capoccia's Journal: wacky spam

This has got to be the cruelest spam I have ever recieved:

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        Thu, 17 Jul 2003 09:48:47 -0400 (EDT)
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From: "Erica"
Subject: date has been scheduled
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 03:40:39 -1900
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
        charset="Windows-1252"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-ContentStamp: 8:4:1938915096

A friend invited you on a Blind Date! Everything has been arranged. Have Fun!

Click here to confirm or reschedule your date:
http://womenlook4men.com/confirm/?oc=52210080

Click here if you do not wish to be invited again:
http://womenlook4men.com/remove/?oc=52210181

Just as strange is the fact that the domain womenlook4men.com is owned by a company in Great Britain and Russia called Eastern Women. They also own russianbrideservice.com.

for sure a spam?

[insanecarbonbasedlif]

Is it at all possible that someone did try to set you up the bomb[edit: I mean, set you up on a blind date]? I checked out the site, and they claim that they wont use the email address to do anything but email the person about the blind date. (Very plain site, by the way. Extremely strange how it has no advertising, etc.) It looks a little like it's just there to harvest email addresses, but I'm going to do some expirements with spamgourmet and the service to see what they do. I'll tell you what I find out.

Re:for sure a spam?

[insanecarbonbasedlif]

After submitting a spamgourmet address a little over 4 hours ago, I have gotten no "invite" mailed to it. I'm beginning to think that it is definately some sort of spam operation - I guess it's just in place to harvest addresses?!

thanks

[capoccia]

thanks for looking into this. i was pretty sure it was spam. a blind date is normally arranged by someone that both people trust. that website and email just didn't do much. it didn't tell you anything about the person or anything.

i think if someone tried a little harder, this would be a killer way to get email addresses and demographic info. it works a lot like the 'i love you' virus. not that an email-harvester is a virus, but it works on the same emotions of a desire for love.

hey, all they need is to attach it to Crushlink

[SolemnDragon]

You know, the one that tells you who has a crush on you after you sign up an unwitting friend to receive the same darned email. And it usually turns out that the person who has the supposed crush just entered your name in a desperate attempt to find out who signed THEM up, I can only assume that the need to know derives from a wish to inflict collateral damage.

It was a truly viral marketing scheme- send ten friends a message that gets them to sign up ten friends just to find out that it was your fault tha