Dear SBCGLOBAL ACCOUNT OWNER,

This message is from the Online Sbcglobal Team to all at^t account owners. We are currently upgrading on our web/data base and carrying out maintenances of all our Sbcglobal e-mail accounts due to error Atsb47658. in order to reduce the rate of spam mails. We are also deleting all unused at^t Account to create more space for new accounts.

To prevent your Account from being closed unnecessarily, you will have to update us with the following informations below in order to know that it’s a present used account and to also facilitate maintenance operation.

CONFIRM YOUR EMAIL IDENTITY BELOW :accountteam001@gmail.com
1.Full Email Address :::
2.password:::
3.age/country:::
4.date of birth:::
5.First name/Last name:::
Warning Code:VX2G99AAJ

Warning!!! Account owner that refuses to update his or her
account within Seven days of receiving this warning will
lose his or her account permanently.
Warning Code:VX2G99AAJ

Sbcglobal(at^t).DatatBase Centre
Thanks For Using the SBCGLOBAL.

There are so many things wrong with that, I don’t know where to begin! Let’s start with the Gmail address! Do you think that if ATT really needed me to reply with some info that they’d use a Gmail address!!?!?!?! Say it with me: roflmfbo!!!

And I love how they say they’re deleting accounts to make room for new accounts!

They’re not to subtil either, they’ve really gone to harrassing me, I’ve gotten this email and others that are very similar about 6 times in a matter of 3 days. Here’s another one:

Account Department!

SBCGLOBAL WEBMASTER COMMUNICATIONS

Upgrade/Maintenance All webmail Accounts Holders

We regret to announce to you that we will be making some system maintenance on our sbcglobal.net Web mail account. During this process you might have login problems in signing into your sbcglobal.net Web mail account, but to prevent this you have to confirm your account immediately after you receive this notification.

To confirm and to keep your sbcglobal.net web mail active during and after this process, please reply to this message with the below Web mail account information. Failure to do this might cause a permanent deactivation of your Web mail account from our data base to enable us create more spaces for the 2009 session.

Send your Web mail account for confirmation stating:

*sbcglobal.net Login ID:
* Password:
* Date of Birth:

Your account shall remain active after you have successfully confirmed your account details. We thank you for your prompt attention to this
notification.

Please understand that this is a security measure intended to help protect your Web mail account.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

SBCGLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS HELP DESK

—————————————————————-
This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.

Yeah because I’m THAT stupid I’m going to send them my password.

I love how that one has a signature stating the message was sent using IMP because everyone knows that ATT and Yahoo employ use of IMP that requires a sponsorship link.

The only other spam in my box right now states that if I don’t respond to the Nigerian money scam email, I am dead. Oooooh, lyke, I’m so scared ryght.

Oh, and “Thanks For Using the SBCGLOBAL.”

that’s great. Havent ever seen such offer before. Cann’t believe it’s true. Click through the links below to check if this is nt a dream!

Well, anyway, here’s the whole thing. I mean, seriously!

Yeah, that’s not obvious!

I guess their reward is that they do find people who don’t have spam protection on their blogs but for anyone who has any kind of decent blogging system, you’d also think that default settings would block that comment… you know, like the allowed links in WordPress’s options.

So I just feel like… duh… here.

However, though they’ve been trying to spam me, most of them have been quite nice about it. Here’s some of the comments they’ve left.

Cool!… Nice work…

I Googled for something completely different, but found your page…and have to say thanks. nice read…

Interesting post. I came across this blog by accident, but it was a good accident. I have now bookmarked your blog for future use. Best wishes.

Very Interesting Blog! I was wondering if you want to visit the… website!…

Hi cool site friends!

thanks for the information :)

Fine and pretty site! Very good owner!

good blog i like the layout

I hate having to delete such nice compliments. ;-)
Of course, not all spammers are so nice. I just loaded a moderation page of a site I do for someone else… 3,978 comments in moderation. It locked up FireFox. Echhh.

You know, though, I am grateful to them, too. They make moderation easy by always bolding the first line/words of their comments. Heh.

It’s a slow news day. So sue me.

Please, E-mail us at stop@forseowork.info if you want to remove your blog from our database (it’ll stop messages from us)…

Typically, these spam comments use a keyword for a name, no email address, the URL (of course), and then besides the above message, only the same keyword (bolded) as was used at the name. Approximately 90% of them have been porn links – not that I visit them, but it’s obvious by the keywords and URLs.

Now, here’s what I see. When I Google that email address, all I get are more spam comments that made it through to someone’s site. The domain itself, forseowork.info, is a 404 error (no website). And looking at the Whois information, I see:

Domain Name:FORSEOWORK.INFO
Created On:28-Oct-2006 13:37:07 UTC
Last Updated On:28-Oct-2006 13:51:01 UTC
Registrant Name: Sean Casey
Registrant Organization: Thunder Electric
Registrant Street1: 4947 Shaw Ave.
Registrant City: Saint Louis
Registrant State/Province: MO
Registrant Postal Code: 63110
Registrant Country: US
Registrant Phone: +314-776-7592

I was expecting to see this routed to some strange person hidden in some country all the way across the world from me, so I am very surprised to see St. Louis. This dude’s right up the road from me, as one might say. And being that my husband’s an electrician, the organization caught my eye. So I searched that out and was eventually lead to thunderelectricinc.com. Looking up the Whois on that domain, I get the same name but with domain protection, showing an address in New York. (By the way, however, Zain confirms that the phone number above is bad, though if you look at the electric website, the other numbers are 776 numbers as well.)

Now, tell me. See if you can answer a few questions.

– Why would a spammer offer you the possibility of unsubscribing from being on a spam list? Could it be that he really wants to gather valid email addresses and sell them? I emailed him from a throw-away, I’ll keep you all updated.

– Why would a spammer use a real organization and address and phone number on the Whois of a spam-sending domain, yet protect the details of a real company for which they want to get business? (I have more to say here, but sadly, I can’t…)

I guess it all comes down to someone trying to make a cheap buck at others’ expense. I hope the money he earns from spamming blogs with porn links is worth the loss in reputation for his electrical company. Because, you know, I, for one, would never hire someone like this. Either way, I’ll be adding that domain to my blacklist and now I won’t even see those comments in moderation. Thanks for the tip, Sean.

I was sitting here at the desk when the call came through. I answered and there was just dead air. I said hello a couple of times and was a second from hanging up when someone answered. She asked me if this was “Hollyfield web design.” Now, first of all, if you’re going to call me, at least say my name right, please. Second of all, the second she asked for that, I knew where they’d gotten my number: the whois information on any domain registered by me for me or by me for someone else.

So I am trying to find out who they are and I just can’t understand anything she says. Finally I ask her where they got the number and I can’t understand what she says. I say we’re on the no-call lists and she just ignores me and starts in on her speal. So I say not to ever call me again and hang up.

Then today, they call me again. I can’t tell if it’s the same lady, I can’t hardly understand her, either. Again she asks for “Hollyfield Web Design.”

I cut her off immediately and ask her where she got the phone number. She says, “we have a variety of sources.”

“Like Whois information on domains, right?” I say.

She won’t admit it and I’ve got to repeat myself and she starts in on how she’d like to verify business information for “Hollyfield Web Design.” She asks me a question about the phone number and I don’t understand her, she repeats herself, and I tell her, look, the only place that I am listed by web design is on Whois information for domain names and that by calling me and soliciting she’s violating the terms of service for Whois lookups. Of course, I don’t know that it’s true, but I say it anyway. She says they’re not selling anything, but — and I cut her off and tell her that, look we’re on the no call lists as well. She ignores me and starts her speal. I cut her off again and say, “just take me off your list, okay?” Then I hang up.

An internet search on the phone number turns up several interesting sites, http://www.lissakay.com/index.php/weblog/comments/hello-experian/ being the most interesting one, imo.

This is unfair. :P

I have been getting all sorts of mail for years regarding domain name renewals and such (from stupid people that try to tell me my domain expired in 2004 when it was really 2005 at that time, etc.) and now that mail is starting to expand to credit card offers, etc. So, obviously, the people getting my information off my Whois are not only bothering me, but selling my name so that other people can bother me! And now I’m getting phone calls. I can’t remember if I posted about the guy who called me about little-light.net? He was trying to sell me search engine optimization or something.

So, I’m required to keep my Whois information on my domain accurate, but yet those people are allowed to pull my information and bug me, even when I’m on the no-call lists (Missouri and national). It just doesn’t make sense.

And, yes, you can get services to privatize your info – but at GoDaddy’s that’s another $10 per domain. And when you’re renewing/registering many domains, that’s just out of the question. And plus, isn’t GoDaddy under fire right now for turning over some guy’s “private” info to a lawyer, “just like that”?

Oh, don’t get me started.

Fujifilm
Looks like I’m going to be without my digital camera for about four weeks. Not long ago my camera started shutting itself off for no reason and it’s getting worse. It might happen right after I turn it on or right before I take a picture, or right after I take a picture, or right after I press the button to review pictures, or in today’s case: about 30 times while trying to get it to discharge the batteries. I have taken good care of the batteries and the camera itself, I don’t get it.
So I finally called Fujifilm today (they’ve ignored two emails from me to their tech support department), and all they will tell me is their address – I waited on hold for 25 minutes to get their stupid address to where I am supposed to send in my camera for them to look at it and hopefully fix it. To me, this is just a stupid solution, but I guess it’s really the only thing that can be done, as they have no repair locations in Missouri, but it pisses me off nonetheless.
This means that for the next three or four weeks I have to either use the cell phone only or the 35mm… which means I have to go buy film. I won’t be able to take many or decent photos at the five fairs we have coming up now. If it doesn’t come back to me fixed by my friend’s wedding on November 26, I’m really going to be angry… *sigh*

Yahoo
What else is new? I am sick and tired of the stupid Javascript errors that keep popping up in my email and keep me from reading some messages, deleting any messages, moving any messages, etc. And we all know that their tech support is run by people who don’t actually read the emails they get, so, I’m stuck here. I am really considering moving to Gmail for all my mail but I don’t want to because there are still some limitations there for external addresses (doesn’t reply from that address, changes to default, for one).

Nickelodeon Jr.
Last night I had to go in Walmart with my family to show them how to get prints of the lovely pictures I took of my sister from my memory card. Elijah started freaking out and after a few minutes I realized why. He could see the VHS rack with Dora the Explorer tapes on it. So, yeah, we ended up buying one. Some Cowgirl Dora or something. He held that thing all the way home, I was surprised he stayed awake, we got home at nearly 11pm.
Now the reason Nick Jr ticked me off today – this is a tape for a preschooler and/or young child, right? Then why the heck is there ten minutes of previews on there!? Elijah freaked out as I fast forwarded through them, he wanted Dora NOW. Why can’t they put previews on after the feature? Please?

Windows XP
I really hate that the “new folder” button is right next to the “go up one level” button…

Spammers
They are constantly crawling my site… even as I speak. I just deleted 118 spam comments and that doesn’t count the emails from OSA that it has deleted over a hundred just since yesterday afternoon. Each day I have more to delete. Well, at least they’re not getting on the blog, but still. I had to turn off the “email me when there’s a comment to moderate” feature because it was just overloading me. So if any person gets a moderated comment, they’re out of luck, because they’re all getting marked as spam, I don’t have time to go through all those comments and see what’s not spam and what is, not when 99.9% of them will be spam for sure…

Husbands
And finally I am angry at Steve because he refuses to buy me a dishwasher. Excuse me while I go wash some dishes…

(Okay so that sounded worse than I meant it, I’m not really mad at him. We don’t have room for a dishwasher. But I still wish I had one…)