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Subliminal Spam Using an Animated GIF 216

Posted by kdawson from the you-are-getting-sleeeeepy dept.
JohnGrahamCumming writes "Everyone's noticed the recent flood of image spam (including the SpamAssassin developers who are working on an OCR-extension to beat it), but take a look at this spam containing a subliminal message flashed every 17 seconds to try to entice you to buy the stock being pumped. Does this work? Warning: link shows the actual spam; don't blame me if you lose money on this stock!"
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Subliminal Spam Using an Animated GIF More

Subliminal Spam Using an Animated GIF

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  • That's ridiculous. (Score:5, Funny)

    by DrunkenTerror ( 561616 ) on Monday September 04, 2006 @03:49PM (#16039391) Homepage Journal
    It's actually a pretty good stock.

    • A little history is in order here. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 04, 2006 @06:17PM (#16040085)
      When I was in college in the sixty's I attended a talk on subliminal advertising and there were some rather interesting points. First, advertisers determined the speed at which it worked, then crossed the outstretched palms of their coin-operated congressmen to define a much faster speed as "subliminal," thus clearing the legal field. Next they performed a major experiment. At that time (maybe still, I don't watch the boob tube at all) Pillsbury had an ad where a cartoon "Dough Boy" would jump out of a roll of biscuits when it was hit on a table edge and proclaim the "wonderfullness" of the product. A subliminal spot of a pregnant woman was placed just before Dough Boy jumped out . . . and sales soared. There was also a major flap about some "scientist" who supposedly faked his data on subliminal advertising, which played right into the advertisers hands, of course, so who knows what to believe?

      BillyDoc

  • Subliminal messages (Score:5, Insightful)

    by personman21 ( 762072 ) on Monday September 04, 2006 @03:50PM (#16039395)
    Don't work. This supposed message is so obvious it's hard not to laugh.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by rritterson ( 588983 ) *
      If you are aware of the message, it's not subliminal--it's just plain liminal.

      There is a lot of subliminal messages in advertising, especially on TV. Given our consumerist culture, i'd say it's working fairly well.

    • The article on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] is actually pretty good. There may be some transitory or faint effects caused by subliminal messages. Advertisers have been trying to capitalize on this possibility for 49 years.

      If subliminal messages had any significant effect we would know about it. They've been trying for years.

      There have been interesting claims at subliminal messages in popular music. KAKE-TV in Wichita, Kansas, used a subliminal message to attempt catch the BTK killer, but it had no perceptible effect.

      I'd

      • Re:Also Doesn't Work (Wikipedia) (Score:5, Funny)

        by FhnuZoag ( 875558 ) on Monday September 04, 2006 @05:26PM (#16039836)
        The seemingly random bolding of text in your comment gives me a sudden urge to buy stuff.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Jeremi ( 14640 )
        If subliminal messages had any significant effect we would know about it


        Gee, I always thought that if they were working properly we wouldn't know it... :^)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by k-0s ( 237787 )

        There have been interesting claims at subliminal messages in popular music. KAKE-TV in Wichita, Kansas, used a subliminal message to attempt catch the BTK killer, but it had no perceptible effect.

        ...Or he just doesn't/didn't listen to the radio/television, or if he did maybe he tuned in to a different channel. Subliminal messages is the only way I can account for some of the most ridiculous decisions the general public makes about its entertainment, consumption, politics and lifestyle. For fear of being

    • Oh my God! My boss died at the office Friday morning while I was away- the medics were calling it a heart attack, but it was blipverts!

      Somebody call Edison Carter.

      And get that little twerp Bryce in here. I want a word with him.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by neax ( 961176 )
      I thought [send me] that [all] Subliminal messages [your] were supposed [money] to be subtle....

  • Nope. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Phroggy ( 441 ) * <slashdot3@@@phroggy...com> on Monday September 04, 2006 @03:50PM (#16039397) Homepage
    This really has nothing to do with subliminal messages, and everything to do with trying to defeat OCR software. I was seeing animated GIFs exactly like this where the "buy" frames were just blank, before they started adding "BUY!" to those frames.

    • Re:Nope. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Curmudgeonlyoldbloke ( 850482 ) on Monday September 04, 2006 @04:30PM (#16039599)
      Nah - it's just someone " 'aving a larf " and trying to make their spam stand out for a split-second among all the other spam.

      It worked though - even though the original article is slashdotted all of the images have been reproduced here. The spammers must be laughing all the way to the bank...

  • Except.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by madaxe42 ( 690151 ) on Monday September 04, 2006 @03:50PM (#16039398) Homepage
    Outlook doesn't support animated gifs (nor most CSS, but that's another matter...!) - I received one of these this morning but all it showed was the 'buy buy buy' frame - my response was 'what an utterly utterly pointless spam'.
    • I 've seen the "buy" flashing today and it was on outlook. Too slow to be subliminal (score one for windows bloat and poor performance, it is a 3ghz desktop).
    • Er, are you sure?

      I occasionally design animated gif web banners and I've emailed them to clients for approval from Outlook to Outlook, and they've shown up (animated) just fine. Last time was all of a couple of months ago.

      That's Outlook 2000 (I think). I know 2003 removed automatic display of images, perhaps that's what you're thinking of, but at any rate that's all images, animated or otherwise.

  • Well... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sv-Manowar ( 772313 ) on Monday September 04, 2006 @03:51PM (#16039400) Homepage Journal
    Seems to me as if the people behind the spam have been reading a few too many articles about subliminal marketing and are just trying their luck. What i'd be more worried about if I was them would be using an animated gif in massive mailing, surely that is going to heavily suck bandwidth (as much as they do have, a lot of resources go in to the mailing and the hardware to power it). If I were them I'd stick with the text plea, I'm far more likely to want to help out the prince of Nigeria than a 1998-style flashing .gif.

    • What i'd be more worried about if I was them would be using an animated gif in massive mailing, surely that is going to heavily suck bandwidth (as much as they do have, a lot of resources go in to the mailing and the hardware to power it)

      The key is, they don't pay for those resources. They use some sort of a "bot-net" to send the mail - "zombie" computers, often on residential broadband connections which have been contaminated with some virus (or something virus-like, trojan, backdoor, et cetera - the spec

  • Bah (Score:5, Funny)

    by wirelessbuzzers ( 552513 ) on Monday September 04, 2006 @03:51PM (#16039402)
    Bah. They could have been slightly more subtle. I mean, three frames in a row? For Pete's sake, how stupid do they think we are?

    • Re:Bah (Score:5, Funny)

      by CreateWindowEx ( 630955 ) on Monday September 04, 2006 @04:06PM (#16039487)
      Studies have shown that subliminal advertising, much like the typical slashdot post, is mostly full of it.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Isotopian ( 942850 )
        This is pure hogwash. Do you always believe everything you read is true? Surely, a person like yourself, i would hope, wouldn't be so gullible. You should make it a point to safeguard against foolish trysts such as that.
      • Full of it? Subliminal ads and related tactics were banned back when James Vicary's bogus marketing claims were first circulated, but the overall neutral-to-positive trend observed for results in every study done so far means it at least won't hurt to try mixing it with other more conventional methods when you're already on the wrong side of the law.

  • For the impatient (Score:3, Informative)

    by Southpaw018 ( 793465 ) * on Monday September 04, 2006 @03:52PM (#16039411) Journal
    Here's the four frames extracted.
    Main image [moofit.com]
    Subliminal image 1 [moofit.com]
    Subliminal image 2 [moofit.com]
    Subliminal image 3 [moofit.com]

    The subliminal images are shown for a fraction of a second every few seconds.
    • Looks like something made by a 15year old in coreldraw.

      Well, whoever really spends time to read that godaweful "text" picture deserves to be "brain manipulated"
    • 1. Create subliminal spam message.
      2. (was ???) post it on slashdot so everyone read it
      3. Profit!

      This spammers are getting smarter and smarter, how can a spam image get to the homepage of such a news site like slashdot?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bcmm ( 768152 )
      Shhh! If you post the contents of the article like that, it takes the fun out of pretending to have read it!
    • But first I need contact my accountant and have him purchase some TMXO stock. I just have this gut feeling....I'm SURE it's going to skyrocket. No, really.

  • Block all Images (Score:3, Insightful)

    by telchine ( 719345 ) on Monday September 04, 2006 @03:53PM (#16039412)
    OCR is a ridiculous solution. It can be easily combatted by spammers in the same way the CAPTCHA images defeat OCR techniques.

    My solution:

    For email addresses that are on spam databases, I block all emails that contain images at the MTA level.

    Anyone who has good reason to be sending me images will know my non spam-infested address.

     

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by mkavanagh2 ( 776662 )
      CAPTCHA images defeat OCR techniques? To my knowledge most text-image CAPTCHAs don't defeat sophisticated OCR and those that do are hardly likely to be easily readable enough to spam any but the most gullible to any effect.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xtracto ( 837672 )
      Just today I was thinking (and looked a bit on how to setup an email server on Ubuntu and found a nice howto over the forums) on a way to prevent spam.

      I have seen something similar in some emails that, after you send an email they return a mail saying that you need to re-send the email to verify that you are a human. However, I thought that It would be excellent to send this mail with a CAPTCHA and tell the recipent just to hit REPLY and write in the subject of the message the text in the image.

      I would use
      • However, I thought that It would be excellent to send this mail with a CAPTCHA and tell the recipent just to hit REPLY and write in the subject of the message the text in the image.

        And get the business that you represent sued for discriminazism against blind people.

    • I just had this great idea; if I turn off my home phone service I won't get any telemarketing calls. If I get rid of the television I don't have to watch commercials. If I don't drive, I won't have to look at billboards.

      Only pedophiles get animated gifs in their e-mail anyways...

  • Not subliminal! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Glock27 ( 446276 ) on Monday September 04, 2006 @03:54PM (#16039419)
    I can clearly see the words flash when the .gif animates.

    Therefore, it's not subliminal, since the flashed frame is supposed to be imperceptible to the conscious mind.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by chriscoolc ( 954268 )
      Not to help them out, but next time they need to leave the main text visible in the subliminal images.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Firehed ( 942385 )
      Had TFA not told you they'd be there, would you have noticed?

      I think in this case, probably yes, but I was waiting for it like you probably were. I think someone actually reading the message (that's to say, the type stupid enough to take stock advice in spam seriously) might just think it was a light flickering.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Gnavpot ( 708731 )
        Had TFA not told you they'd be there, would you have noticed?


        Noticed that the text you are reading dissappears for a very long moment?

        Yes of course. When you have to stop reading because the text disappears, I would say it is very noticable.

  • Sad Situation (Score:2, Insightful)

    by NaCh0 ( 6124 )
    Email spam has turned into an arms race of who can outrun the spam assassin developers. Will flash email be the next big thing? I sure hope not.

    Really, the best thing I ever did in my email client was to turn off image loading.

    --
    Arizona Web Design [initusdesign.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by daeg ( 828071 )
      I sure hope it is. Whoever uses an e-mail client that displays inline Flash deserves to get spammed and malwared to death.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by arivanov ( 12034 )
        Tell that to the marketing department when they come and bitch at you about the corporate Christmas greeting showing nicely on the computer of the moron contracted to make it "flashy" and not being visible in the corporate email client.

  • Not quite subliminal (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 04, 2006 @04:00PM (#16039453)
    How many people would actually sit and look at this image for 17 seconds? It only takes a fraction of a second to realize it's junk.

    Did the blogger even READ the wikipedia article linked to? It says "These messages are indiscernible to the conscious mind". I can almost count the number of BUYs in the image.

    I bet this is more of an attempt to get around OCR spam detectors that don't support animated gifs.

  • Interesting (Score:4, Informative)

    by mugnyte ( 203225 ) on Monday September 04, 2006 @04:01PM (#16039458) Journal

      I seriously doubt the capbilities of a GIF to recreate a true subliminal advertisement. It's a bit dependent on the screen position, machine load, audience's focus, etc. With a movie or a a captured TV audience, it's a bit stronger. Also, this isn't a metaphorical allure, but simply a crude flashing.

    For some things subliminal messages can work. [sleeplearning.com] For others, it is well-known to be completely ineffective. [about.com]

    I doubt this is going to be much of a difference in SPAM, and is rather a sales differentiation point for a mass marketeer. Somebody is paying extra for this, for sure.
    • For some things subliminal messages can work. For others, it is well-known to be completely ineffective.

      Yeah, it's a pity that Vicary actually falsified the results [snopes.com] of his now-infamous theatre experiment. Futhermore, I challenge you to provide any real evidence of a controlled, repeated study in which subliminal advertising was actually proven to work. My guess, you can't.
      • Yeah, it's a pity that Vicary actually falsified the results of his now-infamous theatre experiment.

        Are you kidding? I, for one, am extremely glad that his original conclusions are wrong, that the human mind cannot be manipulated as easily as this quack posited. If Vicary's fudged results had been correct, and considering the capability of corporations and governments to misuse and abuse the resources at their disposal, we'd probably be living in a much more draconian world than we already are!

        On a sideno
        • Are you kidding? I, for one, am extremely glad that his original conclusions are wrong

          Apparently I needed sarcasm tags... :)
  • The thing about subliminal advertising, as I understand it, is that it needs to be subliminal which is defined as 'existing or operating below the threshold of consciousness' and with the advertising frame in this example being observable by the human eye, it's hardly a threat. However, while this particular example is ridiculously amateurish, it got me to wondering if it is possible for someone who isn't a dolt to create something more insidious and effective. Is there a fixed framerate for animated gifs?

    • Re:Cause for concern? (Score:5, Informative)

      by parallax ( 8950 ) on Monday September 04, 2006 @04:24PM (#16039569) Homepage
      No, there is no cause for concern.

      I did a Ph.D. on the use of preattentive perception (read "subliminal") on just-in-time memory support. This was the "Memory Glasses" project that got a bunch of media attention a few years ago -- you may have even seen me pitching it to Alan Alada on PBS's Scientific American Frontiers "you can make it on your own" [pbs.org] episode.

      The long and short of it is that, yes -- properly encoded, "subliminal messages" can jog your memory, but no, they don't otherwise work as sug,gestions or influence your behavior. If you're curious, you can actually read my dissertation on the Memory Glasses [devaul.net] and find out more.

      There was a lot of hype in the 70's and 80's about the evils of subliminal marketing, but it was all based on junk science with forged data.

  • Slashdot a better spam blocker (Score:4, Funny)

    by gardyloo ( 512791 ) on Monday September 04, 2006 @04:02PM (#16039466)
    If only we can just have every one of these things submitted to /. The resulting slashdotting will simply remove their servers. Easy!

  • New slashdot business model (Score:4, Informative)

    by mnmn ( 145599 ) on Monday September 04, 2006 @04:02PM (#16039467) Homepage
    (1) Send out spam using a new technique
    (2) Post on slashdot telling people about the spam
    (3) Get enormous viewership
    (4) Profit!

    Just wait for the new Viagra technologies slashdot articles.
  • sub-human to fall for that.

  • ... their non-gif stuff. I'm not about to buy a stock which is advertised with multiple exclamation !!! marks. And with incomplete sentences.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Phroggy ( 441 ) *
      ... their non-gif stuff. I'm not about to buy a stock which is advertised with multiple exclamation !!! marks. And with incomplete sentences.

      I would hope that you wouldn't buy anything that was advertised via spam, regardless of the apparent quality of presentation. However, consider this: a lot of the spam I see is nearly unintelligible, because the intelligible spam already got blocked by my spam filtering.
      • It might depend on what you consider spam. I get email from nintendo about upcoming products, that I signed up for because I want to get it. Mind you, somebody who registered their GC and didn't read everything, may be getting the messages without really realizing that they signed up for them. They may also not be savvy enough to look for an unsubscribe link. For ther person who's getting this email, and doesn't want to, they see it as spam. For me, it's perfectly legitimate mail.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Phroggy ( 441 ) *
          If someone actually signed up to receive e-mail, and then decides they don't want it, that doesn't make it spam. If the user thinks it's spam, it doesn't mean the definition of spam is subjective, it just means the user is wrong.

          If I were to receive the same e-mail that you're receiving even though I didn't sign up for it, because Nintendo scraped my e-mail address off a web page or used a Windows virus to extract it from someone's address book or bought a CD containing 500 million e-mail addresses for $50

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shawb ( 16347 )
        Some of that "unintelligable spam" isn't actually spam, but messages sent to essentially confuse spam filters. To catch the real spam as well as these, you would have to tighten your filters a bit, but that could create falso positives. So they are basically cannon fodder sent to retrain your filters.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ilgaz ( 86384 )
      Sssh, don't wake them up. It is still a great filter for people not having "intelligent" spam filters. ;)

      If message includes "!!!" in subject, move to trash. (If you have friends using !!!, tell them to see a doctor about mania treatment)

      Works like wonder on my Yahoo mailbox since filters introduced, it still busts some undetected spam by Yahoo.

      For Korean spam, use "3/4" symbol for detecting. Unless you aren't working at Wall Street of course.

      BTW those things were added by me before Spam detection etc. was
  • After a couple of training messages, dspam is picking these spams (with or without the animated gif) with great accuracy. Even if dspam has no idea what the spam message is saying, these spam messages are sufficiently different from any of my normal e-mail that they stand out very much to the baysian algorithms.
  • Who looks at a piece of spam for the 17 seconds required to view the 'subliminal' advertising frames?

  • No, it doesn't. (Score:5, Informative)

    by DynaSoar ( 714234 ) * on Monday September 04, 2006 @04:17PM (#16039533) Journal
    > Does it work?

    Rarely and barely. Under very controlled conditions, with very careful measurement, a very slight effect which lasts a very short time can sometimes be found. However, most of the conditions under which people attempt to use it are so uncontrolled (ie. the entirety of whatever environment you're in is affecting you) that there'd be no way to detect the usually tiny effect. If anyone claims it has effect in such a situation, they have no clue how it works, and are probably trying to sell advertising to someone who is so desparate that they have even less of a clue.

    The reality of the matter doesn't keep it from happening. Greed drives people to try things that would make even a habitual lottery ticket buyer snicker. For many years (and still, as far as I know) advertisers of tobacco and alcohol would have grotesque death images airbrushed into their magazine and billboard ads. This was based on the dual assumption that subliminals work, and Freud's theory that there was a ubiquitous "death wish", and it was stronger and more prone to manipulation in people who used these substances.

    We've dispresnsed with the first, given that magazines and billboards are hardly "controlled" environments. Freud dispensed with the second before he died, years before this was ever attempted.

    Despite overwhelming odds against it, advertisers still paid to have these images inserted into their ads. I know of one couple who worked at a commercial art house in New York who made $125,000 together in 1978 doing nothing but these. Large corporations will gamble large amounts way out of proportion for any real return just to grab a tenth of a per cent from competitors. John Sculley's biography about his Pepsi days talks about this greed effect (though not subliminals).

    The very first "attempt at subliminals" (the "popcorn and Coke" experiment in a movie theater) was a hoax. Like all such material, it is properly filed on snopes.com, along with the rest of the story. http://www.snopes.com/business/hidden/popcorn.asp [snopes.com]
    • Do you have any references to information about these hidden images? I have worked for an ad agency, and I know lots of people who work for ad agencies, and never ever has anyone ever actually done an ad with any sort of subliminal images or hidden images or anything like that. Pretty much there is universal agreement that it doesn't work, and it has never been done.

      That isn't to say someone hasn't done it... if you could post a link to some documentation, I will keep an open mind... but I am pretty sure a
      • Documentation from within an advertisitng company would constitute internal communications. Not working for one, if I had any, it'd probably be illegally and I wouldn't admit to it here. If you work for one, you should realize that, since they hold their ideas to be so dear. I have only my discussions with the couple I know and their word for it that they did it, and for how much.

        As for whether anyone has done so, examine tobacco and alcohol ads, primarily in men's magazines between 1970 and 1990, after hav
        • And as for the advertising industry claiming that all such advertising was an urban myth, if I were them that's what I'd be saying by now in those places where it's criticized. In the board room where advertising is sold it might go differently. No offense, but we are discussing the advertising industry here, people who make their living saying what benefits them.

          Except that I worked in an ad agency, and I know people who currently work in ad agencies. I know people who are in the boardroom, and people who

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Jerf ( 17166 )
            It might be worth pointing out the poster you are arguing with used the past tense and the only concrete chronological reference was to 1978. Arguing that people aren't doing it today doesn't do much about his point that they were doing it then.

            I would hope they aren't wasting that kind of money today. It's one thing to try it for a while, it's another to keep trying it long after it's proven to be bunk.
  • Everyone's noticed the recent flood of image spam...

    I haven't. I can't even remember the last spam message I've seen, period--not even in my throwaway accounts.
  • No

    Even if it gets past my spam filters the moment I see rubbish like this it gets deleted. If I want stock picks I employ a professional, not a scum sucking spammer.

    Ed Almos
    • If I want stock picks I employ a professional, not a scum sucking spammer.

      These stock spams aren't meant to benefit YOU, they're meant to pump and dump worthless stocks so the spammers or their customers can make money fast and get out with the clueless buyers holding worthless overpriced stock.
  • I just kill any flashing gifs.

    Typically if the site requires flash I skip it. I find it unbeleiveable that Macromedia didn't put in an option to kill unwanted flash. But I guess this says something about the company. So - one day I'll just neuter flash in this browser when I get pissed off enough to do it.

    I had to laugh at poking fun at a real estate agent. He has an awful website. I told him if he wants to sell to me then his website isn't doing its job.

    One has to hit them where it counts - right in t
    • GM's stock might have taken a fall in the past few years, but so have many american companies. It's actually been on a short term increase since GM, Toyota and Hyundai where the only auto manufactures to post a net gain, it has not come back from it's glory days five years ago however. Another thing to keep in mind is GM is ranked #3 of the Fortune 500 for a second year running and #1 out of the auto industry (followed closely by Ford). I don't think we will see GM drop out of the market just yet. They are

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Buran ( 150348 )
      Since they were the ones who screwed up, they should have had to pay to fix the problem. Next time they try to stick you with a bill for their stupidity, in ADDITION to dropping them as a customer, casually say that they'll be hearing from your lawyer regarding trying to defraud you by forcing you to pay for their mistake. Spark plug change is advertised as costing $x, you pay $x, not $x+$y fuckup fee.
  • Ok...we all know how creative and inventive spammers have gotten, and yes, I realize it only takes a couple of idiots to make it profitable...but come on...you REALLY have to wonder WHO IN THE HELL IS BUYING INTO THIS?!

    Honestly, not only is a lot of the spam completely unintelligible, but it just looks so phony its hard not to laugh. Does anybody on /. personally know anybody who's actually purchased something from spam? What about the really bad retarded spam like this?

    I know I should never underestimate

  • this is one of the reasons why I still use mutt - don't have to look at the images/attachments unless I choose to

    I've used outlook, eudora, hotmail, gmail, yahoomail, squirrelmail, webmail, pine, mm ...

    and I still always come back to mutt. I get to control it, archive it, its fast easy, and completely immune to this kids of spamming.

  • Short TMXO now!

    Ironically, I read an article about a guy who started shorting all the spam stocks that he got, and made $8000 in 2 weeks worth of trading. Personally I would neither short nor buy any stock I heard about from spam.

  • Most successful ever (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dcapel ( 913969 ) on Monday September 04, 2006 @04:45PM (#16039662) Homepage
    That piece of spam is possibly the most cost-effective individual piece of spam ever: the spammer sent it to one person and gets 25000+ views of it instead.
  • Nope, haven't noticed at all. I have image loading turned off by default.
  • Stop image spam [neilturner.me.uk] in Thunderbird. Or use pine or something else text based. Does anyone know of a adblock like extension fith a filterset updater for spam - so many of us get the same damn spam something like this would be useful.

    Have to give it to these guys +1 for creativity -783,114,039,832 for implementation. YOU LOSE!
  • Bah! I use pine or mutt for most of my e-mail. Combined with spamassassin so most of the crap gets plonked before I have to see it.

    -b.

  • ...it's just that you need special glasses [imdb.com] to see what's going on.

  • For a good laugh, read their SEC filing (Score:5, Informative)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Monday September 04, 2006 @05:55PM (#16039981) Homepage
    Here's their most recent quarterly SEC filing. [sec.gov]

    Fun highlights:

    • Urbanesq.com Inc. ("Urbanesq") was incorporated August 25, 2000 under the laws of the Province of Canada. Effective October 18, 2001, Urbanesq completed a merger with Koala International Wireless Inc. ("Koala"), a public company incorporated in the State of Nevada...changed the name of the Company to Trimax Corporation...
    • On July 29, 2005, the Company entered into an Exclusive Supply agreement ... provided the Company with the exclusive right to sell Switzerland based Ascom broadband over power line communication access products ("Products") in Canada and non-exclusive rights world wide, which the "Partner" represented that it had secured itself from Ascom. ... Subsequent to the signing and the advancement of funds for the "Exclusive Supply Agreement" the company was made aware that the product supplier had no right to grant a sub-license from Ascom. Furthermore, the supplier was previously in default and was never in any position to grant any sub-license on its own license.
    • The Company has not earned any revenues from limited principal operations...
    • Total Current Assets: $105,115. Total current liabilities: $536,870.

    So, after six years, the company has zero revenue and couldn't even get set up as a second-tier reseller of broadband over powerline products. Which is probably why the stock is at $0.38 and headed down.

    If you go back to older related SEC filings, you can find the story of the "Hipster portable Internet access device" (didn't happen), and the previous history of Koala International Wireless as a vitamin company under the name "Kettle River Group" (also a flop).

    This stock is not "poised for a breakthrough". Except maybe in the down direction.

    • Urbanesq.com Inc. ("Urbanesq") was incorporated August 25, 2000 under the laws of the Province of Canada. Effective October 18, 2001, Urbanesq completed a merger with Koala International Wireless Inc. ("Koala"), a public company incorporated in the State of Nevada...changed the name of the Company to Trimax Corporation...

      Err... Canada's actual name is the Dominion of Canada, not the Province of Canada. Provinces are political divisions within the country.... Just to begin punching holes in it, that is....

  • I took a look at the image. After about 17 seconds of trying to see the subliminal part I was thinking "hmmm, maybe I missed it; this is actually subliminal".
    And then the image went through 2 insanely obvious flashes. Anyone capable of viewing this image is capable of noticing the "subliminal messaging".

    Subliminal messaging pretty much looses it's effect if it's not subliminal.

    OMG BUY BUY BUY MY STOCK
    (ignore the above line, you didn't see it)
  • This is either a publicity stunt or the work of legendary idiots. There is no research to show the effectiveness of subliminal advertising (at least the kind that involves flashing an image for a fraction of a second in your central vision.) Surely someone with the determination to spread these ads would have done some basic research on their effectiveness, and determined that they were not effective. This seems more like a "no publicity is bad publicity, so LOOK AT ME!" kind of stunt.
  • I'm going to buy it just because it got slashdotted!

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