So, Katya, what have you learned in your journey through the spam-o-sphere?

Well, mostly that I have a well-developed and deep-seated mechanism for avoiding spam that has served me pretty well in the rest of my life but not so well here. Today I finally started receiving the sort of spam that I’m used to, one of many “get drugs through the mail!” scams, rather than the fairly well-designed, legitimate-looking ads that are the internet version of junk mail rather than the internet version of that sketchy guy on the corner. Over 4,400 emails in my inbox to date, and much as I would like to sift through them and do a bit of statistical analysis, I’m also glad that’s someone else’s job

Surfing the internet for at least an hour a day was no problem, but it wasn’t the kind of surfing I was used to! I’m used to taking in information rather than giving it out. Not the most interactive view of this great tool, but I think it’s a pretty common one. And it’s certainly more similar to the way I used the internet when I was first introduced to AOL back in the early 1990s. I wonder whether the techniques I use to avoid spam are produced by actively trying to avoid spam, or are the product of other surfing habits that give me spam-avoidance for free? Hmm…

I’m so curious to see whether Tracy is going to get her iPod, or any of the other things she signed up for and bought… I was more than a little tempted to try to get one using my “real life” information, which I suppose shows just how well these things work. And I’m sure not all of them are scams, but the same technique can be (and is, I suspect) used by scammers.

So, what’s next for the Spam Experiment?

As my final assignment for the Spam Experiment, I was asked to look into those get rich quick schemes.  I focused on penny stocks.  I signed up for several penny stock sites that promised that I would become rich with a minimal investment.  I signed up for otcstockexchange.com, the rich advantage, pennysleuth, pennystockcenter.com, virtualinvestingclub and profitwealthonline.  Some were free, some I had to pay to join or buy into.  So far the only abundance I have experienced is the increase of credit card offers that immediately started flooding my inbox.

I previously had no real knowledge of penny stocks.  I am now slightly smarter than when I began this journey, but I don’t feel anything I learned I couldn’t have found for free. If you are looking to get into this type of trading, I can’t truly get behind any of the sites I went to - especially the pay sites.  Do your homework and tread carefully.  You are going to get lots of spam!

Tracy

Tracy-

I began this experiment 30 days ago with much trepidation and fear as I tried in earnest to mess up a brand new computer.  Here I am at the end of the experiment having learned a lot and hopefully I have passed that learning along to others.

We started with a brand new computer that was lightning fast.  We end with a computer that takes a long time to open even the simplest of webpages and I fear may be tracking every keystroke and page we visit.  I can’t wait to find out what is on this puppy!

I would like to say that the one thing I hope the public gets from this experiment is that if a site or email looks like it might be to good to be true, or looks like it might be junk, just go the other way.  There is no such thing as a free ipod, xbox or laptop. Free music is either from indie bands trying to get discovered or it will get you in trouble. There is no such thing as free money.  No company is going to ask for your personal information by sending you an email.  They are called phishing scams for a reason - don’t take the bait!

I would like to take a moment to thank McAfee and the folks at Red for choosing me to be part of this experiment.  It has been a fantastic experience and a pleasure to work with you.

Zach-

Wow. It’s already been an entire month? Geez time flies. It really has been an educational month. I learned that ipods will never just magically appear on my doorstep, I learned that free music downloads are never free, I learned that penny stocks will get you nowhere. I hope that anyone that regularly checked in learned all of the above things.

 This laptop is really slow. SPAM killed this thing’s processor. If this thing doesn’t get wiped, it’s not going to have  a very productive future. Signing off, Zach.

Wow. I can’t believe it’s been 30 DAYS OF SPAM. Five thousand freaking messages, ranging from buxom blondes to free everything under the sun.  And while I now have enough spam to last me several lifetimes, I do still have a few questions.

Having plumbed the depths of the Internet, a few things have become very clear. For one, it’s amazing to see how spam multiplies at such an exponential rate. If you get on one wrong list, your email address can so easily be passed on to dozens of other spammers—it’s an infinite loop of spam. It multiplies like crazy—like a virus. And it just keeps coming.

But it’s also become clear to me, over the years, that it’s avoidable when you use proper caution. With my own personal Gmail account, for example, I’ve pretty much managed to stave off spam; I rarely get more than a few messages a day. I never sign up for anything that looks remotely sketchy, I don’t go for the “free iPod/iPhone/car/home” offers, and I don’t get on anyone’s newsletter. Basically, I don’t let them know I exist, so they can’t tell their friends that I exist, so their friends can’t tell their friends that I exist and – you get the idea. Basically, I lay low.

That said, my Hotmail account—which I’ve had for years and really should just stop using, but haven’t had the heart to—gets TONS and TONS of spam. Granted, I didn’t know as much going into that account as I did when I signed up for Gmail, which partially explains it.

I suppose the most surprising thing about the whole Spam Experiment experience was actually how difficult it is to track spam; once it starts coming, it seems that there’s very little rhyme or reason to the influx.  Figuring out who shares with who is nearly impossible – at least for the victim (I’m hoping McAfee figures something out!). The spam is mostly coming from small establishments, and I’m wondering what it is that they think they’re getting out of the whole thing? Does it actually work? Does ANYONE buy stuff from links embedded into spam that they receive? The answer, I suppose, is obviously yes; unfortunately, it probably won’t stop anytime soon, either. Judging by the amount of junk snail mail I still receive—that’s printed on paper and actually costs money—the email route is so free and easy that it’s probably a tough option for the (evil, awful) spammers to give up. Save us, McAfee!

This is it - it’s the end of the line for our 30 day project.  What have I learned?

   There is no such thing as “FREE”

   If it sounds to good to be true -IT REALLY IS

   When a site warns you in red letters before you get on that it is probably a bad idea to click on any links, you should probably STAY AWAY

   NEVER, EVER, EVER give out your personal information to an unsolicited site (and be very careful when dealing with sites that you solicited); and

   I sound more and more like my mother every day.

The main reason I came into this project was to see how bad spam really is, to find out if it is just dangerous or merely a nuisance, and to learn some ins and outs that I can share with my students.  They are going to live in a totally different world than the one in which I grew up.  At their young ages, most of them already have some kind of computer access at home.  I am sure that as they enter middle school and high school, the notebook computer will replace the old pen and paper for the most part.  If I am able to make them just a little bit more savvy by sharing what I have learned - then they will be smarter computer users and this will definitely be worth everything I’ve done in these past 30 days.

Be smart and safe online!

SPAM EXPERIMENT NEARING END

SOMEWHERE IN THE GALAXY - This being the last day of the spam project and so far accruing a total of 11,217 entrants in the inbox, thoughts turn to the question of where does all this stuff come from?  Can the minds of mere mortals conceive of vast innundations such as have been experienced during this recess from reality or is the  source of my being importuned somewhere farther away from the common thrall.  For the answer to queries such as these I turned to that noted authority on all things unexplainable, Prof. Zoltan X. Lirpa, of the Multiteknikal Institute of Krakow, a well recognized pundit and infamous expositer on the seemingly unfathomable.

Prof. Lirpa, in a discrete interview granted only after extracting a promise of utmost confidentiality, summed up the answer to me in two words.  “Dark matter,”  he said.  “Where else could all this stuff come from?  This is a subject we here at the Institute have been researching  for some  years now, and we can only come to the conclusion, based upon close scrutiny of the cosmos and all things cyber, that the origin of spam  is dark matter, that 99% of the universe which cannot be seen but whose mass must of necessity be extrapolated by calculations far beyond the feeble abilities of mere mortals.  It is only experts such as myself and other learned highly technical mentations  of my perhaps assumed associates and possible colleagues,  who are capable of divining and commenting on this matter.”

“Yes,” he further expostulated in a torrent of malingering convolutions the like of which could barely be comprensible.  “Spam is generated by the null-singularity event of charmed quarks interacting with the weak gravitational force in the universe in direct proportion to the expansion- of-the-universe constant.  This has been occurring ever since the Big Bang, and it will continue to happening without cessation in a heuristic evolution of self propogation until all empty space is filled with dark matter experienced as spam on  Earth and it will continue until such time as we have all bought everything we have been spammed to  buy and foolishly reduced ourselves to penury by giving all we have been spammed to  cough up to whatever scammer has caught our fancy”.

Being thus enlightened I shuffle off the page, a wiser yet humbler soul reminding myself, if it all gets too much for me I can always turn off my spam filter, get myself a big beautiful HOT Christian single and see what comes next.

Zach-

Man. If I have learned one thing during this whole ordeal, its that spam=migraines.  After a good long day of spamming, hunting for free music downloads and other things, I always need a good, hot shower, some tea, and a chance to rest my eyes (whose retinas now bear an eternally burned-in image of thousands of spam messages, free music downloads, and ipods…)

As part of our experiment, we were asked to look into the whole “free unlimited music” scene.  We signed up for napster, Mp3.com and your free mp3’s.  Napster was legit, albeit expensive, yourfreemp3’s was free, except for the whole “sign up for one of our sponsor’s deals” things (in our case we chose the free slenderizing green tea, free except for the shipping and handeling fee), and mp3.com ended up being more about indie bands uploading music, along with people trying to hide kanye west songs under the promise of american idol tracks.  There were a few more sites that wouldn’t even show you the home page before you paid for the amazing free downloads. 

The experience was a bit disappointing on the whole.  Our final verdict is that there really is no free commercial music.  Either you pay for the listening, or you run the risk of the FBI knocking on your door.

Ouch. Now I plan on laying down with my napster mp3’s blaring to try and help me forget today’s spam.

As I  am quickly approaching the end of the project, I really wanted to interact with the seedier sounding emails - particularly the many of them that offered “free” products and services.  Well as your mother warned you from a very tender age, nothing in life is free - but I decided to play along anyway.  I expressed my heartfelt desire for the products and kept my patience as they put me through more and more hoops.  But when it came time for my credit card number, I tried to exit the sites immediately.  The only problem is that many of the sites would not let me leave.  Many just giving me more ane more popups (I;ve already blogged about this nightmare) - and for the first time, several put a LIVE AGENT on to talk to me directly. 

I enjoyed this at first and did speak to one,  I explained that I was no longer interested in the “free” product as it had a shipping fee, handling fee, and a tax that required payment on my credit card. I got a lot of sales talk and ended up with a thanks, but no thanks to the agent.  This actually happened 3 more times tonight, but I really didn’t want to deal with any more agents .  I was very surprised, though, that these sites had agents at the ready - is this to prevent people from leaving when they find that they have these fees to pay?   I guess they must be pretty successful as it seems to be a bit of a common thing.

In today’s news I get a message from an “Insane Rich Guy” who hints that riches will be mine if only I will make him even richer first:  Nothing new here.  Then there is the Grant Disbursement Department (they don’t say of what) and another reminder to get my Federal Grant Check.  These two must be connected but why do they bother sending me two emails to remind me?  The mysteries of grantors are mysterious indeed.  Perhaps Christian Faith Financial has one of its miraculous hands in the eleemosynary fire here.  I am forever stunned by the unfathomableness of the internet treasury.

Well, guess what?  It is the 28th day and I think I found out why I am involved in this project.  I had many different reasons for doing it, but today the light bulb went off.  As I was skimming through my mail, I saw that I received an email (unsolicited, of course, but what else is new) about a marathon.  The site was interesting and it started me thinking.  By the time the day was over, a friend and I were talking about joining a triathlon.  So of course I spent all my time online today reading and subscribing to everything triathlon - and let me tell you, this is serious.  But I am excited.  Who would have thought that a piece of spam could have such an effect on my life?