Oh, FFS.

Posted on by Dale

So this came in—or tried to come in—through the transom today:

===============================================.

IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR: dale@dalelyles.com.
===============================================.
URGENT – BANNED.
===============================================.

Dear Subscriber,
Prepared yourself: there is a new scandal that is poised to break.
This scandal is regarding what we now know to be a GIANT conspiracy
between our government many of the biggest producers of food in the
country.
This alarming-story is so controversial that Fox-News not only banned it
from being aired, they then fired the two-reporters who were trying to
air it.
If you are happy with our president, you shouldn’t even bother watching
this presentation.
This is so shocking that many people are going to want to IMPEACH Obama
for what he’s been doing…This may be the thing that finally takes him
down.

VISIT HERE TODAY and get more information on this story:
http://see5.yournewurgent-alerts.rocks

I must warn you though, what you are going to find out may seriously
turn your stomach.

Best-Regards,
Doug Hill
Director, LaissezFaire Club

Every day I get a report from my email server’s spam filter.  Since it’s not always 100% smart, I have taken to logging in and scanning all 100+ messages to make sure that the Chicago Symphony is not trying to reach me about William Blake’s Inn.  (Did you know that they in fact have been given the score by someone in Chicago’s arts scene?  But let that pass.)

This was clearly spam, but sometimes I just feel like mucking out the stables, you know?  So I peeked at the content, which is what you want to do when you don’t want to admit these vampires into your inbox.

I was dazed at the audacity with which the sender hit the jackpot with Nutjob Bingo:

  • scandal
  • GIANT conspiracy
  • government
  • alarming-story
  • Fox-News banned it AND fired the reporters
  • happy with our president (OF COURSE NOT THAT KENYAN USURPER ARGLE BARGLE HRNNGGH!)
  • shocking
  • IMPEACH
  • finally takes him down (my favorite)
  • turn your stomach
  • LaissezFaire

Don’t you just want to click on that link now?

Pro Tip: don’t ever click on the link.

Here’s the thing about that link: I’ve seen a lot of these floating around the spam, these URLs that end with some bizarre top-level domain. .rock?  Really?  How does that even work even?  (But it does: .rock is a generic top-level domain for “general” use, whatever the hell that means.)

Be that as it may, don’t click on the link.  Copy the text of the link, see5.yournewurgent-alerts.rocks, paste it into your browserand see where it takes you.  (Conversely, you can right-click on the link and see the actual link buried behind the text.  Dollars to donuts it’s not the same thing.)

Out of extra caution, I left off the see5 and went straight to the front page, yournewurgent-alerts.rocks, and guess what?  It doesn’t exist.

httpv://youtu.be/rX7wtNOkuHo

I put the see5 back in there.  Still doesn’t exist.

Went back to the spam filter and saw that the email was from wen.yournewurgent-alerts.rocks, so I tried that.  Nope.

So now here’s the quandary: how was this supposed to work, spam-speaking-wise?  There wasn’t anything to click on, neither to trigger a malware installation nor to take me to a terrible website.  The URL they gave me that I URGENTLY needed to read because NUTJOB BINGO WORDS, doesn’t exist.  So I mean to say, wot?

update, 1/24/15:  Another one today, identical message, this time from ConstitutionalProtectionAgency@yournewurgent-alerts.rocks