed by fat fingers and the user name part is not a popular one in the low countries anyway (not publishing any of my spamtrap aliases here, so don't ask). I am simply dumbfounded. How can it be that a respectable manufacturer of automobiles deems it reasonable to hire one of those confirmeddoubleoptin4u.biz spammers and have them use a seriously questionable address list for direct marketing?
Hyperventilating. Need lie down. And aspirin...
Category: Spam characteristics
Technorati: Spam characteristics
1. Stewart Yaxley (stoomaroo)15/10/2003 15:35:29
What is that quote again?
"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity."
Just because you have an MBA from Havard (or Oxford in your case?) doesn't mean you're any smarter than the spammer down the street. With the explosive (and exponential perhaps?) growth of SPAM -- is it not worrying that the thought may also cross other CEO's heads? Why not mass-advertise? Admitedly, there is the issue of being "a good corporate citizen" -- however, exploiting children in Indonesia to build your SUVs, versus mass spam advertising...which would the general public care about more?
If I was a corporate CEO of the big-three auto makers -- and I knew what you knew in terms of anti-spam; right or wrong -- it is marketing for the masses. If my Spam helps me sell 1% more cars than "Joe Motors" -- hmmm...tell the average shareholder.
Of course -- the "MBA" would probably coat it with sugar better than I.
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