Sometimes, I get a piece of spam I just can't keep from peeking at. I have gotten quite a bit of stuff from the '''' email addy over the last year or so, but have gotten into the habit of simply deleting it. For all I know, I may have visited some web site, somewhere, long ago and left a box checked that said ''I am such an idiot that I would appreciate it very much if you would spam the hell out of my inbox with your stupid offers!'' - though I doubt it. But, they don't try to hide their IP, they don't forge headers, they don't shift their sender name around to defeat filters - so I don't track them down and ask their ISP to LART their Internet service to a slag puddle.

But, this one got to me. I pulled it from the old spam-trap and was ready to delete it, when I saw the title. When I stopped rolling on the floor laughing, and dried my eyes, I realized that this was one for spam, Skewered.

And now, the moment you have all been waiting for... the spam:

Return-Path:
Received: from mail8.transcentives.net ([2])
by mta03-srv.alltel.net with ESMTP
id <20020618182609.WMNL2485.mta03-srv.alltel.net @ mail8.transcentives.net>
for <[old.me]@[my.old.isp]>; Tue, 18 Jun 2002 13:26:09 -0500
Received: (from mailer@localhost)
by mail8.transcentives.net (8.11.3/8.11.3) id g5IIPM926123;
Tue, 18 Jun 2002 13:25:22 -0500 (CDT)
(envelope-from mailer)
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 13:25:22 -0500 (CDT)
Message-Id: <200206181825.g5IIPM926123 @ mail8.transcentives.net>
TO: ''[old.me]@[my.old.isp]'' <[old.me]@[my.old.isp]>
FROM: ''''
CONTENT-TYPE: text/html;
SUBJECT: What is your e-mail address?

The first thing you will probably notice is the lack of a payload - all I divulged was the headers. Why is this, you ask? Simple. This message was sent in HTML, and I hate it when I have to skin the HTML off of an email, and the amount of skinning I was going to have to do far outweighed the value of the content. What they were shilling in this particular email was a new TLD (Top Level Domain) called .NAME - whoopie.

I ran the mail server IP through a blocklist check, and it came up blank.

The reason I picked this particular serving of spam to roast is simple: the title of it was too good to pass up. Read it, then READ IT AGAIN!!! Then see my response, below:

Hey, doofus -
if you don't know what my email address is,
then why are you sending this to me?!?

Whew... that sure felt good!

Update: Some time after I posted this, I received a call at my office from an employee of the company that sent this out. He had been to check for any references to his employer, and came across this page. The reason he called me was... that he had once been a co-worker of mine. In fact, he helped 'liberate' me from an assignment as a mainframe computer operator. And, not only was he a former co-worker, he was also the best man at my wedding!

Anyway, we had a good chat, and he explained to me that his duties included writing / maintaining software to ensure that all the mailing lists they used (which they got from the 'customers') were in fact verified opt-in. While I am still not a fan of such email, as I said earlier this outfit doesn't fit the profile of the typical spammer scum -- and, while I still won't reply to any of the 'Remove' requests I get in these emails, as long as they behave themselves, I will simply filter them to /dev/null and go on about my business.

I will go on record, however, and say that this company is living proof that you don't need special laws or other regulatory actions to control UCE -- all you need is for those sending it to act ethically.