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Spammers Announce World War III
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Jul 10, 2008 04:56 PM
from the now-that's-not-cricket dept.
from the now-that's-not-cricket dept.
schliz writes with the stub of a disheartening article at IT News: "Hackers are deluging web users with malware-laden spam claiming that World War III has started following a US invasion of Iran. Security experts warned [yesterday] that spam emails with subject lines including 'Third World War has begun,' '20000 US Soldiers in Iran,' and 'US Army crossed Iran's borders' have been intercepted. The emails contain links to a malicious webpage that displays what appears to be a video player showing the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion."
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That spam was shopped (Score:5, Funny)
I can tell from the text and seeing quite a few spams in my time.
Re:That spam was shopped (Score:5, Funny)
the shadows are all off too
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The obligatory "Obligatory" (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:The obligatory "Obligatory" (Score:5, Funny)
The sad thing is I offer swords for sale that are airbrushed.
The sadder thing is people buy them. ;)
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Re:The obligatory "Obligatory" (Score:5, Funny)
Do they do white damage?
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Breaking news! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Breaking news! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Breaking news! (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't new or interesting -- it's a classic pump and dump, most likely on the price of oil.
(1) Buy oil futures
(2) Pump spam/disinformation about a US military strike in Iran.
(2a) Do this when US/Israeli officials are making strong statements
(2b) because Iran has just tested some missiles
(3) Watch the price of oil go up 4-5% in a day http://www.bloomberg.com/energy/ [bloomberg.com]
(4) (Sell your oil futures at a) Profit!
Yawn . . .
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Re:Breaking news! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Breaking news! (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with the Prius is the energy cost of battery production. While the study that came out a while back drew a nonsensical conclusion, it does appear that the lifetime energy cost of the Prius is similar to that of a Hummer.
Supposedly this problem will be greatly mitigated when the new battery plant opens in Fremont, CA. (IIRC it was Fremont, anyway.)
Yes, if one allows breeders nuclear is certainly better than coal; coal puts absolute craploads of nuclear material (including a small percentage of fissile uranium) into the atmosphere; in fact, so much that if you could extract it and use it in nuclear reactors (it is mostly thorium, followed by non-fissile uranium) it would produce more energy than the coal burned.
Coal is horrible, nuclear is potentially not so terrible, but without breeders is definitely pretty foul. Anyway there are two feasible sources of electricity available to us right now: Small-scale wind farms are cheap and easy to build and attach to the grid, and small vertical wind turbines could be installed on almost any roof and grid-tied, and photovoltaic solar panels pay back the energy cost of their production in less than seven years, and have been known to do so for over thirty years.
Solar is kind of dirty, but the wind turbines can be made out of almost anything. And a lot of the dirtiness of solar production is involved in the energy input. But the whole point of the exercise is producing more energy output which requires a minimum additional investment in energy consumption and pollution - so long that it can be done at an acceptable environmental cost.
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Re:Breaking news! (Score:5, Informative)
I'm tired of this crap about Prius being the same lifetime energy cost as a Hummer. It's total bunk, and here's why: The Hummer's energy cost is in moving a giant object around inefficiently, which expends a lot of energy (Gasoline). The Prius's energy cost is creating it's batteries, which it then uses to move it around a lot more efficiently. However, when the lifetime of the Prius is over, all that energy isn't wasted. The batteries don't disappear. They are still there and can easily (And it's incredibly cost-efficient to do so) be recycled. Thus the 'total energy cost' of the next set of batteries is drastically lower.
So yes, the initial 'startup cost' of the batteries is high, but thereafter the batteries can be recycled an theoretically infinite number of times, which brings it's 'total lifetime energy cost' far below what a Hummer could ever expect.
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Re:Breaking news! (Score:5, Informative)
Those wind turbines are LOUD. Let me put one in your back yard and you'll run screaming from the house in less than 24hrs. ... ask the bird population how much they like us sticking a bunch of food processor blades into the air?
FUD, FUD, FUD.
Modern wind turbines are neither shaped like a propeller, nor do they operate at high speeds. Consequently, they don't make much noise, either.
The most efficient designs are all vertical turbines, many of which actually operate at fairly low RPMs, and some of which were used by the ancient Romans. So actually, ancient wind turbines didn't have these problems either.
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Re:Breaking news! (Score:5, Funny)
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How the hell... (Score:5, Insightful)
Did spam make it to the front page?
It has to be a really slow news day if we get an article explaining what is in specific pieces of spam.
I'm waiting patiently for Slashdot to post the Nigerian folks that always email for the millions they have to give away. Because you know -- that is real news. For nerds. Stuff that matters.
Slashdot is just a good corporate citizen. (Score:5, Funny)
Be sure you filter out any email about Iran [slashdot.org] to help out Uncle Sam. Oh yeah, buy war bonds and get back to wark.
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Re:How the hell... (Score:5, Funny)
It has to be a really slow news day if we get an article explaining what is in specific pieces of spam.
I'm a fan of the subjects. Here's a handful I've received recently:
It's basic marketing / copywriting.
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Re:How the hell... (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:How the hell... (Score:5, Funny)
Natalie Portman shaves again
I'm glad to hear that, I never really liked her with the beard.
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Re:How the hell... (Score:5, Funny)
I've never seen that one before -- and it's simultaneously the funniest euphemism for that I've heard in a while, and the most shockingly wrong way to put that!
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Re:How the hell... (Score:5, Interesting)
The most invoative one I saw slip by my filter recently was:
Increase the effectiveness of your copulation organ
I found this troubling in that the only word I could safely blacklist on our corporate mail filters is probably
copulation
I can't imagine anyone except maybe the HR department needing to send work related message with that word in the subject, and even then I can't imagine it would be hit our public MX.
If copulation could be eliminated then blocking a spam like this will only be possible via the statistical analysis of the entire message; sure this entire specific subject might be filterable but not the individual words.
Unless something is a miss in the headers its going to get by.
It made me wonder if the doom and gloom folks might be correct in that SPAM will make traditional mail realy useless. Sadly SPF and related methods are not an option as we just can't count on our customers to implement it and risk not being about to exchange mail with them. Sure if a problem is discovered whitelists can be used but by then you may have lost an account.
The other interesting thing is that would anyone educated enough to have the vocabulary to required understand that subject be ignorant enough to respond? I know the economics of SPAM are such that even if 1 in a million people bite, its worth it but as that first number approches 0 its gotta stop being worth while somewhere.
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Re:How the hell... (Score:5, Funny)
The other interesting thing is that would anyone educated enough to have the vocabulary to required understand that subject be ignorant enough to respond?
An interesting question, undoubtedly the forte of many an erudite scholar, but by this point in your post I was far to enthralled by my quest for illicit viagra to ponder its myriad complexities.
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Re:How the hell... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:How the hell... (Score:5, Funny)
*sigh*
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Re:How the hell... (Score:5, Funny)
That's no spam, that's your girlfriend.
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Re:How the hell... (Score:5, Funny)
'Louder screaming is only the beginning'
That may be the one and only spam that made my day better.
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OK, Here's my top picks from the past week or so. (Score:5, Funny)
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Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
Survivalist Suppliers announces - buy a lifetimes supply of Viagra for your mountain forest bunker today. What are you going to do when the black gold runs out - you won't be able to drive to the pharmacy then. One large box lasts 5 years and only costs $99.99. Buy a lifetimes supply and get an extra 50% absolutely free. Cash payments only.
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Re:Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
If you buy a lifetime supply why do you need the 50% extra?
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Re:Hmm (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
Death by snoo snoo?
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Re:Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
World War III is starting? Oh god, I still haven't received my check from that Nigerian prince! And where's my viagra?
Yeah, because that's the first thing I'm going to be worried about when WWIII starts: Boners.
Though I guess it is a legitimate concern, due to the widespread boner shortage in the states in WWII, which didn't end until after the war when the market was flooded with them.
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Re:Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
See, we have to preserve our purity. of. essence. and repopulate the planet.
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Re:Hmm (Score:4, Funny)
Mr. President; we must not allow a mine-shaft gap!
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Repercussions (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder what the possible effects of a coordinated disinformation attack of such nature would be, if it managed to deliver said news to a large segment of the world's population (that have access to email). If such an act was coupled with a successful hacking operation on even one of the major news network's websites, serious consequences may erupt.
Doesn't sound like spam... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Doesn't sound like spam... (Score:5, Informative)
Bot nets are used to push out more malware-pushing content, the better to grow the bot net. These can be used very effectively to extort cash from web site operators by means of a site-debilitating distributed denial of service attacks. Many bot nets are used to try hugely random (and somewhat successful) SQL injection attacks from all sorts of random IP addresses, the better to target specific users of specific web sites with JS-based malware iFrames, etc. The days of just trying to get you to buy something are
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This is the way the world ends (Score:5, Funny)
Not with a bang but a can of luncheon meat.
GWASTED (Score:5, Funny)
This gives me a new hope.
Now we can divert some of the resources from the Global War On Terror (GWOT) and fight the Global War Against Spam, Terror, & Erectile Dysfunction (GWASTED).
Re:GWASTED (Score:4, Funny)
GWASTED
Don't mind if I do!
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Fools (Score:5, Funny)
WWIII isn't scheduled to begin for another two weeks, and it's going to involve a fake attack on the US by "Iran" (actually the CIA) followed by a massive "retaliatory strike", not an invasion by any US forces. Can't these spammers get anything right?
Re:Fools (Score:5, Funny)
No, no, no. Two weeks from now Europe, Russia, and Central Asia unite and declare the second Soviet Union. Then the CIA (which is secretly a branch of the KGB) sends secret agents to hijack the International Space Station (secretly insured by the guy that owned the Twin Towers) and crash it onto their own headquarters. After that, Canada, the USA, Mexico, and (just because it'd be weird) Chile unite and invade Iran, at which point the Chinese (who are secretly controlled by New Zealand) nuke us. Then we nuke them. And then the Russians nuke Australia, just for good measure.
In the mean time, Charlton Heston (who secretly isn't actually dead) has somehow gotten into a light-speed rocket, and...
Did I miss anything? Oh right, the Antichrist. Well fuck him, this conspiracy theory is already full. Besides, nobody likes Dick Cheney anyway.
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What obvious poppycock! (Score:5, Funny)
It's amazing how people can be tricked by something that is on its surface so laughable that it should be dismissed outright!
After all, how could World War III possibly have started when World War II hasn't even ended yet?! Just because there's no obvious troop movements or visible battles doesn't mean that merged ghosts of Churchill and Roosevelt along with their dark ally Zombie Stalin don't yet wage war against the forces of Hitler's Head and the demon-animated armor of Hirohito! No, you can see the effects of this conflict every day in the fluctuations of the price of milk to the record of the Essex cricket team. So don't believe anything you read about some ludicrous World War III until you see the purple flag of the Undying Allies flying over the White House, indicating our inevitable triumph!
After that, though, it's fair game.
In an effort to immitate spammers... (Score:5, Funny)
The Iranians are coming (Score:5, Funny)
One if by Spam,
Two if by sea.
Blowing up the Earth? (Score:5, Funny)
Crap, that's where I keep all my stuff.
Easy (Score:5, Interesting)
this is is particularly eye catching, given current work events. Since it is different, many people will click on it anyways.
I know some people who I will be sending an email to about this story so they don't click on it.
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Re:Censorship set up? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you might need to loosen your tinfoil hat there a little bit buddy...
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Re:Impossible, or highly unlikely for quite some t (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no question WW/III would have happened if the United States hadn't taken over nearly all the military operations in Europe.
"No question"? Really? [citation needed].
Perhaps you're thinking about the Morgenthau Plan [wikipedia.org], which was a primarily economic effort (which only lasted a few years) to "industrially disarm" Germany.
To the best of my knowledge, the primary reason for the stationing of US troops in Europe was to expand the US sphere of influence here (yes, I'm European) as a bulwark against the Soviets -- with whom relations were already beginning to deteriorate at the close of the war.
And no, I can't be bothered to dig up references for that, which I suppose makes me a hypocrite but hey, technically I should be working! :)
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