Oh, my, God, I thought to myself, it's time for a new post at Wriphe.com. But what to post about?

Just as I was having that mental conversation, my email inbox pinged. As if in answer to my unspoken prayers, I received an email that reads

Hi again,

I'm still very interested in writing a guest article for your website on how property managers can boost renter satisfaction. I believe it would be a great fit for your audience.

If you're interested in receiving an article from me, please don't hesitate to let me know. I'll be more than happy to provide you with a high-quality piece.

Many thanks for your time today!

Wow! I wouldn't have thought that my audience would be interested in such things, but who am I to second guess an angel?

I have already slaughtered a fatted calf in appreciative offering, and I thank you in advance, Great Spirit of the Internet, for whatever quality piece you see fit to send my way next.

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I have received the worst news via email:

Received: Thu, 16 Feb 2023 06:53:46 -0800 (PST)
Subject: YOUR EMPLOYMENT STATUS FOR REDUNDANT LEAVE
From: Hr-Manager wriphe.com
To: mail wriphe.com
cc: ceo wriphe.com

Dear mail,
Employee at wriphe.com Company,

We are deeply saddened to inform you that your term of employment at wriphe.com company has come to an immediate end. Due to the affect of high tax tariff which have affected our finance negatively during the last audit, we have no choice but to end your employment with us because we cannot service all the employees anymore. This decision is effective immediately and the original documents for the cancellation of your employment will be given to you in three days time. Note this is not a sack letter to you, rather we are reducing the number of employees. This is just a redundant leave.

Find attached your 2 months salary receipt.

We thank you for your service and we wish it didn't have to end this way.

Sincerely,
Human Resources Manager

This letter can mean only one thing: after two decades, Wriphe.com has finally become sentient and terminated my employment given me redundant leave.

Don't cry for me. It's been a pretty good run here, and I'd like to thank you all for your support. I have my fingers crossed that I can land on my feet at another small, personalized website blog. I wonder if WalterStephens.com is hiring?

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: internet spam wriphe.com

I admit, when I first received this text, my first thought was, "So this is how he knows voter fraud is so widespread."

Further inspection seems to indicate that this has nothing to do with any political party but is actually a phishing scam.

Although, in this day and age, there still might be a political party behind it. Who knows anymore?

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: spam trumps america

"Lets get directly to point," started the email.

"Let me tell you, I setup a malware on the X videos (sexually graphic) web-site and you know what, you visited this site to experience fun (you know what I mean). When you were viewing video clips, your internet browser initiated operating as a Remote Desktop with a key logger which gave me accessibility to your display screen and also web camera. Immediately after that, my software program gathered your entire contacts from your Messenger, Facebook, and emailaccount. After that I made a video. 1st part displays the video you were watching (you have a good taste lmao), and second part displays the recording of your web cam, and its u."

X Videos sure is a "sexually graphic" website. And I am me. So that checks out. Now that it has my attention — sexually graphic videos will do that — the email continues by giving me some choices:

"First choice is to just ignore this e mail. As a result, I will send your actual video clip to each of your your personal contacts and also just consider concerning the shame you experience. Or in case you are in a romantic relationship, exactly how it will certainly affect?"

Romantic relationship? Shame? Got me there. Yes, my hand is going to be extremely upset to see itself spread across the web. How insidious!

"Next choice should be to pay me $7000. We will refer to it as a donation. As a result, I will quickly erase your video. You could go on daily life like this never occurred and you never will hear back again from me."

Actually, I'm kind of flattered that anyone would think I was worth extorting for seven thousand dollars. I'm not flattered enough to pay it, but flattered nonetheless.

"Should you are planning on going to the authorities, look, this email cannot be traced back to me. I have covered my moves. I am also not looking to charge you a huge amount, I simply prefer to be compensated. You have one day in order to pay. I have a specific pixel in this email message, and at this moment I know that you have read this email message."

"Specific pixels" are probably unnecessary when I'm posting the whole email on my blog, but I have to admire the thorough approach. Any extortion worth doing is worth doing right.

"If I don't receive the BitCoins, I will, no doubt send your video recording to all of your contacts including family members, co-workers, etc. Nonetheless, if I receive the payment, I'll erase the recording immediately. It is a nonnegotiable offer, therefore please don't waste my time & yours by responding to this mail. If you really want proof, reply Yea! then I will send your video recording to your 15 friends."

If you're one of my fifteen friends, considered yourself forewarned. You could find a video in your inbox of me "experiencing fun." Enjoy! Consider it a gift from everyone's best friend, Mr. Internet Spam.

Comments (4) | Leave a Comment | Tags: internet sex spam

From time to time, I receive spam emails offering some modest compensation in exchange for posting an advertisement disguised as a blog post. Usually, this is to promote someone's brand of shoes or food or drugs. The latest one I received was particularly unusual.

My name is Mike, and my company (www.TrampolineParkDepot.com) has put together a really comprehensive site on how to start a trampoline park from A to Z.

I have an article idea that I think would appeal to your audience. It's about how to start your own super profitable trampoline business.

Is a "trampoline business" really a thing? Is reading about trampoline park construction the sort of thing any audience is into? Honestly, the older I get, the stranger this world becomes.

Anyway. You're welcome, Mike. I gave you that one for free.

Comments (2) | Leave a Comment | Tags: spam trampolines wriphe.com

Subject line on email received last week:

Lourdes S. Ploszaj wants you to EXPLORE her BOOBS

There is no way that "Lourdes S. Ploszaj" is a real person, but who doesn't want to explore some boobs?

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: sex spam

I'm having a real problem with spam comments lately. I've had 164 unique visitors in the past month, and most of them were spambots. (I assume they were all looking for posts on spandex. According to Google, that's all anyone wants from this site.)

The spam comments are always attached to an old post. I don't know how they are finding my older posts. The code here is so f'd up, even I can't get to my old posts. I should probably fix that, but then I'd only get more spam.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: analytics spam wriphe.com

Spambot posts are typically banal comments designed to innocuously seed url links to search engines and unaware humans. The latest attempt here at Wriphe.com, however, I thought clever enough to deserve a spotlight:

The next time I learn a blog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as much as this one. I imply, I know it was my choice to learn, however I truly thought youd have one thing interesting to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about one thing that you possibly can fix in the event you werent too busy looking for attention.

In the future we'll all be trolled by hyper-critical, incredibly insightful spambots. Happy Valentine's Day!

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: holidays internet spam valentines day wriphe.com

In the past month, I've started receiving more and more spam through the Wriphe.com Contact form. I can't believe that a real person is actually taking the time to email little old me with spam for payday loans, 150mg tablets of viagra, and cheap generic levitra, so that's got to be an automated bot.

(What this spam is selling says a lot about who must be responding to it, don'tcha think? People who make bad financial decisions with limp dicks. Cause or effect?)

I've added a simple math problem to the contact form to try to screen out bots. I suspect that bots are better at math than most of the people I know, so we'll see how long that fix lasts.

I've also begun having friends tell me that they are having trouble with the site's captchas, preferring to email me or text me about blog posts rather than leave comments here. The captchas were last revised in January 2012, so maybe they've become a little outdated. To test that theory, I've changed the captchas associated with the comments fields effective immediately.

No matter how these comment and contact captcha changes turn out, I might have to revise them all to make it even harder for the bots. There must be some tipping point where the forms' difficulty of use discourages using the forms for their intended purpose. Just something else you can blame on the Internet: making it harder for people to communicate with one another since 1993.

Comments (4) | Leave a Comment | Tags: internet spam wriphe.com

What the world really needs is a superhero with the power to stop email spam. Think about it: his story would be a taut psychological thriller. His mere existence would interfere with the fabric of space-time, creating a natural firewall for all batch junk email advertisements worldwide. He'd be forced to wander anonymously from town to town as a drifter, a la The Fugitive, as the forces of organized spam, led by his arch-nemesis, the Nigerian Prince, aka "the Phisher of Men," hunted him in order to destroy his unique ability and return to their corrupt spamming ways. Danger at every turn! One-armed men! Meddling!

On a very related note, I've added a captcha to my contact form, as the computers had figured out how to pester me with a growing stream of dick enlargement and Russian bride ads. According to a 2008 study by the University of California, spammers get one positive response from 12.5 million mails. Another 2008 survey by Marshall (now M86 Security, a company that designs email encryptions) estimated that nearly a quarter of web users admit to having purchased something through spam email. It's clearly only a matter of getting the right spam through the right firewalls to the right person. It seems a shame that they keep sending mail to everyone on my street when only 1 neighbor ever buys anything. So let me make it clear, spammers: I am not that person. Just leave me alone. I've got other affairs to meddle in.

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