Sender Unknown

I am intrigued by spam. Not the “meat”; that’s just disgusting. I mean I am intrigued by the strategies and purposes of junk email. It seems as though there are a good number of people who waste a good deal of their time accomplishing nothing more than wasting a whole bunch of other people’s time.

Some are clearly pranks, with no real end-game other than a laugh. But most spam seems designed with the hope and intent of making a buck, whether by scam or legit product. To do this they must usually get you to visit their website. To do this they must get you to click on a link within the email they send. To do this, they must get you to open the email. This is where the process usually breaks down.

So what I am most intrigued by is spam subject lines. This is a 25 character audition to convince me to open an email. I have a friend (Maxon) who literally treats it as such: he will “reward” spammers by simply opening their email if the subject line is sufficiently intriguing and creative (I, on the other hand, like to play a little game where every email I send him has a subject line that I hope will be mistaken for spam, just to see if he’s paying attention).

Many spammers try hooking me with something they’re sure I’ll want: male enhancement, ED medication, naked ladies. I’m sure someone must open those at some point, but it’s not me. So their other tried and true tactic is masquerading as the old personal email from a friend non-spam. In my case, their strategy is half-done for them: my name is the primary part of my email address. Throw in an innocuous greeting (hey, hi, what’s up) and a common sender name and you might just get me.

For some reason, most spam subject lines are still miserable failures, with misspellings and numbers in the middle of words rampant throughout. I really enjoyed one I got today. The subject started out “For Josh.” Hey, that’s me. So far, so good. The very next word: fraud. Uh huh. And then a bunch of misspelled words.

Delete forever?

I wish.