{"id":359,"date":"2006-08-04T17:52:06","date_gmt":"2006-08-05T01:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uncle-andrew.net\/blog\/?p=359"},"modified":"2008-06-22T09:51:58","modified_gmt":"2008-06-22T16:51:58","slug":"wierdestspamever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.uncle-andrew.net\/blog\/?p=359","title":{"rendered":"Wierdest….Spam….Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I was checking my spam trap this morning (always check your spam trap; never know when you might find something you really wanted) when I found something that surprised me, an email entitled, “Your email requires verification verify#sG_CzLQj0OqhH5TkMmkV_tLKgE3yjAD0”.<\/p>\n

Now this could very well have been a regular old spam dressed up in frickin’ strange clothing to fool me into opening it, but the title intrigued me, and since there was no attachment (and I answer my email on a Mac anyway so I’m immune to most if not all email-based security threats), I decided to take the plunge:<\/p>\n

****************Your Attention is Needed***************
\nThe message you sent requires that you verify that you
\nare a real live human being and not a spam source.<\/p>\n

To complete this verification, reply to this message and leave
\nthe subject line intact.<\/p>\n

****************Than You***************<\/p>\n

The headers of the message sent from your address are show below:<\/p>\n

From andrew<\/a><\/span> Fri Aug 04 10:26:35 2006
\nReceived: from [24.216.179.108] (helo=tikistudios.com)
\nby vps1006.safesecureweb.com with smtp (Exim 4.52)
\nid 1G90dF-0008SM-Ui
\nfor andrew<\/a><\/span>; Fri, 04 Aug 2006 10:26:35 -0400
\nReceived: from mail.zhonka.net
\nby 24-216-179-108.dhcp.stls.mo.charter.com (Exim 4.05) with ESMTP id GCJqh1VxgsQOV
\nfor < andrew<\/a>>; Fri, 4 Aug 2006 14:48:35 -0300
\nReceived: from [218.101.31.223]
\nby mail.zhonka.net with ESMTP (8.12.11\/8.12.11) id zcG1G7GKOnEnS
\nfor < <\/span>andrew<\/a>>; Fri, 4 Aug 2006 14:44:26 -0300
\nReply-to: “<\/span>andrew<\/a><\/span>” < andrew<\/a>>
\nFrom: “andrew<\/a><\/span>” < andrew<\/a>>
\nDate: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 14:36:09 -0300
\nMessage-ID: qCecwtzU7Kinl.m6cW2uOJzDtx5<\/a><\/span>
\nTo: andrew<\/a><\/span>
\nContent-type: text\/html;
\nCharset=Windows-1251
\nSubject: Need a University Degree to obtain the career you’ve always wanted?
\nMIME-Version: 1.0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So my mystery mail turned out to be neither a spam nor a virus, but a challenge-response<\/a> challenge.<\/p>\n

For the uninitiated and those who don’t like to follow hyperlinks, challenge-response is a system of authentication used by some email systems to weed out human-generated mail from that generated by software. The sender of the initial email will receive a challenge back from the system, and must respond in a particular manner (the methodology varies depending on the system) in order to verify that (s)he is a real, bona fide human being.<\/p>\n

The funny thing about this is, I didn’t send the original email for which the challenge was issued. The originating IP address points to some computer in New Zealand that was doubtless hijacked by a virus or other malware for the purpose of generating spam. How my email addy got into some Kiwi’s computer is anyone’s guess. It could be cached from some forward of a forward of a forward of a forward of something I emailed to someone once; it could have been scoured from a bulletin board, or from this very site. It’s not particularly important.<\/p>\n

What is important–okay, not important, but at least noteworthy–is the irony of this entire exchange. Some guy in Missouri gets a spam email from some computer in New Zealand, purporting to be from me here in Washington. His spam filter traps the mail and issues a challenge email back to me (not the actual sender in New Zealand)….where it promptly gets trapped in my spam filter.<\/p>\n

Not the best use of bandwidth ever dreamed up. I swear to God, if I ever actually get a chance to meet a real live spammer, I’m gonna make risotto out of his testicles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I was checking my spam trap this morning (always check your spam trap; never know when you might find something you really wanted) when I found something that surprised me, an email entitled, “Your email requires verification verify#sG_CzLQj0OqhH5TkMmkV_tLKgE3yjAD0”. Now this could very well have been a regular old spam dressed up in frickin’ strange […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-roominations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.uncle-andrew.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.uncle-andrew.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.uncle-andrew.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.uncle-andrew.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.uncle-andrew.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.uncle-andrew.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.uncle-andrew.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.uncle-andrew.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.uncle-andrew.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}