My thoughts…on stuff

Spam, the bane of all inboxes. It has plagued mankind for as long as email has been around. Since I’m experiencing a bit of blogger’s block today, I’ll share with you one of my recent experiences with spam. Yesterday, I checked my blog’s Gmail account. The last time I did so was 2-3 weeks ago. I had a few messages, most of them blog-related. 2 spam messages got through Gmail’s Spam Filter. When I checked my Junk Mail, I was surprised to see that it had 94 spam messages in it! Unlike most people, I actually read spam, just to see what kind of half-baked schemes spammers are using nowadays to trick the weak-minded and gullible. I found the usual. Re-finance your mortgage, enlarge your organ, get cheap software, etc.

I expected the usual Nigerian scam, but it wasn’t there. Instead I found a variation to it, one in which the reader supposedly wins millions of dollars in some European lottery. How lucky. I also encountered a new one, in which a fictitious company wants you to invest with them, and they try to make themselves look like the most bullish stock since Google. Yes, I pay attention to the stock market, though I can barely pay my tuition fees. I also encountered some Chinese (or Japanese) spam. I was insulted. If you’re gonna try to rip me off, at least make the effort to put it in a language I can understand! Apparently spammers have a new trick nowadays. Since spam filters detect advert keywords in text, they are now inserting graphics with text into their messages. I smile when I see these messages, and wonder just how stupid you have to be to fall for one of those. Remember people, if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.