Spam sucks. Everyone hates it. And unfortunately, when people think of spam, they think of email. I can’t tell you the number of articles I’ve read in the last few years proclaiming that because of spam, email is useless and will soon be replaced by chat, text and instant messaging, wikis, blogs, RSS, social networking, and the list goes on. Now don’t get me wrong… I believe in these other forms of communication. I have a blog, I use IM all day, I’m a text messaging freak, we now use Campfire for group chats, I read stuff on Wikipedia all the time, and I’ve got a LinkedIn profile and a MySpace page. But I’m noticing something… while my email spam continues to decline, spam from all of these other forms of new-age communication tools are on the rise. I get tons of trackback spam, comment spam, and more than anything, MySpace spam. And not only are they on the rise, but in many cases, they are trickier and more deceptive than the spams that do make it to my inbox. Check out this spam email I just got on my MySpace profile:
Subject: Hey Pat Body: How's it goin? I'm Kristy, I just moved to the Blacksburg area and I wanna meet a nice guy around here :-). I moved here to Virginia a couple of weeks ago for work and now that I'm here I have nobody to hang out with! I read your profile... You're cute and I liked what you had to say :-). I'm 24/F/single and I'm lookin for a guy who is a little bit older or more mature than me. You say you're 30 and you're cute so I guess you're qualified :-) My friend Jen from back home suggested I tried using myspace to meet people in my area. I just signed up and my profile sux hehe. I do have a blog/profile page at xxxxxxxxxxxxxx ... I have alot of photos and stuff up if you wanna see me. I left you a personal msg on my homepage and I took a new pic for you today. Come check me out when you have a chance, k? Lookin forward to seeyin ya, Kristy
This is unbelievable! This spammer (who is probably a guy running a porn shop out of his basement) knows my name, my age, the fact that I live in Blacksburg, the fact that I’m 30, the fact that I’m single… and that I’m cute (although I’m not sure that is a fact). Thanks MySpace!
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