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Is this wrong, or just stupid?

Ovid on 2003-05-22T23:55:14

I received the following in my inbox:

From: FBI <womaqakup@*******.com>
To: Cp <cp@*******.com>
Reply-To: FBI <womaqakup@*******.com>
Sender: FBI <womaqakup@*******.com>
Subject: Cp... You are suspected in several crimes.

I idly wonder if it's illegal to misprepresent an email as being from a law enforcement agency, but aside from that, I can't help but wonder whether or not some poor fool out there was stupid enough to be frightened.

I've gotten this twice

rjray on 2003-05-23T00:23:56

I don't think they actually explicitly claim to be the FBI we all think of. Semantics, of course, but semantics are often the deciding factor.

As to the stupidity part, odds are there are at least a few. I do hope to have the time later tonight to do some screen-scraping of their basic URL with LWP. But I don't want to do it from work, for obvious reasons.

Re:I've gotten this twice

ziggy on 2003-05-23T02:55:20

I don't think they actually explicitly claim to be the FBI we all think of. Semantics, of course, but semantics are often the deciding factor.
Yep. There are parts of the world where "FBI" meant Fairmount Bagel Institute . (RIP)

Got it first today

educated_foo on 2003-05-23T02:13:28

I just got this one for the first time today, and though it was amusing. They must have harvested some Perl page recently. /s

Re:Got it first today

da on 2003-05-23T16:28:31

*sigh* I guess it was clever, I did show it to somebody when it arrived yesterday, and pemungkah wrote a journal about it as well.

I got that too...

jordan on 2003-05-23T02:30:12

I suspected the link was a potentially malicious site, so I brought it up in with lynx being extra paranoid.

The link is funny. It brings up a page that says:


SPAM Violation!
      This site has been banned for SPAM violations. We apologize for the
      idiot webmaster who could not control him/her self.
      If you would like your own 100 MB FREE WEB SITE with a long list of
      features simply sign up at 0catch.com.

It sounds like it's a too elaborate scheme to sell hosting services. It's hard to believe that this kind of thing is profitable.

Re:I got that too...

Matts on 2003-05-23T12:53:45

Stopped a lot of them here...

The alledged "removed" site is actually what's being spamvertised.

i.e. people like you get curious, get a good laugh, think 0catch are good guys, and sign up with them.

0catch are the spammers here (alledgedly).

"Cunning as a fox who's just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University"

Re:I got that too...

jordan on 2003-05-23T14:26:15

I realized that when I said:

It sounds like it's a too elaborate scheme to sell hosting services. It's hard to believe that this kind of thing is profitable.

I meant the whole thing, the Spam, the site message everything is part of this elaborate scheme.