The Bitcoin Cybersecurity Spammer

Despite our ridiculing them, ignoring them, or treating them with contempt or derision, they can't take a hint and just go away. Of course I speak of the vile rabble otherwise known as homo sapiens spammeritis annoyingus, aka internet scammers. They infest our blogs with spam comments hoping we might bite- usually a post that's old, which is why it's a good idea to have comments requiring moderation beyond a certain date. They send us spam emails hoping someone will be dumb enough to believe what they have to say.

The following came from one Amelia Hemsworth (yeah, sure, that's a believable name) in my blog comments recently, for a post that had been made quite some time ago.

Spyhost Cyber Security Company , in fact, never disappoint. Few weeks ago, I did invest $320,000 in bitcoin with a phony company. A few days after I made the investment, I was shocked to discover on my dashboard that it had climbed to almost $420,000. Never knew my happiness was about to diminish as I attempted to withdraw the money and was turned down. I repeatedly emailed help, but they never got back to me. I decided not to let that get away from me and started thinking of methods to get back what was properly mine. On social media, I came across folks who had also been duped by a similar investment fraud and had successfully retrieved their money via Spyhost Cyber Security Company . The experts at Spyhost Cyber Security Company are excellent and their top notch hacking prowess was proven of which I am now a living testimony because all my invested funds were recovered within 48 hours. If you want to recover money/ lost digital assets from con artists, consider using Spyhost Cyber Security Company. For additional information about their services, reach out to them through the contact means below;

The email address, which I'm not going to include, features as part of it cyberdude. Yeah, that's right. Cyberdude. Because that sounds all serious. 

This bit of nonsense reads in some respects a lot like your standard spellcaster spam comment, except instead of the sob story about the unfaithful lover and the miraculous totally fake doctor, we get the story about investing money in bitcoin (yeah, there's your first mistake) and then having a totally fake cybersecurity company hack their way into getting your money back. 

Ah, phishing. Not the boring kind, that's fishing, and besides, who wants to eat fish? No, phishing, the bane of existence of many of us in this day and age. I've lost track of how many emails at work I've marked as phishing. I once chatted with a fellow in IT at work about the compulsion to reply back with a "go fuck yourself" reply, which he could relate to, but he added that doing so gives them an in to plant all sorts of crap in the system. Best to just mark them as phishing, and there they disappear.

In this email, we get the standard format of the spammer, promising things will go your way if only you contact these people for help in this problem you've got (the actual problem starts if you contact them). They reassure that this is all legitimate (yeah, right), that everything is above board. Meanwhile, if you answer that, you're screwed.

Besides which, they tell the story about bitcoin, that form of cryptocurrency that has its ups and downs. More downs, really. I'm not really business savvy, but I've heard enough bad things about bitcoin that I wouldn't ever want to get near it. It's just asking for trouble. Just like believing that nonsense comment is asking for trouble. Because it's a verbatim comment seen in multiple blogs and posts the last couple of years, which I found when I started entering some key terms. And verbatim comments or emails are the hallmark of the spammer and scammer.

So no, no thank you.

Nice try, ace. Really. I get it. You've probably never even thought of finding an honest line of work. Maybe you're the low rung of an organized crime ring and they've got you by the fine hairs. To which I say, that's a you problem. Stop making it my problem. 

I suggest the following. Put yourself in cryosleep for the next three hundred years, and wake up in a dystopian world with these guys around. See how long you last.

Revenge Of The Internet Scammer

Of course they never stop. I refer to that vile, repugnant, pointless sub-species of humanity referred to as homo sapiens spammeritis annoyingus. The internet spammer. Regardless of how many times we see their infernal spam comments in our blogs having nothing at all to do with the subject, saying "please read my blog" for instance (Rajani Rehana, I'm looking at you- you are of course the numbskull who infamously left that comment on a post written by a woman dealing with a cancer diagnosis. That is an absolute scumbag sort of thing to do, but that's the sort of person you are). Regardless of how many times we see their emails sent to thousands of people with a get rich quick scheme that is just that: a scheme.

Take a look at the following, which turned up in my email last month. All I have removed from it was the email link.

( URGENT REPLY BEFORE IS LATE)
Note: If you found this email in your junk/spam, its because of your
internet isp server.


Congratulations,You have been gifted $1.5 Million United State Dollars in 2023 Donation Funds,Contact us at this email for your claim:

Dear Lucky Winner with great hope this massage will reach you and your entire family in a very good health condition as I know you will be curious to know why you were selected to receive a cash sum of $1,500,000,00 USD.

I Mr.Bernard Jean ?tienne Arnault a French business magnate, An investor and art collector, I am the chairman and chief Executive officer of LVMH, The world's largest luxury-goods company, I am mapping out this donation funds every year to 20 countries all over the world where our company is been located in the world.
 
I decided to donate the sum of $1,500,000,00 USD to you as part of our charity project to improve the lot of 20 lucky individuals all over the world from our ($16.5 Billion) United State Dollars Mapped for the on going 2022 Donation.All lucky winners were random selected from Microsoft email owners list as to make sure this put on in the internet for the world to see, I have decided to do one thing I promised God forever as you could see from the web page above am not getting any younger and you can imagine i have no much time to live although am a Billionaire Investor and we have helped some charity organizations from our Fund for the past years.
 
Much of the money has been shared to our immediate family members before deciding to donate the remaining of the Billions to other individuals around the world, the local fire department, the red cross, Haiti, hospitals, and some other organizations in Asia and Europe that fight cancer, Alzheimer's and diabetes and the bulk of the funds deposited with our payout bank of this charity donation.

I have kept just 40% of the entire sum for my self for the remaining days because I am old and very sick, To facilitate the payment process of the funds ($1,500,000.00 USD) which have been donated solely to you, you are to send us
 
Your Full Name:
Your Contact Address:
Name of City of Residence:
Country of Residence:
Direct Mobile Telephone Number:
Your Marital Status:
Your Age and Occupation:
 
So that I can forward your payment information to you immediately, I am hoping that you will be able to use the money wisely and judiciously over there in your country, Please, you have to do your part to also alleviate the level of poverty in your region, help as many you can help once you have this money in your personal account because that is the only objective of donating this money to you in the first place, I like to re-assure you of the legitimacy of this services as we will not be involved in any fraudulent act and will never be.
 
Use the money wisely, we only want to feel good by helping people this time of the year, We have too much to give away as I only have a few months left on earth. I will advise you as the prospective lucky Person to be calm not to lose this great opportunity which millions of people are trying to entangle but the chances just couldn't come for them because a lot of people are out there to discourage them as they don't know how it works, and have never seen such before.

Thank you for accepting our offer,
 
Best Regards.
Mr.Bernard Arnault.

So, where to begin? Well, for starters, the originating email that sent this to me is different from the one that was in the body of the nonsense sent, which I've removed. That email has the word korfilm in it. Which suggests the first link in a long line of emails that this ends up leading to is a Korean company. One that's based out of North Korea. All while using .com instead of .kp, which is the proper internet code for anything coming out of that particular spot on the planet.

Oh, sure, that's believable.

Now yes, there is a Bernard Arnault. And yes, he's a French business magnate and one of the richest people on the planet. LVMH does exist: luxury goods under the Louis Vuitton label? That guy. He's educated and esteemed in the industry. Which is why if he was really writing this (he didn't), he would get the grammar and syntax right. He wouldn't start off with Urgent Reply Before Is Late, because that doesn't sound like someone with a grasp of the language.

No, this is a spammer at the far end of a long chain of email addresses who can't actually speak English properly, and runs a faulty translation program which has all sorts of tell tales. United State Dollars. State? Really?

Our guy capitalizes words that don't need it, has spacing issues in his sentences, and dangles the usual amount of cash for the gullible, hoping they'll bite. He screws up the very name of the guy he's using to pass off this scheme, because he writes Etienne as ?tienne. He claims he's chosen me at random (along with the half million other email addresses this crap has been sent to) to give this money to. He also comes up with the line about how he's "old and very sick" to try to play for sympathy.

Nice try. The actual Arnault was born in 1949, and at last check is still active in his company. If a guy like this was actually sick, that wouldn't stay secret for long. Besides, as an actual businessman, he has no time to send random emails to strangers saying he's going to give them money.

Nice try, mate. Really. But the more you do this, the more you make yourself look like a buffoon. I know, one or two of the five hundred thousand people you sent this to might be dumb enough to believe it, and send you the inevitable "processing fee" of a few thousand dollars before they wise up. But I've seen too much of this crap.

In an ideal world, you'd be subjected to one of these devices of torture. Well, maybe not the last one. That would be too cruel.

Night Of The Flying Reindeer

 Once again Christmas is upon us. I for one, will be glad to see it in the rear view mirror. But I have an image blog. Enjoy, and bah humbug.