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.

Banks, Soda, And The Scammer

And rounding out the month, another of these grievous examples of halfwits and morons, useless and worthless people known as internet scammers and spammers. Yes, that infernal lot of twits who can't find a real job and so spend all their time cooking up preposterous too good to be true (because they're not) schemes in the hopes that someone they send it to will be dumb enough to believe it. These people are more irritating than... well, blackflies. And if you've ever been around those in May, you'll know what I'm talking about.

The following has been turning up with some regularity in my email over the last couple of weeks.

Attention,

This is to inform you that a Lottery Winning payment in the amount of US$12,000,000.00 (Twelve million United State Dollars) was legally approved and deposited with this Bank, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). The lottery won by your e-mail address via online active e-mail address selected from sponsor of Coca Cola Company award. It was registered with your email address by the Lottery Board Executive Directors Of Coca-Cola Company Canada Branch, and they instructed this Bank to credit this Winning directly to your private bank account with immediate effect.

Please take note that Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) have decided and agreed together towards the actualization of the above subject matter which will be conducted under a legitimate arrangement that will protect both parties from any breach of law. To actualize this The new arrangement. Be well informed that the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) was successfully opened a Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) Checking Account on behalf of your personal name and the total $12 million has been transferred to the non-resident account.

Meanwhile, the good news about your payment now is that this paying have made a Royal Bank Of Canada (RBC) Checking Account Booklet and Royal Bank Of Canada (RBC) Platinum MasterCard on behalf of your personal name, which you will be using to withdraw from your non-resident account with this Bank smoothly.

And we shall proceed with the delivery of your Royal Bank Of Canada (RBC) Checking Account Booklet and Royal Bank Of Canada (RBC) Platinum MasterCard to you, upon receipt of the Activation fee of $320.00 USD only. This means that as soon as we receive the activation fee we will activate the account for you to be able to withdraw immediately from the account, once we make the delivery of your Royal Bank Of Canada (RBC) Checking Account Booklet and Royal Bank Of Canada (RBC) Platinum MasterCard with some of the legal documents backing this prize to your address within 24 hours, because we were mandated to transfer this Winning to you as one of the winners whose name is listed in the Coca-Cola Company Canada Lottery award . Please expedite actions as the rightful winner, as the administrative overheads statement account valued added balance sheet have been issued in your favor. $12,000,000.00 USD Payment notification from Royal Bank Of Canada (RBC).

So you are therefore advised to send the requested fee of $ 320 USD to us, the payment details will be sent to you as soon as you provide the below data:

Below are the details we need from you.

1. Your Full Name:.........
2. Address:..........
3. City:..........
4. Country:..........
5. Cell/Mobile Number:...........

Email : offiefdxebsjwme@gmail.com

If at any time you have questions, concerns or comments, please contact us as we strive to ensure that you will always receive prompt and courteous attention.

Yours faithfully,

David I Mckay
The President and CEO.
Royal Bank Of Canada (RBC).
Head Office Location Address: 200 Bay Street,
Royal Bank

Okay, so where to start? Well, how about the end- with David Mckay, as spelled here. The president and CEO of Royal Bank of Canada is in fact David McKay, so you'd think he'd know that k should be capitalized. But this, of course, is not Mr. McKay. Just as this is not a real offer.

Because when you look up Coca-Cola lottery, all sorts of articles come up about how it's a phishing scam, as if that wasn't already obvious. 

Because there is no such lottery, and because this is all a fake. You can see it pretty quick in, where the standard giveaway of a scammer can be seen when they write it as 'United State Dollars'. I mean, really, is it that hard for you bloody morons to write States? It's one letter, but you bloody idiots trip over it all the time.

There are the other tell-tales. An abundance of capitalized words that don't need capitalization. Overly formal phrasing that does not read like it was written by someone with a strong grasp of the English language but instead put through translation software without being vetted. The millions of dollars serving as the hook for the sucker to believe this is all real.

I should point out that they mention the "activation fee" of 320 dollars, which is rare for a scammer. Usually they do this after the sucker has bought the scam, bringing up a processing fee or something of that sort. That 320 bucks is pretty much all these scammers expect to get out of these before the mark gets wise to the scam.

I should also bring up the irony of these weasels bringing up the non-resident account notion. Because I'm Canadian. And the Royal Bank of Canada is a Canadian bank. Not the one I use, but that's beside the point. Because they're forgetting that some of the 500 000 random emails they send this crap to will be Canadian, and we might find it annoying that we're not residents of our own country.

But I digress. Because I've seen far too many signs that tell me when I'm dealing with scammers to have a go at that bait. I know better. Maybe one of the other half a million email addresses you sent this to might believe it, but I don't. 

In closing, whoever you really are at the far end of that daisy chain of emails that sent this crap to me, I can only tell you, from the bottom of my heart....

Blowing Up The Franchise Again

Egomaniac Director Plans New Installment Of Old Franchise, Guarantees Explosions

Los Angeles (AP). There are few things in life that are guaranteed. Death and taxes. The Toronto Maple Leafs never again winning the Stanley Cup. The depths a Kardashian will stoop to for attention. The gullibility of a MAGA follower.

One of the other things guaranteed is the prospect of explosions in the films of a certain Hollywood director.

This week real reporters and entertainment reporters assembled at the production facilities for Platinum Dunes, a mainstay in the film production business of Michael Bay, director of such dreck as Pearl Harbor and the Transformers franchise. They assembled for an announcement by the director himself. Entertainment reporters were buzzing in the auditorium beforehand. Real reporters were busy rolling their eyes (editor: for good reason. Michael Bay is an idiot).

At length, one of Bay's staff came out on stage. "Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for the greatest visionary film director of our time, Michael Bay!"

The entertainment reporters broke out into rapturous applause. The real reporters shook their heads and rolled their eyes. Bay stepped out on stage, smiling like an idiot, his customary three days of stubble and dishevelled hair present, dressed casually. He waved, laughed, remained oblivious to the contempt of the real reporters (editor: he is as dumb as his reputation suggests). Bay strode up to the podium, paused to look at himself in a full length mirror set up, and winked at himself.

"Hello!" Bay exclaimed, looking out at his audience. "Thanks for coming in. But of course you had to. Everyone in the world is fascinated with me, and what I'm going to do next. It's in that spirit that I'll let you in on one of my future projects. I've recently acquired rights to a franchise that's been, well, a kid's franchise. And I want to put my own Michael Bay spin on it. Girls in hot cars waxing the hot cars. Aerosmith music. And explosions. Because you've got to have explosions. What kind of movie is it without explosions?"

"The kind of movie you can't make?" this reporter suggested (editor: good dig at him).

Bay laughed. "Funny! No, the kind of movie I don't want to make."

He paused before continuing on. "No, see, the thing is, like many of you, I get a lot of spam in my email. I mean, Nigerian princes, pointless links that'll hack into your email if you click on them. We all get those. I also get a lot of spam email from people telling me to stop making movies. They must be spam, because everyone knows I make great movies. But a few weeks ago I got this spam from a guy claiming to be a burglar who had broken into a house and was subsequently crippled by a little girl. I mean, that's a little over the top, don't you think?" (editor: this from a guy whose films are the very essence of over the top?)

Bay looked out over the crowd and grinned, somehow missing the contempt from the real reporters. "First of all, a burglar admitting to his crimes? And admitting to getting beaten up by a kid? But it's the sort of idea that gives me an idea. And when I get an idea, you know it's going to lead somewhere."

"Into an overblown movie with lots of explosions?" this reporter asked.

Bay clapped his hands together. "Exactly! Now a couple of weeks back, thanks to cheating in a poker game, I acquired the rights to make a Home Alone sequel. Problem solved. But it would have to have my own spin on it. First off, we'll ditch the kid. I don't like working with kids."

"You're proposing making a Home Alone film, only without a kid?" another reporter asked. 

"That's right," Bay replied. "What I want to tell is the story of an Army bomb disposal expert on leave, back at her home in Chicago. It's a big home in the suburbs, thanks to inheriting a ton of money from Dad. He'll be played in flashbacks by Jon Voight, because you've got to have a Jon Voight appearance in my films. And little does she know but there's a couple of burglars in the neighbourhood, casing houses for robbing. Played by Nicolas Cage and Steve Buscemi."

At this point the two actors stepped out on stage. Buscemi didn't look happy, but when does he ever (editor: this is true). Cage was guzzling from a bottle of scotch. "Hello!" Cage said as he stumbled over to join Bay. "It's great to see you!"

Buscemi sighed. "Look, everyone, I really don't want to work with this guy ever again, but I lost a hand of poker in the same game he got the rights to this dumbass movie, and he's demanding I make a film with him again."

Bay laughed. "What a kidder!"

Buscemi glared at him. "I'm not joking."

Bay didn't appear to notice. "And playing my protagonist, Kelly McCallister, is one of my favourite actors. Give a warm welcome to Megan Fox!"

Fox herself came out on stage, with the usual vacant eyes and her customary barely clothed showing off the cleavage attire. She smiled (as much as the plastic surgery could allow), blew kisses, and gave the cameras a look at her cleavage (editor: why does she keep getting roles?). The entertainment reporters applauded wildly. The real reporters sighed. She joined the others.

"You expect us to believe Megan Fox could believably play someone capable of defusing a bomb?" this reporter asked (editor: good question).

"I can do whatever I set my mind to," Fox replied. "What was the question again?"

Bay shrugged it off. "You're just jealous. Or kidding. I don't care. What I care about is a film concept that has overeager burglars getting in over their heads and finding themselves at war with a really hot babe who knows a thing or two about war and hurting people and leaving them crippled and crying and begging for mercy. What I care about is Aerosmith doing the theme song. What I care about is explosions, explosions, and more explosions. That's what I care about, that's what my audience cares about, and that's all that matters."

Bay shook his head. "What's important is this. Home Alone: Blown To Hell is going to do big box office. It's going to be an epic blockbuster that everyone's going to want to see. It'll be funny and fast paced and exciting and it'll be the talk of the town for months. And it's going to win me all the Oscars and all the recognition that I'm long overdue. Thanks for coming out!"

With that, Bay departed the stage, followed by Cage and Fox. Buscemi remained behind for a minute. "Hey, I'm really, really sorry I'm stuck with this. I thought I was done working with that hack for life."

He departed again. Entertainment reporters were buzzing about the prospect of yet another Bay film. Real reporters were shaking their heads in dismay. And when last seen, Nicolas Cage was getting into the back of a limo, using a hundred dollar bill to light a cigar.

This reporter wondered when Cage's next bankruptcy would be happening (editor: ouch).

Internet Scammers, Go Rot In Hell

I've said it many times before, and I'll say it again. They will never get the point. I speak of course of the hapless wastes of oxygen commonly known as internet spammers and scammers (aka homo sapiens spammeritis irritatingus). We tell them to drop dead in public, and yet they keep coming back to infest our blog spam folders with their nonsensical crap. They send us emails with get-rich schemes and cancer widow stories that anyone with a working brain can see right through. Such as the following, which I'm sharing from my partner in crime Norma, who received it in her email some weeks back.

Hello Good day ,

Did you see the previous email I sent to you in regards to the
transfer of $11 Millions US Dollars already approved on your behalf?

Do Let me know so I can resend it.Also you can send your direct number for easy
communications here is My Private Email: burgetjan68@citromail.hu

My regards to your good self,
Mrs.Burget Jan.
World Bank International Auditor Switzerland.

Oh, joy. The usual tell tales of the email scammer. Albeit brief. They start with the formal greeting: "hello. Good day." You know, you can choose one or the other. Is that too difficult? 

They ask if we'd seen the previous email (there was no previous email, because none of this is legit). They claim to be transferring eleven million dollars (or in the idiotic way they phrase it "$11 Millions US Dollars"). If they can't correctly use the word million and they insist on capitalizing words that don't need it (a classic hallmark of internet scammers), how on earth do they figure they'll ever be taken seriously?

And then there are the other issues. This person clearly can't write in a way that suggests proper education: spacing issues, punctuation issues, the aforementioned excessive capitalization. It reads like a form letter handed out at Internet Scammer University (based out of Spammerville in a back corner of Nigeria). And of course the ending tells the tale. An internet address with a Hungarian country code (the first email address in a long chain of email addresses helping this idiot cover their tracks if they actually get someone gullible enough to buy it) with a person claiming to be with the World Bank and based out of Switzerland.

Oh, sure. Right. Yes, that's believable. I'm sure that if one goes along with this totally ridiculous offer of receiving eleven million dollars from a complete stranger on the internet, nothing could possibly go wrong.

And if you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.

Nice try, scammer, but we've seen your games before. Try it on someone else in that list of five million random emails you have.

I'll leave it to a certain Vulcan to express what I think should happen to you.

Curse Of An Internet Troll

There is of course the sort of spammer I mentioned in my last post: the mass email spamming waste of space passing off a sob story (badly) as a legitimate front for their scam. They're good for ridicule, but not much else. And then there's another kind of spammer. The sort who leaves inane, pointless comments in a post. More often then not it's just spamming their own website. Easily gotten rid of. Just banished to the netherworld limbo of spam comments where they belong.

But then there's a particularly vile sort of spammer, leaving comments that are on a level all their own. Since Covid started there's been someone (or someones) out there leaving the same copy and paste sort of comment, sometimes here or on my photoblog. One such comment was left in the last post and swiftly banished to spam comment limbo. The same person, always anonymous with no website to go back to, has left that very same comment from time to time on other blogs I follow. You've probably seen them before the blog author has a chance to delete them. Here's the comment from this internet troll, quoted verbatim, from before I sent it off to spam comment purgatory, left here in the last post. Apologies in advance, as I'll be using some coarse language in reply, but then again, he deserves it.

i can't wait for the vaccines to kill off the boomers. There have been a shitload of deaths, at least 200,000 so far, related to the vaccines. Obviously the media isn't gonna talk about this. You boomers wanted to destroy your own children's future, well guess what, YOU are the ones being destroyed now. Boomers are living in terror and horror now, and this is their karma for ruining their own children and grand children's lives and futures. And even if the vaccine doesn't get you, the doctors are openly calling everything "covid19" now and ramming tubes down boomer's throats and putting them on death machines known as "ventilators". Either way, you boomers are fucked. You are the most evil generation to ever exist. You get what you deserve, boomer scum!

Ah, yes. This is routine for this 'person'. I put person in quotations, because as far as a human being goes, this extremely enraged jackass is a pretty lousy excuse for one. They do say you shouldn't feed an internet troll.... but I can't resist. I see someone this stupid, and I just have to slap them upside the head. So where do I begin? 

First off, by saying I'm not a boomer. I'm part of Generation X. 

That's right, dumbass. When you mass copy and paste the exact same comment into countless blogs whose authors aren't interested in your anger... you might want to consider that not everyone you're spamming is in the age category you've got such a grudge against.

And it is quite a grudge. Look, I get it. You're frustrated, and you want to take it out on the Baby Boomers. Fine.  You could do so constructively on your own blog (which doesn't exist, because you're a coward too afraid to actually comment as anything but Anonymous). You could make an argument in a thoughtful way about boomers being self absorbed, how they've had everything handed to them, how it's so much harder now to get things done. It would be full of generalizations, half truths, and inaccuracies, but at the very least you'd be expressing your frustrations like a human being. 

As opposed to being the world's biggest crybaby.

No, that's what you are and what you do. You take this whole thing we're dealing with- Covid. And you vent and you rage and you howl at the moon. You blame boomers for everything, you get on the anti-vaccination crazy train by hoping vaccines kill off all the boomers (I seem to recall that when you started this rage-storm of bullshit commentary, you were hoping Covid would kill off all the boomers), and you spout inaccuracies and conspiracy theories. You scream about boomers ruining their children and grandchildren, how they're living in horror and terror, and blather on about how doctors are calling everything Covid-19 now, and how ventilators are death machines. And somewhere in that feeble brain of yours you're saying that the boomers are fucked, that they are the most evil generation that ever existed, and they get what they deserve.

Wow. I mean, really.

Somebody needs anger management therapy.

Or to just get the shit kicked out of them on principle.

You're mad, man (and let's face it, whoever this gutless anonymous coward is, this is definitely a man). You're angry at the world, screaming and no one's hearing you. You think the world owes you, and you resent like hell that people are carrying on their lives without your say so. And so you take out your rage on baby boomers. I'll assume your parents are boomers, and maybe that's all part of it. Whatever it is, you're mad at the universe in general, and at boomers in particular.

And then there's the other thing: you're a coward.

Yes, a coward. You comment anonymously. Because you're such a pathetic, ineffectual excuse for a human being that you can't abide the thought of someone coming into your personal space and calling you out for what you are. A gutless fucking coward. That's what you are. 

And I find it hilarious that a rage-storm impending shooting spree such as yourself has the gall to talk about karma. There's good karma and bad karma. And someone so filled with such anger and hostility at the world is going to get the latter. Maybe it's about more than being angry at boomers. Maybe it's you're pissed off at the universe for the fact that you were born. But you've got a whole lot of anger inside you, and you take it out by randomly commenting the exact same load of bile, venom, and bullshit on blogs of people who don't know you, and frankly don't care one bit about you.

And you talk about karma?

Be careful what you wish for. Karma may someday soon come and treat you as you deserve. Badly.

So you've got it in for boomers. No doubt you blame them for the state of your life. After all, you've got failure written all over you, pal. It's in every word you write. Failure. 

But guess what? Boomers aren't the reason for you being a failure. The person you should blame for the clusterfuck that is your life? It's you. You're the only person to blame for the utter misery that is every single day of your life. You're the reason everyone who knows you in real life hates you. You're the reason, o hater of boomers.... that you are such a useless, worthless, vile repugnance. You're the reason why when you are no longer alive, no one who ever knew you will miss you. They'll just shrug and say good riddance.

Again: you. Just you. Nobody else but you.

Now, you can come to grips with that. Grow the fuck up, calm the fuck down, get help for that serious temper you've got, lose the conspiracy theory bullshit mindset you've got.... and start taking responsibility for your failures as a human being. 

But let's face it, that would take a level of self realization and self awareness that a fucked up jackass like yourself just doesn't have. 

So in closing, I'll leave it to this guy to sum up my opinion where you're concerned.

Back Away From The Maple Syrup

Yes, I am still alive and kicking. No, I'm not generally posting here for the time being what with Covid restrictions. Check out my photoblog, however, as I'm still managing to keep that up.

I can't, however, let Canada Day go by without acknowledging it. A Happy Canada Day to my fellow poutine eating, maple syrup hogging, hockey loving Canucks.