Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Interesting Spam: Old school Ascii art making a comeback?
higBSome Background:
I still consider myself old-school even though I never win the “oldest” computer game. Old-school meaning I was a BBS junky long before I found my way onto the internet via a borrowed Delphi shell account. I was really drawn to ansi and ascii art because it mixed technology with urban graffiti. A couple of the secureme goons were members of RiVAL, a short lived ANSI/ASCII art group based out of the 909-714 BBS’s. Here is some ascii art by our very own Tre circa 1994:
If you’ve never been exposed to ANSI/ASCII art I encourage you to spend some time on http://www.acid.org/. Check out any Remorse ACSII art pack if you want to see some awesome talent using unconventional mediums. Keep in mind that the ascii/ansi art was meant for dialup BBS’s, so you're going to need a proper viewer to appreciate the work as its creators intended. Acid View is the best viewer: http://www.acid.org/100/programs/avw-610.zip then grab the last Remorse pack: http://www.acid.org/ftp/rmrs-56.zip
Two days ago I got my first Ascii spam which is undoubtedly just another technique to get past email filters. The spam consists of the staples, forged To: and From: with the intended recipient on the BCC. Then it starts its HTML tags, and uses the PRE tags to format the Ascii text so that it views correctly in a variety of email clients. Here is the spam: (minus my domain names and the ascii text for brevity)
Return-Path: <elizabethbrojef@hosannamail.com>
Received: from hosannamail.com ([222.78.108.234])
by xxxx.xxx (x.xx.xx.xx.x) with SMTP id j27GZdl09213;
Mon, 7 Mar 2005 11:35:44 -0500
Message-ID: <B4C1321E.52A7801@hosannamail.com>
Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 15:51:53 +0300
Reply-To: "emilio dortch" <elizabethbrojef@hosannamail.com>
From: "emilio dortch" <elizabethbrojef@hosannamail.com>
User-Agent: AOL 3.0 16-bit for Windows sub
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: "Demetrius Stepp" <robert@xxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Complete the medical history form mile
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
<HTML>
<BODY>
<FONT color=#000000>
<a href="http://spend.com.cgrandstandgood.com/?Uflq/nnmteirk">Get it Today<BR>
<BR>
<TABLE width="100%" bgColor=#ffffff border=0>
<TR>
<TD><PRE><font style="font-size: 2.5;"><B>
<--------------SNIP----------ASCII Viagra etc here>
</font>
</PRE>
</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE></B>
</BODY></FONT></HTML>
Here is how it looks in Pine:
Here it is in Squirrelmail:
Here it is in OWA:
And here it is in Gmail:
Now I can add “Taking a cool techno-driven art form and bastardizing it” to my long list of reason why I hate spammers.
–higB
You know how it is, you can make ascii out of any char, its mainly the shape of the char that they are after.
Thanks for bringing back some fond 909 bbs memories.
-jason
Just a precision about what you call a "cool techno-driven art form". Nothing "techno" at all in this form of art. The technique (poems and texts drawing forms) is used since the XVth century. It has been fully exploited by the Dada, OuLiPo and Lettrist artists(this is called a calligram), a long time before the invention of computing.
Anyhow, thanks a lot for this funny info
: 6:46 AM Computer News
Google plans instant-messaging system, report says
Google Inc. is set to introduce its own instant messaging system, the Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday, marking the expansion by the Web search leader into text and also voice communications.
Citing unnamed sources "familiar with the service," the Los Angeles Times said that Google's Instant Messaging program would be called Google Talk and could be launched as early as Wednesday.
Google Talk goes beyond text-based instant messaging using a computer keyboard to let users hold voice conversations with other computer users, the newspaper quoted a source as saying.
A Google spokeswoman declined to comment on the company's product plans.
If confirmed, the combined computer text and voice-calling service would put Google in competition with a similar service pioneered by Skype, which has attracted tens of millions of users, especially in Europe, to its own service.
Separately, independent journalist Om Malik on his blog at http://gigaom.com/ pointed to technical clues that suggest Google is preparing to run an instant messaging service based on an open-source system known as Jabber.
Jabber technology would allow Google instant message users to connect with established IM systems that also work with Jabber, including America Online's ICQ and Apple Computer Inc.'s iChat, Malik said.
"This is the worst possible news for someone like Skype, because now they will be up against not two but three giants who want to offer a pale-version of Skype," he wrote.
Earlier this week, Google said it was branching out beyond pure search to help users manage e-mail, instant messages, news headlines and music. It introduced a new service called the Google Sidebar, a stand-alone software program that sits on a user's desktop and provides "live" information updates.
Over the past year or so, the company has expanded into e-mail, online maps, personalized news and more.
The product push comes as rivals Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL are all pushing to upgrade existing instant messaging systems and expand into new Internet phone-calling services.
Google's moves take it beyond its roots in Web search and closer to becoming a broad-based Internet media company.
With instant messaging, Google would be breaking into a market in which its major competitors boast tens of millions of subscribers to their established instant messaging services.
America Online, with its AIM and ICQ brands, counts more than 40 million IM users in the United States alone. Yahoo has around 20 million and Microsoft's MSN Messenger numbers some 14 million users, according to recent comScore Media Metrix data.
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