This morning I noticed a trend in my spam folder…

( NSFW )

Current Mood:  confused

Hi [ContactFirstName],

I have a web designer role based in Surrey.

My client is looking for somebody who can work self-sufficient and turn projects round quickly, while maintaining high standards both visually and technically.

…

If you have any of the following this will be useful.
AJAX, BACK-END BUILT WEBSITE AND Action script.

What is a “BACK-END BUILT WEBSITE”? And does “[ContactFirstName]” know how to build one?

Oh, and of course they can’t tell the difference between a designer and a developer (nor the difference between an adjective and an adverb).

السعودية تبني سوراً بمليار دولار على الحدود العراقية; الخل يساعد في الكشف المبكر عن سرطان عنق الرحم

I love getting spam in random languages. I also love cutting and pasting rtl into an editor. You never know what DEL, BACKSPACE or the cursor keys will do.

Oh, and I love seeing how well people’s RSS readers cope…

Current Mood:  mischievous

E-mail I just sent to Lloyds TSB:

> Dear Valued Customer,
[snip]

Hang on a moment. I closed my account with Lloyds TSB in 2001 or 2002. I really shouldn’t be in your system anymore. Please fix it so that I don’t keep on receiving these e-mails. It was funny for the first year or two, now it’s just spam.

Back in 2005 or so I did actually test whether I could still log onto their systems. I could, but as there were no accounts associated with the login I couldn’t do anything. But it’s nice to know they still value my custom after all these years.

Current Mood:  cynical

We’re introducing XXXXX – the business card 2.0. You are part of a select group of blog owner/publishers that we are inviting to take an early “sneak peek” at XXXXX. We see your blog as a major delivery vehicle for news and information and hope you’ll have a willingness to cover our launch (good or bad).

Yes, I’m going to cover your launch, but because you’re a stupid spammer I’m going to do so without mentioning your product’s name or URL.

Now let’s see, “business card 2.0″? WTF does that mean? Do your contacts get to add their own tags to your card? Is there a business card microformat? (Yes, there is, but it’s nothing to do with this “product”.)

For crying out loud, can we please get over this 2.0 thing? It was bad enough when someone mentioned “consumer 2.0″ in a meeting last year but this is just mindless bandwagon jumping.

Current Mood:  annoyed

A charming individual, dklover@hotmail.com, has been posting abusive comments (now deleted) on an old post of mine, accusing me of over reacting when I laid into some idiots who decided to use the word gay as an insult.

His/her latest missive is presented below, as he/she didn’t included any punctuation I’ve had to guess where one sentence ends and the next begins.

you must be the biggest loser on earth not one person has wrote to you for a long time so i thought i should say some thing

A few facts first, since your last comment on 23rd November, six people have posted comments here (some multiple times, hi Jack) and a further three people have commented on the LJ mirror of this blog. As I’ve only posted seven posts in that time that’s fair number of commenters for a modest little personal blog like this.

your last comments were quite rude implying that im gay and bigot

They were meant to be rude. You came to my web site and attacked me, you reap what you sow.

However, I did not imply that you were gay - I suggested that you might have fun in a gay bar, something that lots of straight people do all the time. Also, I did not imply that you were a bigot - I stated it clearly.

well thats a big word for a small minded person like your self you are strait up and down stupid and i dont have to go off at the deep end like your self and try and use words hat you dont even understand good one brainiack

Bigot. Five letters, two syllables, easy to pronounce, quite easy to define. That may be a big word to you - judging by your spelling, punctuation and grammar you have problems with the English language. However, as your IP address resolves to the Netherlands you may well not be a native speaker.

ha ha ha your such a fool i await your reply wich im sure will be inthrouling

Did you mean enthralling? I don’t know about that, but I’m sure this post will raise a smile or two somewhere.

NOTE: AS REGARDS HOW I GOT YOUR EMAIL,IT WAS A SPECIAL REVELATION FROM GOD,WHO REVEALED THAT YOU WOULD USE THIS FUND PROFITABLY FOR HUMANITARIAN PURPOSES

Which God? I suspect Loki.

Current Mood:  cheerful

A little while back some idiot left a stupid comment (now deleted as it keeps on bringing the idiots out from under their stones) on an old post, and you can see my response. Then a few days ago three more comments arrived right after each other, here they are:

Name: partyboy
Date: 10th September 2006

dear Steve Pugh

You're statment to the idiot named ffffff is
so very true, there are so many people out
there that really are dead set idiots. I live in
Australia and the people here are total idiots.

well thats my opinion so ffffff the people of
australia say that "your a fucking idiot".

Name: ffffff
Date: 10th September 2006

shut up stupid heads

Name: Ozzy Ozzy Ozzy Oi Oi Oi
Date: 10th September 2006

dear ffffff.

my little sister is more intelligent and can say
can insult people alot worse than you and some
of them cry, well i could imagine what you feel
like right now you sitting in a corner crying to
you're mother 

thanking you for a great laugh of you stupidity,
Ozzy Ozzy Ozzy Oi Oi Oi

All three came from the same IP address and gave the same e-mail address Both IP and e-mail were different than that of the original commenter, but the original did include the word ‘australia’ in his e-mail address, something that isn’t visible to other people on the site, so where did the Australia business come from in these follow up comments? I have an aussie stalker with a split personality. Or a group of dumb aussie school kids using my comments to play silly games with each other. Oh boy.

Current Mood:  indifferent

Just received an especially badly wrtten piece of spam. The opening line was: “How are you doing with the entire member of your family?

What? Does that mean that the all but one members of my family are in some way not ‘entire’? Eeek.

Current Mood:  worried

Got a good one today.

Dear Webmaster,

We found your web site, stevepugh.net from the internet and liked it very much! We hope you’ll consider exchanging links with our site, Octopus Links.

Our web site provides cutting edge Automated Link Exchange Services.
Lifetime membership to our services is currently FREE!
Please DOWNLOAD the attached web file to visit our site….

When you exchange links using our system, you can also exchange links with ALL our members. No more begging for links!

Have a nice day!
Jay, the Octopus

P/S: link exchange the fast and easy to to boost your web site search engine ranking and get an avalanche of free web traffic!!

There was no attachment for me to download to “visit their site” (i.e. get infected with a nasty virus). Fairless clueless even by spammer standards.

I decided to visit the domain used in the e-mail address, expecting to see either a link farm or something totally innocent and unrelated to the spam. Instead I saw a one page site with broken links and this:

( Be afraid... )

Current Mood:  confused