There are signs that a stock spammer is trying something new. In general, each apparent stock spammer typically pushes only one or two stocks at a time: it's sometimes even possible to observe the changeover as a spammer dumps his holding in one stock and starts up with a new one. Starting today, however, one spammer seems to be firing off spam in small quantities for a whole basket of stocks. In addition to some ongoing and new spam runs from other spammers, I've seen novel plaintext spams advertising eight smallcap stocks, about half of which have never been previously been advertised. The similarity between the messages suggests that these are all the work of a single spammer. It looks as if he might be testing a new tactic, perhaps involving smaller investments spread across multiple holdings.
January 2007 Archives
Just the fax, ma'am
10 January 2007 - 08:42 PM | PermalinkI can usually tell what's bubbling in the stock spam world even before I check to see what the spamtraps have caught, just by checking my own email box. Whenever there's a big new stock spam run, I get a flood of messages from angry people demanding that I remove them from my mailing list (as previously described, many Internet users apparently assume that if they type a stock symbol into Google, whatever comes up first must be the spammer's website).
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The Bouncing Bulkers
05 January 2007 - 09:07 AM | PermalinkWhen people think of spam, they most often think of the flood of ads for penis enlargements, cheap Viagra, pornography, so-called 'OEM' software, fake diplomas, stock spam and 419's, and all the other trash that fills our mailboxes. Typically sent through networks of hijacked PCs, this kind of spam doesn't even pretend to be legal or respectable. But alongside this 'outlaw spam', there's a second type. A relatively small number of operations are systematically sending large quantities of mail that — at least superficially — complies with the rather lax requirements of the CAN-SPAM Act. Using servers of their own to send and direct traffic, the 'bouncing bulkers' funnel recipients through a web of click-counters and 'affiliate marketing' hosts to a final destination website that may often belong not to some backroom pill salesman or software pirate, but to a nationally- or internationally-known company.
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Unclear on the concept
04 January 2007 - 12:51 PM | PermalinkAs an illustration of the importance of doing some basic research before sending a sales pitch, consider the case of Mr Naseer Ahmad of M.A. Qadeer & Naseer Surgical Co. Mr Ahmad recently used the comment form on this site to send me the following message.
Great to have learned your esteemed company from Internet. We are very glad to find that what we produce are just what you are sourcing. We are one of the leading suppliers of all kinds of surgical, dental & veterinary instruments etc.
Actually, now that I think of it, I think I do have a use for some surgical, dental or veterinary instruments. Maybe they could put me down for a round dozen extremely sharp surgical knives and some of those things for pulling teeth ...