MAIL CALL

It's been a busy week for my In-box.
A brief summary;

I won 5 European Lotteries for a grand total of 11,000,000 Euros (whatever a Euro is).

I have 1 relative and 3 old friends who need money wired to them in South Africa because they got stranded at The FIFA World Cup (whatever the FIFA is).

Then there must be something bad happening in Nigeria! Because I got mail from 3 people there who need me to assist them in moving vast amounts of US Dollars into an American Bank (I know what US Dollars is, are...).

Then there's the usual amount of non-sense about Male Enhancement, and weight loss miracles and tooth whiteners.

And the "STUPID With A Capital 'F'" award goes out to the Dood who keeps asking for Ophilia's Email Address. The first time I told him to ask her for it in a comment on her blog.
Then Mr Dill, complained to me, that she deleted his comments. And asked me again for assistance.
Mr Dill. That's just plain creepy. One more such request will result in me posting your email address for the world to use at will. Get it? Got it? Good!!!
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Now all of this brings me to the topic of WHY?
Why am I, a supposed Security Expert, getting these kinds of emails?

The answer is easy. I'm asking for it. I do it on purpose, to keep tabs on the latest and greatest being offered by the bad guys. I'm your wing man. But I'm a trained professional. And I don't recommend you try this at home.

Don't put your email address out in public. And your blog is public. Hackers and spammers have tools they call "HARVESTERS" that parse web pages and entire sites looking for things that look like an E-Mail Address. Things like:

aname@acompany.com

Will get found and harvested. Then some Russian will pay a "Script-kiddy" a few cents per name, for a list of thousands, and then the real fun begins. So if you must leave your email address and you don't want an automated process (A BOT) to find and use it. Put it in a format that only a human can use. One that resembles:

aname[at]acompany(.)com

So that:

krippledwarrior@gmail.com

Becomes:

krippledwarrior[at]gmail(.)com

Score: Good Guys 1

           Bad Guys   0

And A Get well soon Shout out to My ADHD me!

Catch y'all later,

Kurt