Saturday, December 27, 2008

What the hell?

Just got this in my inbox, subject line "A biased ultra-positivist's thoughts." WTF? Weirdest spam evar?

Aren't you looking for someone who understands you? If not, there is no
need to read further as it shows that people who think just like you
already surround you.

You must aim to coerce others to adopt your views.
Or does it appeal to you more to nourish foolishness?

I was trying to marry someone this year as there would have been tax advantages.
They told me they'd only consider marriage for love.
They had no enthusiasm for collaboration.

They think the most wonderful thing is to find what you love to do. They're lying to themselves.
A few per cent of today's employment level would be enough to live comfortably.

People ask how I survive as I work only from time to time.
I question why they compensate talented deluders by donating to the movie industry.
Why do they hunger after motorized transport and single family homes?
Is it not self-evident that they delight in traveling only as long as
it's well-respected by the masses?

They're assured that people can't change. Yet when young, they dreamt about
immortality, ideal relationships, and perfect worlds. We are still that immature.
We'll build a society based on rational thinking.

Don't reply to this message as we won't read it. Use the best internet search
engine to search these words.

arrogant teenage intelligence inexperienced students
light philosophy strategy ideology logic
pure general enclave design insecure
terrestrial solitary personality intolerant defiance
salutation social spiritual art traits
indoctrination Borg substantive monomania clandestine

For best results, search for 3 terms at a time. Hence, there are
a very large number of search possibilities, so only the determined will not give up.


Very strange. Some sort of Google adwords revenue scam? Get people to search those words, get cash from associated ads? Seems like it could be successful. Message is weird enough to not get pegged as typical spam, and it preys on some pretty basic human insecurities. Robots harvesting ad value from loneliness. Great. Welcome to century 21. Welcome to the Network Economy.

19 comments:

girls.are.cats said...

Hi, I got the same email. I googled it and your blog is what came up. It's a really strange email but I am kind of intrigued by it. Most of the email addresses that it was sent to were .edu emails. Was this true for yours?

Andy said...

No, it was to my gmail account... hmmm, I wonder if any other recipients of this strange message will find their way here...

Matt said...

Sure did. It's like an excerpt from a really terrible essay.

Anonymous said...

I don't know what's going on? I got this on my school email. Weird..just weird.

JennaGu said...

yeah, i got the same email. i always ignore spam. but this was so weird i actually googled "arrogant teenage intelligence students immature" and got to your blog. i wish someone had the answer!

Anonymous said...

I got this in an .edu account too. The sender had a weird address: s-t-a-c-y@gmail.com, it was recevied at 6:32 AM on 12/28/08. It was sent to about two dozen others, most .edu addresses, none I recognize outright, and few from the same institutions. I am a bit o a SciFi buff and to me this sort of thing is like something out of a William Gibson novel. This seems like the product of a virus which has just been activated, or an elaborate prank. I have nothing to do today so I will do some digging, since folks seem to be routing here a lot, I will re-post if I find some definitive answers...

- zp

Anonymous said...

I just got this email too. It was on my .edu email. I think someone is trying to pull our leg. Either that or they are seriously trying to form a cult. The email sender's name was:
t-r-u-s-t-n-o-o-n-e@gmail.com

At first I thought it was a virus, but I don't know. I will check back here today to see if anyone comes up with an answer.

Anonymous said...

I received this email also. Also on a .edu email address. Very weird.

Anonymous said...

i also received this email. I will be investigating this further, as i am intrigued to find out if this is a prank/hoax or if this email has some sort of meaning.
if anyone feels like keeping in touch...as far as finding out new things my AIM is quicknshiny.

Joe

Anonymous said...

I got this email too! Like most of everyone who commented eariler, I recieved it on my .edu email. I want to know where this email originated from. Maybe its the owner of this blogg?! Naw, but this was one of the sites that came up in my search. "I ask them why they reward convincing impersonators by spending money on Hollywood" is great!

Andy said...

Heh, it wasn't me! Though I'm getting more traffic from this little enigma than I've ever gotten before...

I've gotten hundreds of folks coming by trying to figure this out. I wonder how many more will show up?

girls.are.cats said...

hello again, mine was sent from radical.front@gmail.com. It definitely has a anti-authoritarian/establishment feel to it. I thought maybe it was from some sort of radical newsletter or group that has my email, which is a good possiblitity for me.....anyone else think this is a possiblity for them?? The weird thing is I never use my .edu account for outside of school things....... keep eachother posted!!

Unknown said...

I also got the same email delivered to my .edu account. Weird

Anonymous said...

why is the question "WHO?" and "WHAT FOR?"

is nothing more to be learned?

Andy said...

To be totally honest, I don't think this is much more than a curiosity. Probably some slightly novel method for defeating spam filters. Granted, the payload doesn't make much sense, but a lot of spam doesn't. The fact that it asks recipients to search for certain terms is odd, and suggests to me some sort of search-based ad revenue strategy. Of course, since many of those searches are landing here, on my ad-free site, that strategy doesn't seem to be succeeding wildly.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe something else entirely is going on. Everyone is free to discuss any ideas they may have here in the comments if they want...

Anonymous said...

I got this e-mail at my .edu address, also. It was from ultra.positivist@gmail.com. Because of the address, I thought maybe it had something to do with a Wittgenstein website that I could have registered at in the past... it's the best I could think of. It could also be from a radical political site that I joined

BUT: It's odd that it was sent to my .edu address because I almost never give that out.

This is odd.

The best that I can think of is that someone found my interest in Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein, or Chomsky from my Facebook and found me that way. Other than that, I have no idea.

Anonymous said...

People are talking about it here too: http://tomecatti.livejournal.com/357959.html?view=1995591#t1995591

Who the heck knows... it's probably some nutjob trying to get people to visit his websites- and it's working.

Looks like a cgi-script just spitting out nonsense.

Pope Richard Corey said...

We've got a hearty discussion of it going at my livejournal. I got mine two weeks ago, and for a while I was the first person for those searchwords.

Hit us up if you like; we've got a few leads, but most of them have faltered.

Unknown said...

They've done it.

For those of you who don't realize it, the goal of this e-mail, which was directed to those like-minded individuals who actually care enough to search the words, was to bring us together. There is no secret website of some underground social movement. the movement is this page right here.

Bravo, to S-T-A-C-Y