Comments on: Who’s feeding the spammers with information? http://www.spiderwritingseo.co.uk/blog/spam/whos-feeding-the-spammers-with-information.php common sense from a Scottish SEO consultant in Edinburgh Mon, 03 Oct 2011 09:38:39 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: bill http://www.spiderwritingseo.co.uk/blog/spam/whos-feeding-the-spammers-with-information.php/comment-page-1/#comment-19133 bill Mon, 03 Oct 2011 09:38:39 +0000 http://www.spiderwritingseo.co.uk/blog/?p=170#comment-19133 Thanks for your comment David. You could be right and it may all be coincidence due to sheer volume, but when I see spam emails with names that are both unusual and very similar to people I know, or purporting to be from companies I've just done business with when I've never had such spams before and rarely since, then I smell a rat. I'm not suggesting a large scale monitoring of phone calls but what about telecom workers being bribed to supply information, just as credit card workers have been in the past. Sad to hear about PGP. It's a reflection of how far down the road of reduced privacy we've come in recent years that the desire for privacy is equated to the suspicion of terrorism. I'm afraid that the politicians have repeatedly fallen into the trap the terrorists laid - if you change your society in response to their actions then they've succeeded in spreading fear and undermined the freedoms that we stood for. Thanks for your comment David. You could be right and it may all be coincidence due to sheer volume, but when I see spam emails with names that are both unusual and very similar to people I know, or purporting to be from companies I’ve just done business with when I’ve never had such spams before and rarely since, then I smell a rat.
I’m not suggesting a large scale monitoring of phone calls but what about telecom workers being bribed to supply information, just as credit card workers have been in the past.

Sad to hear about PGP. It’s a reflection of how far down the road of reduced privacy we’ve come in recent years that the desire for privacy is equated to the suspicion of terrorism. I’m afraid that the politicians have repeatedly fallen into the trap the terrorists laid – if you change your society in response to their actions then they’ve succeeded in spreading fear and undermined the freedoms that we stood for.

]]> By: David Edwards http://www.spiderwritingseo.co.uk/blog/spam/whos-feeding-the-spammers-with-information.php/comment-page-1/#comment-19088 David Edwards Sat, 01 Oct 2011 16:45:02 +0000 http://www.spiderwritingseo.co.uk/blog/?p=170#comment-19088 sorry, just too paranoid: many households have a Windoze computer and of course have problems so the chances are that a VOIP cold call will find a soft target quite quickly. Spammers use list compiled (sold to them) from many sources but I very seriously doubt monitoring phone calls. Think about it, how much would it cost to mount such a level of surveillance and more to the point, how many people would you need? You may have received messages from carriers you've recently used but millions of e-mails were received by people who never used a carrier? As for PGP, which is no longer available except a sanitised product approved by DoD for sale by Symantec. I suspect that any use of proper encryption would raise a flag at NSA or GCHQ marking you as a 'person of interest' sorry, just too paranoid: many households have a Windoze computer and of course have problems so the chances are that a VOIP cold call will find a soft target quite quickly. Spammers use list compiled (sold to them) from many sources but I very seriously doubt monitoring phone calls. Think about it, how much would it cost to mount such a level of surveillance and more to the point, how many people would you need?

You may have received messages from carriers you’ve recently used but millions of e-mails were received by people who never used a carrier?

As for PGP, which is no longer available except a sanitised product approved by DoD for sale by Symantec. I suspect that any use of proper encryption would raise a flag at NSA or GCHQ marking you as a ‘person of interest’

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