The New Spam?

[static anonymity]

Ok, I'm sure you're all familiar by now with the various "send this email to x amount of people and get a free ...", right? Or what about the "forward this to x people and you're wish will come true in 2 weeks, send to y amount of people and it'll come true in one week" type things? Well, after reading something that I randomly found in my inbox today, I'm questioning its authenticity.

Hi - [e-mail]

Sent from Gemma Brown.

I recently received a chain letter (A piece of mail that had been forwarded to me) that had your e-mail address in it along with several other peoples.

I thought that as your mail address was on one of these chain letters (forwards) you may have others that you would be willing to send to me. I know that this might sound like a daft request but I can assure you that this is a serious request. I am involved in a university project that is based over a year and we are analysing Internet mail, we are trying to ascertain trends and patterns to come up with some fairly accurate statistics regarding the type of mail that circulates around the internet, we know that 70% of all mail is spam but what we don’t know is what percentage of that spam accounts for chain mail (forwards of any type, something that has been forwarded to you, a piece of mail that has formed part of a chain).

Please send absolutely anything and everything that remotely resembles chain mail, forwards of any type (even the rude ones). My project is based over a year and I need one million forwards for this project to be a success, so please keep them coming and don’t worry I have some pretty huge mail boxes.

I would be grateful if you would be kind enough to forward this piece of mail to all your friends as I need as much help as I can get.

Please send all chain mail (forwards) to the following address. [e-mail]

Everyone that helps will receive a copy of our results and findings in January of next year so please help if you can.

Thanks

Gemma

Reference No - (JFH3P5ITEN0)

You will only receive this mail the once, it will not be sent to you again and your e-mail address will not be passed on, however to conform to the law we must give you the opportunity to have your e-mail removed from our list. Please reply with the word delete to have your address removed.

What do you lot think?

Also, consider the last time I actually sent on one of those things was about a year ago...

[Graham]

hmm...it's odd, it could be a hoax...but then it could actually be a proper piece of academia...

email her back, and see if it's true or not...then tell us.

Normally i don't reply/forward these...though i get some in my inbox from verious people...i stopped replying a while ago...

[static anonymity]

Ah, but what if it is spam, and thus by replying I've basically told a program that's churned out random email addresses that it's actually hit upon a valid one. And a moron stupid enough to reply, at that, eh? Then my inbox will get flooded with crappage.

[Martin]

Hoax.

[Graham]

Jesus said:

Ah, but what if it is spam, and thus by replying I've basically told a program that's churned out random email addresses that it's actually hit upon a valid one. And a moron stupid enough to reply, at that, eh? Then my inbox will get flooded with crappage.

reply to it, then mark the address as spam, so at least that address won't realise it..

..or 2 other ways - 1, use a different address, ansd thus not filling up your account,

or

2, find some poor sod stupid enough to do it...and no, not me before you think that

[Martin]

As soon as you reply, you're letting the person in control of the e-mails know that the account is both valid and active.

The fact you would put 'remove' to remove your e-mail address from a list is even more clue to the person in control that it's valid. It means that it has not been an auto-reply.

Furthermore, there is a reference number. Reference for what, exactly? Not exactly crystal clear..

And note how that the content of the e-mail is non-specific to you, i.e. it could be sent to anyone and not have to be re-worded. A clue there that it will be sent to a lot more people, randomly, in the hope of finding an e-mail account to spam.


Just my opinion, anyway.

[Luco El Loco]

2 things seem dodgy to me:

the email address and the fact she wants a million emails. No one person would do that unless it was a massive project taking years, and I doubt anyone would want to do that.

I'd report it as spam to your ISP and delete it/ignore it.

[*headdesk*]

Luco said:

the email address and the fact she wants a million emails.

Hmm... that's the thing that makes me question it. It seems to be screaming bot to me. Incidentally, how does she/they intend to get a fair representation of the amount of spam sent if all they receive is spam? It sounds like it has dodgy ecological validity. Also, the first part of that letter seems to imply that someone on your friends list knows Gemma Brown. Ask anyone who's sent you spam as of late if they know a Gemma Brown. If not, bin it. Can you think of anyone who might know someone in such research circles?

If not, I could always get Mandy to check it out, if you like. Nobody cares about that one.

Conclusion: inconclusive.

Chain letters are not my friends right now.