In the beginning, there was DOS...
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Adventures in Computing
In the beginning, there was DOS... |
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Spam - The Descending Spiral A friend of mine received a spam email that contained the phrases: '...looking for Brand Name Software', 'trying to improve your PC efficiency', and 'find the answers ... at our Exlclusive Software Download Store'If you received this piece of spam 5 years ago, the person would have probably been selling licensed, legitimate copies of the software, that were overpriced. If you received this piece of spam 3 years ago, the person would have probably been selling cracked copies of the software, that were underpriced. If you received this piece of spam 1 years ago, the person would probably not been selling software at all, but would have just been either committing credit card fraud, or running a phishing scam, to commit identity theft. If you received this piece of spam yesterday, the person was almost certainly not selling anything, and in addition to committing credit card fraud, and running a phishing scam, was probably also running a script on the web page they directed you to, that would attempt to insert malicious software on your computer... rootkit, keylogger, backdoor... so that your computer can be remotely controlled as a spambot, child porn site, and host for terrorist training films, without your knowledge. 'Cheap Software' is just the lure, in a much more sinister enterprise, than was the case a few years ago. -wittig 06 |