Ever since I put my email address online I've been suffering escalating loads of spam. (Don't ever place online an address you value, especially on USENET). So one of my daily tasks is deleting loads of rubbish. One email smelled like spam, 'Proposal for Karavshin', but I checked just to be sure. The message went something like this:
It was a pleasure visiting your website Black Coffee. The article posted on
March 25, 2003 "Disheartening News From California" is really sad.
The link "Works of Edward Gorey" is very interesting. The background makes a
good contrast with the site design. I am sure the site will attract lots of
traffic and hence I would like to extend an offer to you.
I work in the marketing department of ADDR.com ( ADDR.com is a
professional web hosting and web design provider currently servicing
over 60,000 customers) and if you would be interested in trying our
services, I can offer you a full year of hosting for your site
(http://karavshin.org) completely free of charge.
Should you decide to cancel at any time, you will of course not be
charged anything. In fact, we will get in touch before the completion
of the trial period to find out how you liked our services and if you
would like to continue with our ADDR.com.
To sign up, simply go to our website (
through the standard ordering form. There is no need to provide a
credit card number, simply select “pay by check” option for now and
mention “1 year free from Richard Williams” in the “How did you hear
about us” field. Also, It would be great if you could send me a quick
email to let me know that you signed-up so that I can ensure you get the
1 year free from our end. Moreover your files and domain name will be
transferred absolutely free of cost.
Please feel free to email me if you have any questions. Also, if you
are interested, I could offer you a great rate for a professional
redesign of your web site.
Thanks!
Best Regards,
Richard Williams
richardw@addr.com
www.addr.com
I read it and thought, "this isn't legit, but it sure sounds close." This robot must look for blogs, maybe even specifically MoveableType blogs?, and find articles and links for which it spots hot words that it can form a message response to. "Disheartening => sad" "Weird => interesting" etc. Ha pretty clever.
It's clear a human didn't really generate this -- the "Disheartening News From California" was me complaining about hippies living in my house and hanging peace signs from the window. Appalling but not tragic.
It will be interesting to see how customized and clever spam can get. I am awfully tired of "Nasty three-hole lesbians filling there[sp] holes" messages -- especially when they never show up.