Spam is Bad

Regarding ICLS.net, we have posted a PDF of the scam faxes being sent by this company at http://www.kleininternet.com/newsletters/faxscam.pdf

THIS EMAIL AND REMOVE.ORG IS VERY SUSPECT! DO NOT PAY .95 MEMBERSHIP FEE. EMAIL WAS SPAM. THERE IS NO WAY THEY CAN STOP SPAM WITH THE TECHNIQUE THEY ARE USING. ACTUAL EMAIL FOLLOWS HERE:

—– Original Message —–
From: Lori Butler
To: Sharron Kelly
Cc: Karla Anderson; Megan_Jim_Davis@hotmail.com; EdWaldon@lycos.com;
Andrea Manning; Bill Barnes; Mark and Karen Whyte-Iowa; danrogers3@alaska.net;
alex.urban@gci.net; stephens_03@attbi.net; Laura Clark-Glacial
Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2003 10:19 AM
Subject: Concerned Parent
Hello,

I am very concerned about all the spam and adult related material that I have been receiving in my email box. Since my children also use the same email, it is even more of a problem. I have tried to get my name and the kids off these lists, but it seems as if that has just made the problem worse.

I complained to my Internet provider, but they said that there was nothing they could do because there is no law against sending spam. They recommended several software programs for filtering out the spam and pornography, which I did try. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop the majority of the inappropriate material that we were being exposed to.

I brought up this subject at a recent PTA meeting and was informed by a fellow parent of a non-profit organization called Remove.org. They are dedicated to stopping spam and pornography in email. They actually shut down irresponsible marketers who send adult related material and spam.

I have registered my email address with Remove.org and have been very pleased with the results. I would encourage you to do so as well, especially if your child has his own email account.

You can find their website at www.remove.org

Please forward this letter to everyone you know so that we can stop this problem.

Sincerely,

Lori Butler

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>
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>To have your email address added to the national opt-out directory
>please click on the following link: http://www.remove.org.
>
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pkwl5

Some of the more interesting spam scams of recent months trick PayPal customers into divulging personal or financial information by asking them to log into Web site that looks very much like PayPal’s own.

They’ve been around for a while but appear to be growing more sophisticated and more convincing of late, Vancouver’s Derek K. Miller writes in TidBITS. But you can still spot them easily, he says, if you know what you’re looking for. Among the handy giveaways:

Every one I have seen has errors in design or language that are unlikely in correspondence from a legitimate company. The writers might misspell words or use them sloppily (such as writing “e-mail” in one place and “email” in another), use slightly inconsistent font sizes, or have spaces missing between words. Often the phrasing that isn’t stolen directly from PayPal’s own pages is off-kilter and strange, obviously not written by professionals. Another giveaway is URLs that point at IP numbers or other domains rather than the paypal.com domain.

We received a couple of these messages at the office a few weeks back. Frankly, we were impressed by how convincing the scam site looked at first. But two things gave it away: 1) the scam site used an IP address instead of a recognizable domain name; 2) the recipients didn’t have PayPal accounts.