Monday, January 23, 2012

The Dunkin Donuts Decoy

I received the following message via email this morning:
Amazing!, DunkinDonuts is gifting out free gift cards. Hurry up, Do not waste any time. Here is webpage - [shortened URL w/redirect] Theres only 5 left!!!

I know not whether it may be worth observing, that the HOUYHNHNMS If this new phase was spontaneous, or in any way due to her peace. I therefore hoped they would not treat me as an enemy, 
I didn't post the actual web address on purpose -- in case someone might be tempted to click on it "to see what would happen."


But I must say as a phishing email goes, this one's pretty strange. It starts off well enough, then devolves into I don't know what. HOUYHNHNMS is a puzzle. Could it be the transliteration of a foreign term?

If this is the state of spamming these days, then I'm very disappointed. And so is Frank Drake.




2 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:36 PM

    The second paragraph seems to be lifted from Gulliver's Travels. HOUYHNHNMS is a race of intelligent horses that the main character encounters.

    Many spambots will include text sampled from literature to create random but plausible sentences.

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  2. You're correct. I'm surprised I missed the reference from Gulliver's Travels. The excerpt still doesn't track well, though -- but then I guess it really doesn't need to. Thanks for the additional info about spammers.

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