544 DEAR HACKER

544 DEAR HACKER

It takes a lot to get us angry. Unsolicited emails that make little sense don’t really get us upset in the least. Nor does having someone say that they’ve visited our website and the first thing it made them think of was portable toilets. That’s a valid critique and we will defend to the death the right of someone to express it. We are

a little frustrated that such an opportunity has apparently landed at our doorstep and we find ourselves with absolutely no contacts in the world of toiletry to even attempt to bluff our way through this and finally realize our dream of supporting ourselves through the production of human excrement. But whatever.

None of that made us angry. What made us lose our cool here was something that happened after our auto-response was sent to the email address listed. See for yourself:

“From: Elizabeth Greer <elizabethg@inbox.com> Subject: My spam filter requires verification of your email

address Hello, You have reached Elizabeth Greer. I’m protecting myself from receiving junk email by using

Challenge/Response Spam Protection. Please follow the directions below to make sure I receive the

email you just sent me.” This was followed by all sorts of directions that needed to be carried out to the let-

ter in order for our mail not to be discarded. Now we’re not especially big fans of jumping through hoops in the first place, regardless of the end goal. But the irony of spammers protecting themselves from spam and then bragging about it to the people that they just spammed while subtly implying that those very people may in fact be the true spammers was a bit much for our relatively level heads. We’ve already been in touch with some of the highest authorities in the toilet industry who don’t like to see their overwhelmingly positive image tarnished by such behavior. Needless to say, this isn’t over.

Dear 2600: Hi my names Greg but my nick is feretman i read your relly old 2600

STRANGE RAMBLINGS

and type Bush hid the facts you should ether get squares or just some japenes jibbery joob

P.S. im 12 Lol Greggg

In a few years, would you be kind enough to revisit this letter and tell us just what it meant? It might prove to be a fascinating study of some sort. It might also prove fruitless as we know a number of middle-aged people who also speak this dialect.

Dear 2600:

I wish to contribute as well as subscribe to 2600 Magazine and The Hacker Quarterly. Could you thus ship me specimen hard copies for evaluation? Thank you.

DANIEL OBORI NIGERIA

For some reason, we get at least one letter with this exact phrasing every week and almost always from Nigeria. There are those who would say that this is some- how part of some kind of a scam, but we just don’t buy it. It’s one thing to hand over one’s banking information (which we are sending you as a courtesy), but to simply ask for specimen hard copies seems harmless enough. We have therefore sent you one copy each of all issues of both 2600 Magazine and The Hacker Quarterly in the hopes that you will evaluate them and let us know of your deci- sion. And now the wait begins.

Dear 2600: Thanks your website. please hack these id we shall be very thankful

to you. [deleted]@hotmail.com, [deleted]@yahoo.com, Ashe is not good lady she is money maker and just communication for money after that she use for wrong work. with thanks.