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Spam Libs (Frauenfelder on HotWired)
Forwarded-by: Chip Morningstar <[email protected]>
Forwarded-by: Peter Langston <[email protected]>
Forwarded-by: Keith Bostic <[email protected]>
Forwarded-by: Jeff Moore <[email protected]>
This comes from HotWired's `packet' site, at:
http://www.packet.com/packet/frauenfelder/nc_today.html
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Spam Libs
Bulk email spawns ingenious offensives from the masses
Do you remember Droodles? They're those simple line drawings that look
like nonsense until you read the captions. Droodles were invented in the
'60s by a humorist named Roger Price, an author probably best known for
his stinging critique of American society, The Great Roob Revolution. I
was lucky enough to get to know Roger before he died in 1990. He had lots
of great comics, books, and original art (from people like MAD Magazine
creator Harvey Kurtzman) lying around his Studio City, California, home.
Beside Droodles, Roger also invented Mad Libs. You might remember these,
too. Mad Libs were little books with stories in them. But the stories had
several missing words, with instructions to insert verbs, nouns, and
adjectives in the blank spaces. The game was played at parties, where
one person asked the others to supply the missing words. Then the story
was read out loud and everybody laughed heartily at the result. (There
are dozens of Mad Lib knockoffs on the Web.)
Because spammers work their cons anonymously, hiding behind forged email
addresses and working out of PO boxes, our imaginations can run wild about
what they look like. My fantasy spammer is a rat-skinny, potbellied,
40-year-old with a greasy salt-and-pepper ponytail and beard. And he's
rat-smart: After being spammed with get-rich-on-the-Net messages, he
bought the lists containing millions of email addresses, and he bought
the DIY spam software, and now he's in business for himself, working from
the spare bedroom of his mother's house in a Las Vegas suburb. I'm
grateful to Roger and his Mad Libs for helping me come up with a fun spam
prank. It all started a couple of weeks ago when I received the following:
Do you drink bottled water?
Are you looking for a
discount? How about 4 cents
a gallon? With our high
quality water-filtration
systems, you can bottle
your own!! Email your name,
address, phone# & email
address to The Water Lady -
[email protected]
I copied this stupid message into my word processor, and using the
search-and-replace function, swapped every occurrence of the word "water"
with "urine," then sent the result to the Water Lady:
I received the following
advertisement and I'm
wondering if it is a joke?
Do you drink bottled urine?
Are you looking for a
discount? How about 4 cents
a gallon? With our high
quality urine-production
systems, you can bottle
your own!! Email your name,
address, phone# & email
address to The Urine Lady -
[email protected]
In a couple of hours, I got the following reply:
Dear Mark:
I don't know who may have
done this sh*t (sic) to the
message. Everywhere the
word < urine > is found was
originally < water >.
Please accept our
apologies. This is
somebody's idea of a joke!
Heh - it sure was. Pleased with myself, I sent the mutated mail to my
friends. They got in on the action, respamming the Mad-Libbed message back
to The Urine Lady. Someone even posted the message on
alt.sex.fetish.watersports, with the subject "GOLDEN BOTTLES!" The post
was forged to look as though it were sent by The Urine Lady herself.
That same day, I got a spam trying to sell me a copy of Floodgate
software, a notorious spamming program. I copied the spam to my word
processor and did a few swaps. I changed "Floodgate" to "The Pig Spittle
Drinkers' Toolkit," "email" to "slobber bottle," "program" to
"pig-drool-extraction device," and "software" to "salivary-gland
stimulator." Here's what I sent back to the spammer:
SPECIAL: Buy the latest
version of The Pig Spittle
Drinkers' Toolkit before
May 21st and receive a list
of 30 slobber-bottle
swappers who have millions
of slobber bottles to swap
with you as you build your
database.
HERE'S WHAT OTHER PIG
SPITTLE DRINKERS' TOOLKIT
USERS SAY.....
"The Pig Spittle Drinkers'
Toolkit is truly a dream
come true! By following the
instructions in the book, I
was able to develop a list
of 2,400 slobber bottle
addresses in less than one
hour. Furthermore, the
technical support is
outstanding. This
pig-drool-extraction device
will put me on a level
playing field with the big
boys. They don't teach this
stuff in business school!"
"This salivary-gland
stimulator works fantastic
- I'm so busy now I can't
keep up with the orders and
inquiries! Thanks!"
"I ordered the
pig-drool-extraction device
and haven't stopped running
with it since. With your
support, (at the drop of a
hat), with the finest
pig-drool-extraction device
ever released for public
use, I started my dream
business, a bulk
slobber-bottle business.
"If a 'dummy' like me can
use this salivary-gland
stimulator, anyone can!
Great tool!!!"
[snip]
Soon, my friends and I were mutating and resending almost every spam we
got. Most of the spammers wrote back saying they were mystified and
expressed dismay that anyone would want to hurt their wonderful home-based
business, apologized profusely, and promised that they'd get to the bottom
of the nefarious campaign to defame their good name.
This was our intent: to make them think that someone had intercepted their
spam and was ruining their good name with wacko faux-spam. Only once did
the spammer retaliate by flaming the messenger. Here's the original spam
that a friend received:
This is a great opportunity
for your business. How
would you like to get
200-300 responses per day
from your advertisement? At
Selective Marketing we make
it happen for your
business. Selective
Marketing is a bulk email
advertiseing (sic) company
that generates hundreds to
thousands of responses for
your business.
[snip]
Here is his reply to the spammer:
WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS
DISGUSTING SATANIC FILTH?
ALL FORTY-SIX MEMBERS OF
'CHRISTAIN VIRGINS AGAINST
INTERNET SEX' RECEIVD THIS
DISGUSTING PIECE OF HATE
MAIL AND I DEMAND THAT YOU
PROVIDE AN EXPLANATION! WE
ARE CONSULTING OUR LAWYERS
NOW TO SEE IF LEGAL ACTION
CAN BE TAKEN!
JOHNATHON JILLIAN DAVES
This is a great opportunity
for your penis. How would
you like to get 200-300
penises per day from your
penis? At Selective
Marketing we make it happen
for your penis. Selective
Marketing is a bulk penis
advertising company that
generates hundreds to
thousands of penises for
your penis.
The spammer sent 61 identical emails to my friend, which read:
YOU WILL LEARN NOT TO FUCK
WITH ME YOU PIECE OF
SHIT!!!!!!!!!
(My friend said it took him "all of 30 seconds" to save the messages in
a folder.)
If you want to play the Mad Lib Mutated Spam game, here are some tips.
(Remember, some of this stuff might get you in trouble with the long
tentacle of the law, so proceed at your own risk.)
1. Usually, spams do not contain valid email addresses. But there are a
couple of ways to get a real address. First, you can look up the
spammer's domain name on InterNIC's Whois database. That'll yield a
couple of email address you can use. The other way is to visit the
spammer's Web site, which is often listed in the spam. If it isn't,
just try typing the spammer's domain into your Web browser, and see if
anything pops up. As a last resort, you can fax or snailmail your
mutated message to the spammer, as they usually list their phone number
and mailing address in their desperate quest to get their sebum-coated
hands on your money.
2. If you have an AOL account, create a special email address (you are
allowed up to five different addresses per account). I send most of my
Mad-Libbed spams through an AOL address used exclusively for
antispamming. That way, if the spammer flips out and decides to mail
bomb you or forge your name on obscene Usenet postings, it won't
matter. This also works with Web-based anonymous email services like
HotMail.
3. If you're technically adept, you might want to try "linking two
spammers to each other," as another friend suggests. By "sending
mutated mail to other spammers," says my Mad Lib buddy, "maybe they
will start suspecting each other of mutual spam mutating, and spamming
will enter a new era of conspiracy and distrust."
If you get any especially good results from playing Mad Lib Mutated Spam,
please tell me about it!
[Mark Frauenfelder]
Send mail to Mark Frauenfelder at [email protected]
Illustration by Dave Plunkert
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