New Google product announcement: Google Pharmacy. Spam is occasionally amusing.

• drugs
• Google
• spam

How John Worley got duped by Nigerian spammers. Amazing manipulation and gullibility. Great issue of the New Yorker this week, BTW…worth seeking out at the newsstand.

• spam

The Guardian on spam poetry. I featured the work of noted spam poet Gary Milano ([email protected]) a couple of years ago. See also Outside the Inbox, a compilation of songs inspired by spam subject lines.

Update: And The Words of Albert Spamus.

• music
• poetry
• spam

David Pogue has a great list of tongue-in-cheek rules for trolls when responding to online writing. This list is spot-on…I have a mailbag full of chuckleheaded responses that adhere to many of these points, particularly numbers 1, 2, 6, and 9.

• David Pogue
• lists
• spam
• trolls

The evolution** of spam

The 419 Nigerian spammers are getting smarter. This letter I received the other day offered URL references:

Dear Friend,

I am Larisa Sosnitskaya and I represent Mr. Mikhail Khordokovsky the former C.E.O of Yukos Oil Company in Russia. I have a very sensitive and confidential brief from this top (oligarch) to ask for your partnership in re-profiling funds US$46 Million. I will give the details, but in summary, the funds are coming via Bank Menatep. This is a legitimate transaction. You will be paid 20% as your commison/compensation for your active efforts and contirbution to the success of this transaction.

You can catch more of the story on This website below or you can watch more of CCN or BBC to get more news about my boss.

http://www.mosnews.com/mn-files/khodorkovsky.shtml
http://www.mbktrial.com/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3213505.stm
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/04/11/041.html
http://www.nndb.com/people/633/000025558/

If you are interested, please do indicate by providing me with your confidential telephone number, fax number and email address and I will provide further details and instructions. Please keep this confidential as we cannot afford more political problems. Please do send me your response as soon as possible via my personal email :[email protected] OR [email protected].

look forward to it.
Regards,
Larisa Sosnitskaya

Seems like pretty good evidence to me…where do I send the check?

**That’s right, evolution. Sit on it, Potsie.

• legal
• spam

Responsible spam messages. “Can’t SATISFY your woman? Perhaps the two of you should sit down and discuss the issue.”

• email
• funny
• spam

Spam Stock Tracker tracked a bunch of penny stocks hyped by spammers to see how you would do if you bought them. Looks like a ~50% loss since May.

• money
• spam
• stock market

Long thoughtful response from Tim O’Reilly about the questionable advertising on some of O’Reilly Media’s sites. Is selling your site’s Page Rank to someone more or less legitimate than selling them your customers’ attention? (via waxy)

• advertising
• OÕReilly
• PageRank
• spam
• Tim OÕReilly

It’s sad to see O’Reilly selling PageRank to all these mortgage and hotel sites that have thoroughly polluted Google with their bad results. Much of the onus is on Google to clean that stuff out, but as Rogers notes in the thread, “if you’re going to sell sponsored links, you should take the time to make sure they are advertisers you’d want to be associated with”. O’Reilly is the kind of company that people believe in (a rare thing in today’s world), but this makes me believe in them a little less.

• Google
• OÕReilly
• spam

Directions for setting up a Bayesian spam filter to play chess.

• bayesianfiltering
• chess
• hacks
• remix
• spam

Knowspam shutting down with little warning. I know it worked, but I never liked the “hey, you emailed so-and-so and you need to authenticate…” It’s the kind of service/software (like the hated Plaxo) that makes you dislike your friends.

• antisocialsoftware
• knowspam
• spam