WARNING! -- Punked by a Spammer

Lovnic, Romania

Well, they got me. I'm usually so careful with email. I hate spam and I have worked and worked on filters. But the best way to avoid spam (outside of having no on-line presence) is to avoid revealing your email address to anyone you don't know, like "KatieX," who's following you on Twitter, and won't you please follow her? Or "Honorable Mr. Putubey Malumba," who wants desperately to give you $1,000,000 to place in a safe, secure account for him.

I was scanning my email late one night when I came across an email that my Charter email filter had indicated might be junk mail. I could tell immediately that it was -- I wasn't looking for a loan from Orchard Bank -- and I started to delete it when my eye lighted on a "Report spam" button to the right. Before thinking, I clicked it. Well guess what? It was a hidden URL that redirected my click to some asshole in Lovnic, north-west of Bucharest, Romania, that makes chump change by collecting active emails all day.

Here's what the email looked like (WARNING! Don't click on the links).

From: Loan Department

Subject: Get_the_funds_you_need

Date: February 6, 2012 3:59:58 PM PST

Like

Report spam

If you go to your menu and select "View Menu" and select "Raw Source," you'll see all the hidden content meant to fool filters.

Here's the information that can be had by looking up the IP address 109.206.78.209 in the header of the message.

IP:	109.206.78.209
Decimal:	1842237137
Hostname:	internetdevelopment.ro
ISP:	SC VRP Development SRL
Organization:	SC VRP Development SRL
Services:	None detected
Type:	Broadband
Assignment:	Static IP

Country:	Romania
Latitude:	46
Longitude:	25