I get letters.

Some of them are from readers of my sites, telling me how much they enjoyed the experience. Others suggest I not quit my day job just yet. Many of them are either 'Nigeria 419' or other scams, or virii-infected missives sent out by compromised systems.

Every once in awhile I get one like this:

Subject: Important

Dear [me],

We recently got a Nigerian scam letter by a ‘Winnie Nansasi’ from Uganda. What makes it particularly interesting is how they got our address: From your website!

Now I don’t mind having my name on your website to be made fun of, especially when I know that I made a mistake on Christmas Eve four years ago and never meant to harm anyone. But when it comes to my personal privacy, I realise I have to make a stand, especially with the speed that people can gather information on one another over the internet.

Because of this, I have to let you know that your website is providing some real names and addresses to these criminals over the internet! This is not a problem for the obvious MMF scammers who used aliases and phoney addresses or P.O. Boxes. But for someone like me, who at the time was new to the internet (as were many others in ‘98) and who didn’t realise I was getting into a scam by the obvious fact that I used my real name and real address, this now makes me a target for criminals such as ‘Winnie Nansasi’ and others of his/her persuasion.

I understand the least harm these people can do is send us these kind of scam letters. However, with a little bit more ingenuity and information, they can try robbing us of our credit card details and this can lead to identity theft, which is a horrible crime.

A person’s privacy is a human rights issue and I’m more than willing to take it up with my solicitor. In Europe there are laws concerning a person’s privacy. Please change the way your website freely provides information on MMFers, especially the unintentional ones, or I will be forced to take further action.

Yours truly,

[name]

So, let's see. We have someone who admits to sending out MMF, in which he gave out his real name and address (email and physical), who is complaining because he was spammed by a Nigeria 419 perp, who harvested his name/email addy off of 'my site'. Time to do some checking.

I grepped all of my sites for the name supplied: nothing. Next stop, Google. There, I do find one 'hit': the MMF Hall of Humiliation, where the name is found on a posting of the Lupine Awards for December 1998. The Lupine Awards, for those of you not familiar with Usenet, are a monthly report from a Usenet administrator at NASA, which list the Top 40 posters of MMF (Make $$$$MONEY$$$$$ FA$T) chain letters on Usenet newsgroups. This particular person ranked #26, with a total of 183 posts. Stating that this qualifies as an ''unintentional'' MMFool is like stating that Jack the Ripper was an ''unintentional'' murderer.

But wait - there's more. A Google Groups search on the same name turned up 29 'hits'! While most of them are related to 'sightings' of his MMF posts, some of them are actual postings, on groups such as , where he pushes PC-Super CLOAD; , where he is featured on a 6-Fool ''mailing list'' MMF; and , another 6-Fool ''mailing list'' MMF (looks like a duplicate). These posts were made during the time period of Dec 25, 1998 through Feb 4, 1999. Looks to me like someone got a new PC and Internet access as an early Christmas present, then proceeded to learn how to use the new playtoy to commit fraud.

So, let me see if I got this right. Some internet newbie decides to spew out MMF in a pathetic attempt to make $$$$MONEY$$$$$ from the Internet. He posts his crap, including his email address and real physical address, to various Usenet groups. Some of these posts include the following instructions:

Change anything you need to, but try to keep this article as close to original as possible. Now, post your amended article to at least 200 news groups. (I think there are close to 24,000 groups.) All you need is a minimum 200, but remember, the more you post the more money you make!

Which translates to, ''rebroadcast my name and address and other personal info I provided all over creation''. So, someone takes your posts (which are evidence of criminal activity), and includes their existence in a report that is itself posted to Usenet, with a copy on the Web.

You caused your personal, private information to be published in a public forum. And, when you decide you don't like this, you make someone else out to be the bad guy, while you are an innocent victim.

[visualization of someone playing the world's smallest violin goes here.]

This is like carving your name and number on a bathroom wall, then threatening to sue the restaurant when you start getting phone calls from pervs at 2 AM.

Now, let's get a few things straight here. You posted your 'private' information on the Internet - not me. You posted schemes that are a felony offense in most countries of the world - not me. One such posting might be 'unintentional': 183 of them most certainly are not. 'Real' MMFools don't provide fake addresses; to do so would result in their failing to take in any $$$$MONEY$$$$$. In fact, all MMFools are 'Real' MMFools: this is one scam where the victim becomes the perpetrator. Because the deluge of this junk threatened to render the Internet access we pay for unusable, some of us decided to make a stand, and expose MMFools for the frauds that they are. Others have joined in over the years. I not only can't remove your 'private' information from the web site (the domain name is registered to me, but I don't have administrative access to the web site), but I can't remove your personal, private information from the thousands... AND THOUSANDS... of Usenet News servers where it resides, nor from the archives at Google and other sites.

And, even if I could... I wouldn't. That's why it is called ''The MMF Hall of HUMILIATION'', bozo.

You asked for it. You got it. Deal with it.

Eat More Spicey Chicken!

* "There is no Spicey Chicken Cartel."

The Spicey Chicken Cartel (TinSCC) does not engage in animal testing. All our tests are performed on human subjects (or a reasonable facsimile thereof).

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Published on: 20-18 (261 reads)