This reminded me of a story that was on Digg yesterday about how 58% of Americans have been tricked by spam. My first thought was "What? Those people are idjits." Unfortunately, I then remembered that about 2 weeks ago I was tricked for the first time.
On an infinitely lower level than hitman spam, someone recently tricked me into clicking on their spam link via a MySpace message. The message subject simply read "hey." I didn't think much of that. I get a lot of messages like that on MySpace and Facebook by people who either 1.) want to know when LucasArts is going to do Republic Commando 2 or, 2.) want me to check out their demos. So, whatever, I opened it like usual.
However, the message text then read "Hey, did you know that someone made a video about you?" This was a bit of a surprise. But, again, not completely unheard of. In the past, I've been sent links to videos that people have put up on YouTube with my music edited into new footage of things.
But, here was the kicker, the thing that actually tricked me into clicking through the link and falling for their crap. They had including a screen shot with the message and it looked exactly like this:
Right there above my head were the words "A Tribute to Idiots." Suddenly I had two thoughts. First, I was furious that someone would take my headshot picture and put it into a montage of "idiots." I couldn't think of anything I'd done to warrant that. Then, almost instantly after that, I thought "Thank God someone saw this and thought to let me know!"
So I clicked it. And it took me to a spam site.
What amazes me about the entire thing, however, is the inherent Photoshop skill that this spammer had bust out just to try and get me to price some "\/14grA!!!!1!!!1!". Ridiculous, and again, just simply infuriating. More than anything, I hate that my own stupid sense of pride made me fall for it. Who knows what kind of a-holeware I now have on my machine because of it.
Anyway, consider this a warning if you see a similar email. Chances are, your idiocy isn't actually being honored.
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3 comments:
Interesting.... so they write a CGI script or some such server code that goes to the myspace database, takes the full-size version of their profile picture, and puts it onto a youtube screenshot.
It's probably all automated.
You probably don't have to worry about spyware and stuff. I've long been a believer that the biggest delivery vehicle for spyware is spyware. Don't use internet explorer and you're fine... ish.
Um.
I use internet explorer.
oh...
call IT and tell them to get you into firefox... and maybe don't do any online banking on that computer.
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