Which spam name are you?
Oct. 26th, 2003 02:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pseydtonneThe latest trend in spam, according to my mail box, is the creation of fake names for each spammee on the recipient list. I got a spam with my email address in the cc field but the uncapitalized name "alva hartley" associated with it. The other email addresses on the list had similarly unalike names for each: isidro duhan, len toombs, deshawn kaufmann, rhett fereira, keith music, granville missler, otto debacker, and ira duldulao.
I started thinking about these seemly random names and realized they weren't. I noticed patterns when I stopped thinking about last versus first names. Latino, Jewish, Southern, Portuguese. Perhaps these Sephardic Jews from Atlanta were once real people before their identities got slapped onto a stack of addresses. Perhaps Rhett Fereira... fuck perhaps. Lemme look some up!
I found a couple of them at names.malism.com, which seems to be a backend for Classmates.com.
Sometimes, life makes sense in a creepy way. All the spam that misses the Brightmail filter comes from a mistaken signup at Classmates back in 1997 or so. (It was a brand new web site then -- they were all gimmicks, we were all innocent.)
Now that I know, I wonder if I wouldn't prefer to be Alva. Actually, I like Ira's name a little more.
I've been geeking a lot this weekend. I rented Simpsons Hit & Run, which is a lot of fun. Anytime a video game establishes itself as a non-shooter iconoclast, there will be a Simpsons knockoff that somehow fixes a couple gameplay issues from the original. Simpsons Road Rage is Crazy Taxi, for example. However, you want to play for hours because you know the characters and you want to hear every sound sample they'll toss at you. In turn, you get better at the game simply because you want to lounge in the game's world longer. I've gotten farther in Hit & Run that I have in GTA: Vice City, simply because I can buy Homer's need to trash Smithers' car, get to work first and thus save his scorpion farm. Some guy owes drug dealers money? Shoot him.
Should I feel guilty for preferring the derivative work -- the repackaged? Am I weak?
I've also been beating up my Slackware side. I want to be able to play music, so I've upgraded the whole setup just to install one dang program.
Welcome back to Standard Time. Our leaders want us to think the War on Random Enemies that Read the Same Language as Al-Qaeda will last forever, the same way they've kept Daylight Savings Time and the Cold War going. Do we still need to spring ahead an hour half the year, simply because it made sense when electricity cost more during World War One?![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chaggalagirl got me thinking about this.
Okay, enough neural splatter. Have a good Sunday, y'all!
-mourning all the dead musicians of the week, Ps/d
I started thinking about these seemly random names and realized they weren't. I noticed patterns when I stopped thinking about last versus first names. Latino, Jewish, Southern, Portuguese. Perhaps these Sephardic Jews from Atlanta were once real people before their identities got slapped onto a stack of addresses. Perhaps Rhett Fereira... fuck perhaps. Lemme look some up!
I found a couple of them at names.malism.com, which seems to be a backend for Classmates.com.
Sometimes, life makes sense in a creepy way. All the spam that misses the Brightmail filter comes from a mistaken signup at Classmates back in 1997 or so. (It was a brand new web site then -- they were all gimmicks, we were all innocent.)
Now that I know, I wonder if I wouldn't prefer to be Alva. Actually, I like Ira's name a little more.
I've been geeking a lot this weekend. I rented Simpsons Hit & Run, which is a lot of fun. Anytime a video game establishes itself as a non-shooter iconoclast, there will be a Simpsons knockoff that somehow fixes a couple gameplay issues from the original. Simpsons Road Rage is Crazy Taxi, for example. However, you want to play for hours because you know the characters and you want to hear every sound sample they'll toss at you. In turn, you get better at the game simply because you want to lounge in the game's world longer. I've gotten farther in Hit & Run that I have in GTA: Vice City, simply because I can buy Homer's need to trash Smithers' car, get to work first and thus save his scorpion farm. Some guy owes drug dealers money? Shoot him.
Should I feel guilty for preferring the derivative work -- the repackaged? Am I weak?
I've also been beating up my Slackware side. I want to be able to play music, so I've upgraded the whole setup just to install one dang program.
Welcome back to Standard Time. Our leaders want us to think the War on Random Enemies that Read the Same Language as Al-Qaeda will last forever, the same way they've kept Daylight Savings Time and the Cold War going. Do we still need to spring ahead an hour half the year, simply because it made sense when electricity cost more during World War One?
chaggalagirl got me thinking about this.Okay, enough neural splatter. Have a good Sunday, y'all!
-mourning all the dead musicians of the week, Ps/d
