“You get the Damnedest email!”

That’s what the other half said looking over my shoulder as I was scanning my SPAM folders.

“This isn’t even half of it, you should see what the servers block,” I replied offhandedly.

In fact the servers do block a fair amount but the SPAMMERS continue to shift things around and there is always some email server in Europe with no security and is therefore open to become a conduit for SPAM.

Here’s a representative example.

I’m not on any dating sites.

The text says the girl is in Russia but the FROM is an address in Italy. The TO is going to someone in Canada.

I dig into the header and that’s where I find contact information that makes some sense. 

The actual REPLY TO address is a gmail freebie.

Other emails have been for “New Jobs”, and medications, and one young Russian woman was apparently looking for “Good Strong Cock” because her father’s didn’t satisfy her anymore.  I think there was a problem in the translation on that one, but then again it was European so God only knows what the custom is. I suppose I wouldn’t have questioned it if the email had originated in the Middle East or some other islamic country.

The other half asks, “Why do you even look at these trainwrecks?” 

Good Question.

Where I not looking for a job these would all be right in the trash bin. But if you’re applying for positions some of the legitimate responses to your applications come from the strangest places. It’s one of the problems having to be exposed on the internet and the new realities of the job market.

Rather than having 50 filters, one each for individual spam that comes in, and having that number continuously growing, I try to find the common elements between each of the messages and create a filter that takes ‘em all out in one shot.

In this case I’m thinking I’m going to say anything coming from a server named alice.it is going to get the boot. It’s the server in common for both the Russian girls and bogus jobs.

I just hope it doesn’t stop my email from the Pope, or from wealthy friends in Naples who are sending their private jet to collect me to winter in their villa by the sea, from getting to me.

Oh well, I suppose it’s just a risk I’ll have to take.