Spam Knows My Innermost Anxieties

[Angela Woodford]

My computer firewall is failing.

All kinds of spam messages are appearing. The worrying thing is that the spam knows my innermost anxieties. It seems to know everything about me! It strikes ruthlessly past any happy healthy online enquiries such as my daily shriek of laughter at the Matt cartoon in the Telegraph, my checking up on R4's Ed Reardon or my investigation of white double varieties of amaryllis hippeastrum .

Here's a selection.

Emotional Health: What is Acute Stress Disorder?
How Would You Like £1,000 to Spend?
The Flat Belly Cookbook
Foods that Fight Depression
Healthy Beautiful Ageing
Mrs W, Take A Look At Ultralase
I Think I Have Bipolar Disorder
Victoria's Secret (it featured the £3.5 million jewel encrusted bra)
It's November and the Pounds Are Falling Off
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Medication - Get Yours Online
Can Pheromones Make You Sexier?
Tired of Snoring? (WHAT???)
Drop a Dress Size with our LBD Diet!
Get the Designer Bag of Your Choice

and, spookily,

Write Away The Pain!

Have they been visited by the spirit of Miss Morrison, and advised about my attention deficit problem? Then, if I claimed the £1,000 to spend, I'd still not be able to afford the bejewelled bra, and then I'd have to eat the foods that fight depression, but then be more depressed because it's November and the pounds would not be falling off... I'd have to start the LBD diet and some sex-promoting pheromones. Time to get onto the Forum and Write Away The Pain. Then snore.

[Ajarn Philip]

Just be grateful nobody's offering to make your willy bigger...

[J.R.]

Just be grateful nobody's offering to make your willy bigger...

You beat me to it by about 15 minutes !

[Angela Woodford]

Well, that's it, really. The spam seems to know everything about everybody.

Very worrying.

It seems to want to make Philip and JR - er - larger. And Alan - smaller!

And how did it know I was gazing longingly at a designer bag @ £750 in a shop window the other day?

[Jude]

Munch, you need to understand the reason behind the fact the spam mail knows how to target you! Part of it comes from the use of your store cards - Tesco, Sainsbugs etc. Another lot comes from your credit cards (I have a bad credit rating so am not allowed one, although I get about 15 a day offering me to get into even MORE debt!). The next is your gender - all females are worried over something, want to lose weight, would love really wodnerful handbags and bra's etc - pity they don't send those to the male then we might get something! After that it is fairly generic. It's like horoscopes, they are written so as to apply to all and sundry regardless of when you read it, or what sign you are! If you read all the horoscopes for the day in one magazine you would find that you were spot on with over 50%, and close with the rest. Globally that makes us all very very similar! Now that is something to worry about! Even the men will find that they will be able to match up on horoscopes should they ever read them..

As for the male organ growth - it is specific for men - I get it in my Jude account, as Jude is more of a man's name than a female one! (or so the spammers seem to think).

As for looking at expensive handbags, what is wrong with the 18 you have dotted around the house? You have one in every colour, some are in the wardrobe, and others ok are definately seasonal, but you only ever need one at a time!!!

If I read the spam, and acted on it, I would never get off the computer, my cats would starve, as would I - hmm perhaps that is the way to lose weight! Mind you I would be applying for Credit cards all day and night to get a UH-NO! from each. So just ctrl+a (the control key and the letter a together) (this selects all the text/emails etc) then press the best key on the keyboard - DELETE!

[icomefromalanddownunder]

[quote="Angela Woodford"]Well, that's it, really. The spam seems to know everything about everybody./quote]




No, not everybody.

I get offers of a bigger willy too.

I have, on occasion, been accused of being ballsy, but never of having a willy.




Lola. L-O-L-A. Lo.......la. Tralala.

xxxx

[Jo]

Unless your ISP provides a spam filter, or if you don't trust spam filters, I can recommend Mailwasher. It's shareware and can be found by Googling. Basically it allows you to preview your mail on the server before downloading, so you don't even download the spam in the first place. You can set up a white list so that all your known contacts get through ok, and only unexpected mail is highlighted for you to check. Plus, you can choose to bounce spam, so your ISP sends an email back to the spammer saying it couldn't be received. I'm sure it doesn't make any difference to the spammers but it gives me a small feeling of satisfaction

[gma]

My problem is worms (hold off a mo please JR, Prof U and Alan P5age!!), internet worms

They get into my system and then mail loads of rubbish to everyone, they are not destructive and don't stay around for more than a week but my virus scanner won't pick them up as they don't do any damage........help as they seem to generate an avalanche of spam, mostly about money, weight loss (tho if the worm was a tapeworm I wouldn't need the weight loss ones!!) and viagra (! !)

[jhopgood]

Or even, smaller? (Oh, what a giveaway!!!)

On a more serious note. Has anybody received emails claiming to be from Microsoft offering new updates? I had one of these a while back. Being naive, I clicked the link and it promptly disabled my computer altogether and I had to send it back to the factory for repair work.
The last time I got one I sent it on to Microsoft with the enquiry "Is this one of yours?" Have had nothing since. The only diference is a question mark instead of a copyright mark by the date in the bottom left hand corner. Be aware.

I am sure everyone has their own way of checking hoaxes, but a quick one is to pass your cursor over the address where they want you to click. On Thunderbird, and I assume on others, the address will be highlighted, and unless they have been very devious, it will be nothing like Microsoft or the bank that claims your password needs to be renewed.

[Jude]

My problem is worms (hold off a mo please JR, Prof U and Alan P5age!!), internet worms

They get into my system and then mail loads of rubbish to everyone, they are not destructive and don't stay around for more than a week but my virus scanner won't pick them up as they don't do any damage........help as they seem to generate an avalanche of spam, mostly about money, weight loss (tho if the worm was a tapeworm I wouldn't need the weight loss ones!!) and viagra (! !)

Try these things out:
www.semantec.com
www.esecurityplanet.com/alerts/
www.Mcafee.com
these will tell you if there is a threat, or a hoax

As for getting rid of the worms, bad cookies etc. try free software from Adaware - version 2008, FREE (please don't pay!!) run it after you have been on the net and it finds the little darlings and then you can safely DELETE them!

if you want more info on how / what etc. I teach the U3A group here Computing so have a fair amount of it already written up - it would just be an email from you to me @ judicomber@aol.com

Jude