What is the sound of one spam clapping?

I came in this morning after a decent 3-day holiday weekend (only decent because my Heather had to work last night and wasn't able to join us for fireworks watching), checked my mail and then proceeded to sort out the spam. As I was tossing out the duplicate offers for drugs, rolexes and discount software I was lamenting the good, old fashioned, stupid spam that was fun to tear apart. It's been quite some time since I've seen any. There was something I tried to send from my home account to my work account but it never showed up for some reason.

Then, like a downed cesna beacon in a sea of average spam there was this: "Does your default home page keep changing mysteriously?"

I thought to myself, "No. No it doesn't. But I wonder what you are trying to sell me." and then I clicked on it. I was surprised to actually see a spam that I hadn't seen 50+ times before! I smiled while reading through it. This is one of those spams that tries so hard to not be spam but just can't shake its spammy roots. Here's a screenshot of it so you'll know what it looks like:



And now I shall break it down (gimme a beat!):

WARNING! (AAAAAHHHH!!! WHAT?!)
YOU'RE IN DANGER! (Omigod! NOOOOOOOoooooooOOoooo! ooo. o. What?)

ALL YOU DO WITH COMPUTER IS STORED FOREVER IN YOUR HARD DISK. (That's a mighty long time. But I'm here to tell you...) WHEN YOU VISIT SITES, SEND EMAILS... (Touch yourself on your "naughty spots" in front of your monitor.) ALL YOUR ACTIONS ARE LOGGED. (And utterly disgusting. Seriously. Stop it.) AND IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO REMOVE THEM WITH STANDARD TOOLS. (Like a hammer, screwdriver, auger, flamethrower, moose... you get the idea) YOUR DATA IS STILL AVAILABLE FOR FORENSICS. (Those guys that start looking through your computer after you are arrested for chatting with "BabyBettyBootie" in the "Not-at-all Legal" chat room.) AND IN SOME CASES FOR YOUR BOSS, YOUR FRIENDS, YOUR WIFE, YOUR CHILDREN. (Your friend's boss' wife's child's trained helper monkey. It's a crime against God to show a helper monkey just what you've been up to. You don't want to piss off God more than you already are, do you?)

Every site you or somebody or even something, like spyware (or killer robots from Mars), opened in your browser, with all images, and all downloaded and maybe later removed (– we're giving you the benefit of the doubt here –) movies or mp3 songs - ARE STILL THERE and could broke your life! (Broke it so bad that you'll never pick up the pieces! Still thinking it was a good idea to get a computer, you stupid bastard? Now you've gone and broke your life! Should have stuck to the girlie mags. Not literally, you nasty...)

SECURE YOURSELF RIGHT NOW! (Get a gun! Move your computer down into a bomb shelter! Set out some boobie traps! Quit your job! Shun your friends! Tell your wife to go to Hell! Sell the children! Give the helper monkey a banana!)
REMOVE ALL SPYWARE FROM YOUR PC! (Or you could do that I suppose.)

Then of course there is a link that very likely, if followed, will install spyware on your computer. Yes, I am a pessimist. But at least I'm a funny one.

I find a few things interesting about this ad. The grammar is bad ("could broke your life!" The word you are looking for is "ruin." "Ruin your life!"), but the spelling is great. Not something you usually see. They even get "you're" and "your" right. I have problems with that once in a while if I'm in a hurry.

I was really amused by how they slipped "spyware" in. The entire first paragraph is supposed to generate paranoia in people who have been "naughty" with their computer usage and then all they have to offer at the end of the email is possibly a tool for removing spyware. How is their "non-standard spyware removal tool," if it exists, going to help me with my boss, friends, wife, children prowling through my histories and cache? How does that help with the stuff set up in the first paragraph? It doesn't. It's stupid.

Even though I don't want to help these yo-yos refine their scheme, their stupidity pains me so much that I need to do something. So let's do a remix of a sort, shall we? And by "we" I mean "I". You can just keep reading.

First, who is their target and what are they offering them? From the looks of it, they are targeting paranoid people who have been doing the "devil's business" on their PCs and who don't know how to manage their traces. They would probably prefer people who don't really know much about how a computer does what it does. They are offering a tool to remove spyware. Okay. How about this?

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Subject: Do you have something you would like to share with the world?

Hi! It's awesome that you chose to open this mail! A lot of people are afraid to open mail from strangers these days. It's a scary internet out there and you never know what might happen. For example, say I were to send the last twenty image files you've viewed on your computer to everyone in your address book and also cc: a copy to the FBI and your local vice enforcement unit.

That would suck huh?

Is your heart beating faster just thinking about that?

How about if I told you that you might already have a program on your computer that is operating invisibly and doing something just like that? It was put there by that one little fun and free game that you played the other day without you knowing it. You wondered at the time why someone would be willing to just give away such a fun game. Now you know. But it's not too late to do something about it. Visit this link and we'll tell you how to get rid of these buried programs and protect yourself from them in the future.

Have a great day!
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Better? I think so. What do you think?

Oh, my "zombie" idea from last week still isn't made but I've refined the idea a bit and shared it with Heather and it amused her, so I will be pressing on with it. Should be done by Friday, and if it's as well received as I hope it will be I'll have it on shirts and whatnot soon after.