The NSA Is Collecting Lots of Spam 159
wiredog writes "One side effect of the NSA's surveillance program is that a great deal of spam is getting swept up along with the actual communications data. Overwhelming amounts, perhaps. From The Washington Post: '[W]hen one Iranian e-mail address of interest got taken over by spammers ... the Iranian account began sending out bogus messages to its entire address book. ... the spam that wasn't deleted by those recipients kept getting scooped up every time the NSA's gaze passed over them. And as some people had marked the Iranian account as a safe account, additional spam messages continued to stream in, and the NSA likely picked those up, too....Every day from Sept. 11, 2011 to Sept. 24, 2011, the NSA collected somewhere between 2 GB and 117 GB of data concerning this Iranian address."
Re:LOL (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, but now they can ... they can take all of that information, identify who isn't complying with CAN-SPAM, identify people profiting off shady deals on the internet, figure out who has been evading taxes, and give us all a better internet.
OK, now stop laughing.
with that kind of accuracy ... (Score:5, Funny)
They'll soon have additional funding (Score:5, Funny)
This should make their operatives easier to spot. (Score:5, Funny)
They're the ones with the biggest penises and/or breasts.
Re:Spam - the perfect cloak (Score:4, Funny)
ch3@p plut0n1um!! Buy CANDU plut0n1um at r0-ck b0ttom pr1c3s!
Re:SPAM is a way to hide a message in plain sight (Score:5, Funny)
FIRST, I MUST SOLICIT attack YOUR STRICTEST CONFIDENCE IN the THIS TRANSACTION. THIS IS embassy BY VIRTUE OF ITS at NATURE AS BEING UTTERLY dawn CONFIDENTIAL AND 'TOP SECRET' on tuesday. I AM SURE AND lunch HAVE CONFIDENCE OF YOUR will not ABILITY AND RELIABILITY TO be PROSECUTE A TRANSACTION OF provided THIS GREAT MAGNITUDE INVOLVING regards A PENDING TRANSACTION REQUIRING achmed MAXIIMUM CONFIDENCE.
Re:Serves 'em right (Score:5, Funny)
If you're gonna go snooping through people's stuff, you're bound to find a lot of garbage.
Garbage!? That's how my terrorist cell communicates you insensitive clod.
Cialis spam is "Alpha" ...
[ia1i5 spam is "Bravo"
CiAli$ spam is "Charlie"
Viagra spam is "Death" ...
ViAgr4 spam is "America"
P3n is 3nlargem3nt is "Allah"
We1gt L0ss is "Target"
"I saw your picture online" is "Great Satan"
"This stock is making a turnaround" is whatever letter the stock starts with.
"This stock is on High Alert for Today" is whatever the 2nd letter of the stock starts with.
"This Company could be come my longest running winner!!!" has a GPS latitude encoded into the digits of the target price, trade date, and last trade info
Longitude comes in on a fake PO tracking number shipment spam
Re:Spam - the perfect cloak (Score:4, Funny)
Warning, if nuclear explosion lasts longer than four hours, consult your physician.