Not a good try and definitely no cigar

Spam, just receeived:


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Warning!!! Account owner that refuses to update his or her account within Seven days of receiving this warning will lose his or her account permanently.

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The Gmail Team


Ho ho.

More like this

TPM has a list of stimulus cuts that a group of senators led by Democrat Ben Nelson and Republican Susan Collins have proposed. The cuts are at 77.9 billion and growing, and include a great deal of the science-related spending. On the chopping block: 750 million - half the proposed increase - of…
Over a period of just over one week, just over 500 pieces of spam got through to my last spam filter, and were autodeposited in a "is this spam?" box. My primary e-mail account is buried behind three layers of spam and virus filtering, and my mailer has a Bayesian junk mail filter. At least five…
...because it's been more than 10 days since their "hit man" sent me the warning. I'd forgotten how amusing a good email scam can be, because the filter in my gmail account has gotten pretty good at figuring out what's spam and what's not. I was reminded a few minutes ago when I went in and…
(Now that I look at the title, that sounds like an incredibly tepid harness-team command. "On, Moderation! Forward, with prudent speed!" I could clear that up by adding "Comment" in the middle, but I kind of like the image...) Over at Boing Boing, Teresa Nielsen Hayden has posted a long explanation…

Hey, isn't that a coincidence! I got the same email a few weeks ago.

What morons...

By Janice in Toronto (not verified) on 10 Feb 2010 #permalink

We are shutting down some shell accounts and your account was automatically chosen to be deleted. If you are still interested in shell access to the backup mail server please fill in the space below for verification purpose by clicking the reply button and fill the form below.

Username:
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Warning!!! Account owner that refuses to update his or her account within Seven days of receiving this warning will lose his or her account permanently.

Thank you!

The CRUHack Team

Prove I'm wrong :)

Yeah, I've had it for a hotmail account before. I disagree with the "no cigar" bit though. Next time, I think I'll ask for their address and offer to send them a tin of Panatellas through the post.

This is my favourite

Subject: ASSISTANCE FOR VICTIMS OF EMAIL SCAMS

ATTENTION SCAMMED VICTIM!!!

($10, 000, 000, 00) TEN MILLIONS UNITED STATE DOLLARS HAVE BEEN ISSUED OUT TO ALL THE AFFECTED VICTIMS AND HAS BEEN ALREADY IN DISTRIBUTION TO ALL THE BEARERS. YOUR NAME WAS AMONG THOSE SCAMMED AS LISTED BY THE WEST AFRICA FINANCIAL INTELLIGENT UNIT (BFIU).

A RE-COMPENSATION HAS BEEN ISSUED OUT IN CERTIFIED BANK DRAFTS AND ALSO IN ATM CARD, DUE KINDLY REPLY TO THIS E-MAIL ADDRESS FOR SECURITY REASON: british_high_commision4@mail.com

YOUR URGENT CALL IS AWAITED FOR FURTHER DIRECTION ON HOW YOU WILL RECEIVE YOUR FOUNDâ¦â¦. +229 98 62 76 38

YOURS IN SERVICE
MR. JERRY WHITE
CONSULAR,
+229 98 62 76 38

By Mark Hadfield (not verified) on 10 Feb 2010 #permalink

Many years ago I got an email that read:

You have just received a UNIX virus. Please randomly delete some files from your hard drive and pass this message on to everyone in your address book.

"You have just received a UNIX virus. Please randomly delete some files from your hard drive and pass this message on to everyone in your address book."

The implication that Unix users are particularly stupid?

By Mark Hadfield (not verified) on 11 Feb 2010 #permalink

Mark Hadfield | February 11, 2010 4:17 PM --- That message is only sent to Windows accounts.

By David B. Benson (not verified) on 11 Feb 2010 #permalink

Well, for real hacks/worms, consider the long-ago Ken Thompson hack, here, or here.

I'd just read John Brunner's "Shockwave Rider", with "worms with infinitely-replicating tails". I thought they made for good story, but were pretty unlikely. Then, within a few weeks, I saw Ken's. I think our group was the only one to detect it, and I went to his machine and looked at the code. At least he wasn't really trying to hide it. They were just in a "let's explore security issues" mode.

Not long after, I was in the Research UNIX group's terminal room (people didn't usually have terminals in their offices at that time), and overheard Ken talking with Robert Morris, Sr [yes, father of another Robert Morris famous in this turf.] They were enthusiastically discussing whether or not they could slip this by the NSA (National Security Agency), which had early copies of UNIX. But one of them finally observed, "You know, the NSA doesn't really have a sense of humor" and that was the end of that.

By John Mashey (not verified) on 11 Feb 2010 #permalink

Just received:

This is to notify you that after we met today with The President, Finance
Minister, The senators, House of Representatives and The New Central Bank Governor
and we came to a conclusion that we have to pay you the sum of $5m and the
balance will come later. The payment will be via direct bank deposit,
therefore send your name, address, tel: # and bank details occupation and position.
You can call my direct line +2348033362268,take this very serious.

I wonder how they held that meeting and took their decision without knowing my name?