dougandrews.co.uk

My spam folder had 360 emails in this morning. Instead of going through the lot I decided to try and whittle them down by searching on keywords. These seemed to fall into the following main categories, there is some overlap between them:

Sex:

viagra

satisfy/satisfaction

penis/pen1s

Gambling:

royale

casino

Spoofs:

received

reminder

amazon

skype

verizon

address (my address has changed)

mailbox

Gifts:

wathes (watches!)

watches

warranty

received

real

Medicine:

Codeine

Symbols:

$%!?

Desperate/vunerable:

diploma

degree

Misc:

we

something

Using the above I managed to delete about 300 of my initial 360. There were 21 false positives, mostly message failed or undeliverable notices ro auto-emails that were genuine, and about 40 which didn’t fall into any of the above and were not sufficiently volumous to make it worth trying to search on each one.

When I started I thought it would be easier than trawling through them but there were a lot more variables than I expected. It would probably make sense to do this if you’ve been away for a couple of weeks and come back to 3,000+ spam emails but on a daily basis I think I’ll just reach for the delete button.

I had an interesting email today that caught me eye: despite being addressed directly to me and including pertinent information (i.e. correct geographic location) I am convinced that it is spam – although having looked online to see if anyone else has received anything similar I’ve found nothing. The reason for bothering to post this online is because the personalised nature of it made it stand out as an advance in their techniques.

I’m including a copy of the email below, but the reasons for thinking it is Spam are:

- a hotmail sender address! (debbish6els@hotmail.com)

- The ‘Castellum Group’ is spelt Castellum and Castelum and put in inverted commas in an effort (I guess) of making it seem more important

- spelling mistakes (word wide web)

- grammar (we are looking for the new, talented, and responsible staff)

- classic Spam territory: financial transfers

- dubious promises (You will not have to pay the any tax)

- a different reply-to address than the sender address

- a search for the Castellum Group brings up a real estate company, not a financial services company

Here’s the email:

Dear Doug Andrews,
“The Castellum Group” is glad to announce an opening for the position of a customer relations manager in Market harborough.
Our company specializes in providing all types of protection for the business and transactions done through the word wide web. “The Castelum Group” is continuously growing and improving its globally offered services, and we are looking for the new, talented, and responsible staff. This is your chance to join a huge team of specialists and to get an interesting and rewarding job.
Our research department has considered all available methods of the financial assets transfer from our clients to us, as well as the need for the direct interaction with the clients, and concluded that the most effective approach would be finding a representative in each particular country. This would allow us to considerably reduce the cost and significantly increase the convenience of the services provided to our customers.
You will not have to pay the any tax or postal expenses. All these costs will be covered by “The Castellum Group”.
There are several suggestions and requirements for a successful candidate. The main one is the responsibility and reliability of such individual. We also welcome great people skills, and the ability to foster relationships with the clients – a charismatic person will have an advantage in the interview process. An ability to troubleshoot and resolve issues on the spot would be very useful.
An absolute must is having at least a twice a day access to the internet for communication with our managers and the use of the online office.

If you are interested in this job opening, please send your resume in the DOC or rich text format to our email castellumgr@gmail.com .

In the last week I’ve started to get a number of emails from Google Adwords asking me to reactivate my account or variations on a theme. They’re phishing emails but very well done, it took a bit of investigation. Here’s the last one I got:

This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does,
not accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message.

———————————————————————————-

Dear Google AdWords Customer,

Your ads have stopped running because we were unable to process your billing information.

We will reactivate you account after you update your billing information.

In order to reactivate your account, please sign it to your account at
http://adwords.google.com/select/login, and update your billing information.
Once your account is reactivated and your billing information has been processed,
any your ads and campaigns can begin running immediately on Google.

Advertise your business on Google
No matter what your budget, you can display your ads on Google and our advertising network. Pay only if people click your ads.

———————————————————————————-
The Google AdWords Team

I did notify Google and got an auto-generated email saying that they weren’t responsible (true enough) and never to click on a link in an email but go directly to the site if in doubt.

Things to look for:

- they’re being sent to any number of domain registered email addresses i.e. email@selfcateringhols.com, email123@selfcateringhols.com etc, so check if the recipient is the email address to which the account is registered.

- if you open the email, go to file > properties and then click on the details tab you’ll see the email source code, check out the return path:

Return-Path: <floridaregionflag@yahoo.com>

Inbox: 594 new messages, of which 498 were Spam

Spam folder: first thing it was at 2579; by the time I worked through my Inbox it was at 2654; by the time I’d got to the bottom of the list it was at 2667. There were 2 false positives, about average.

It used to send my eyes funny scrolling through the Spam folder so have a technique I use now which makes it less onerous:

- start at the top of the list (if ordered so that most recent messages come in at the bottom)

- have the ‘preview’ option turned off, so you just see the titles

- use the arrow keys to work down the first page; when at the bottom, press ‘page down’ and then ‘page up’.

- repeat the process till you get to the bottom of the list

- empty the Spam folder

In this way your eyes do not have to cope with scrolling, you can take your time as any new messages come in a the bottom so they will be checked last anyway.

2620 emails to download.

2214 in my Spam folder

406 in my Inbox

After going through my Inbox, of the 406 new emails, 78 remained, so 328 Spam emails got through my filter.

Within the Spam folder there were 2 false positives, right at the end of the list. I thought for a minute it would be 100% Spam but no such luck, looks like going through my Spam list is something I’m going to have to continue.

For the record, I use Norton 360.

It’s that time again, Monday morning, when I have to wade my way through the weekend’s Spam. Pretty bad this week, with 3,000+ emails in my Spam box and a further 1,500 in my inbox (my Spam filter apparently decided enough was enough and took a break).

There were 4 false positives in my Spam box, so the filter identified 0.13% as Spam which it shouldn’t have.

I had an email from WAYNE (where are you now?) which I registered with when it first came out a while back to see what it was like. The email said I had a message from ‘Anna’. I checked out the URL to make sure it wasn’t a spoof and then tried it out. Apparently the link was no longer valid, but it did go to www.wayne.com. Are they sending out bogus ‘you’ve got a message’ emails to generate more visitors???

Here is the email: