In recent days thereās been a flurry of emails with the subject ā[some
celebrity name] diedā.
Each message has a different celebrity name, and each includes an attachment
to find out more information.
Right.
Sadly people believe or want to believe this stuff.
And therein lies the problem.
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Someone died
Thatās an image of the emails as filtered by GMail in to a spam folder.
Good on GMail.
However, Iām hearing reports of people without good spam filters receiving dozens of these messages, each referencing a different celebrity.
If theyāre all dying then at that rate weāre about to face a severe celebrity shortage.
Hereās the body of the message:
[celebrity name] died along with 34 other people when the Air Force CT-43 āBobcatā passenger plane carrying the group on a trip crashed into a mountainside while approaching the Dubrovnik airport in Croatia during heavy rain and poor visibility.
Please see attachment
Whatās funny, of course, is that the celebrity name in the subject line never seems to match the celebrity name in the body. Whoops. Sounds like a bug in the spam-generating program. (Though the English, while not perfect, is above average for spam.)
Thatās exactly what this is, by the way: an automated program ā perhaps a botnet ā thatās sending out massive amounts of this particular message, varying the names to try and get your attention and interest. The goal is to get you curious enough to open the attachment.
Open that attachment and your machine is infected with a virus, plain and simple.
To be extra clear: donāt do it!
Delete the mail. Ignore the mail. Donāt open the attachment.
If you want to check up on your favorite celebrities, go visit a legitimate news site instead.
Cheese! Why donāt I get any of these juicy emails?
Either the spammers are getting smarter, or the rest of us are getting dumber-er.
I think itās a combination of spammers getting āsmarterā in the sense that the keep coming up with new ways to beat the filters. And, unfortunately, there will always be enough people who are dumb enough to fall for it.
I happened to write a quick note about the same thing on my blog a few days ago.
http://blog.runonfriday.com/2010/08/bad-day-for-celebrities/
With regard to the āgullibilityā of people in general, Iād like to use a quote from the Darwin Awards.
āWhile the population of the world is ever increasing, the sum total of itās IQ remains constantā