Greetings, fellow tilders!

Just a heads up: I've received a suspicious email on my @tilde.institute mail address. It seems to me a random attempt at clicking on some tracking URL via by means of an unsubscribe link.

The verbatim mail follows (I've replaced the UUID I've been assigned with, so that it is not accidentally activated)

Cheers!


Original mail follows:

Hello,

My name is Jane Clark and while going through your website I saw you mentioned our friends at Romhacking ( https://chotrin.tilde.institute/notes/nes_gaming.html).

I'm curious, is it possible to get a link to my blog? Or create a high-quality article for you to publish?

All the best,
Jane Clark

You may unsubscribe <http://ec2-52-26-194-35.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com/x/u?u=SOME_ID_THEY_ASSIGNED_ME>
to stop receiving our emails.

--- Synchronet 3.19a-Linux NewsLink 1.113

On Sun, 30 May 2021, Dacav Doe wrote:

Just a heads up: I've received a suspicious email on my @tilde.institute mail address. It seems to me a random attempt at clicking on some tracking URL via by means of an unsubscribe link.

Earlier in the month, I also have received a burst (2 dozens in 2 days)
of junk emails about Chinese products in my Tilde.club inbox.
Their headers were written in a way that suggested them being sent
from mailing list software-- with unsubscribe link metadata
for my mail client to show me in case I would like to "unsubscribe".

Of course, their "unsubscribe" links were full of opaque identifier;
business as usual, I saw. So, instead of "unsubscribing"
(i.e. telling them I exist and was reading these unwanted messages),
I decided that the event signified a grand time to finally write
a Sieve filter to auto-deliver these into the "Junk" bin instead;
which was long-overdue.

Original mail follows:

[...]
My name is Jane Clark and while going through your website I saw you
mentioned our friends at Romhacking (
https://chotrin.tilde.institute/notes/nes_gaming.html).

Your site at Tilde.institute [1] is just a test page, right?

It is quite odd (and maybe a bit disturbing if this was a trend)
to get specially-crafted Tildeverse-specific junk emails targeting
Tildeverse inboxes. Do you have some idea where it could have been
sent from? (i.e. from "Received: from" and "From:" headers?)

Regards,
~xwindows

-----

[1] https://dacav.tilde.institute/
--- Synchronet 3.19a-Linux NewsLink 1.113

xwindows <xwindows@tilde.club> wrote:

It is quite odd (and maybe a bit disturbing if this was a trend)
to get specially-crafted Tildeverse-specific junk emails targeting
Tildeverse inboxes. Do you have some idea where it could have been
sent from? (i.e. from "Received: from" and "From:" headers?)

Honestly, this looks like run-of-the-mill targeted linkfarming spam, to me.
I get a couple of these a week because I'm the registrant contact for some ancient website somewhere. It's always some the exact same dumb "your
website mentions our friends X, how about a link?" thing. (Spoiler, they're
not "friends", they're ethically-challenged competitors. Or wannabe competitors.)
--
Inanities: gopher://tilde.town:70/1/~lkosov/ (with netmail address & GPG key) He/him/them/they/whatever. If in doubt, assume the above post contains sarcasm --- Synchronet 3.19a-Linux NewsLink 1.113

In tilde.meta, you wrote:

Earlier in the month, I also have received a burst (2 dozens in 2 days)
of junk emails about Chinese products in my Tilde.club inbox.
Their headers were written in a way that suggested them being sent
from mailing list software-- with unsubscribe link metadata
for my mail client to show me in case I would like to "unsubscribe".

<rant>
Funny how it is not 15 minutes since I've dropped plenty of curses at every stupid company that thinks I give a fuck, and sends me unwanted spam, even if I systematically avoid the "newsletter" checkbox.

Fortunately they tend to include the unsubscribe link, which I always visit via VPN (and using a disposable browser, as for anything else). And of course I'm wary enough to avoid falling for shit like the subject of this thread.
</rant>

Of course, their "unsubscribe" links were full of opaque identifier;
business as usual, I saw. So, instead of "unsubscribing"
(i.e. telling them I exist and was reading these unwanted messages),
I decided that the event signified a grand time to finally write
a Sieve filter to auto-deliver these into the "Junk" bin instead;
which was long-overdue.

Every time I receive something like that, or I get a copy-paste link to some crazy discount from a friend, I'm tempted to use the spammer's service as pentesting target practice.

Then I get real, and realize I don't have time, nor patience, probably not even skill.

Yet I'm wondering since a while, and besides spammers, that it would be time to fight back all those evil marketers, in some way. As Robin Hood did. Since no law will obviously do.

Your site at Tilde.institute [1] is just a test page, right?

Yep. I've got a couple of phlog pages, and that's it. Nothing on http.

It is quite odd (and maybe a bit disturbing if this was a trend)
to get specially-crafted Tildeverse-specific junk emails targeting
Tildeverse inboxes. Do you have some idea where it could have been
sent from? (i.e. from "Received: from" and "From:" headers?)

Sorry, I discarded the mail right after notifying people. :-/


- dacav
--- Synchronet 3.19a-Linux NewsLink 1.113

*sigh*

I get so few spam, I sometimes even doubt I'm actually existing.
--
Take Back Control! — Mesh The Planet!
--- Synchronet 3.19a-Linux NewsLink 1.113

On 2021-06-02, yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> wrote:

*sigh*

I get so few spam, I sometimes even doubt I'm actually existing.

I can confirm you do indeed exist.
Actually now that I think about I can't no for sure you exist because
you might be a bot or a hallucination. But you know *you* exist because
of "I think, therefore I am".
--- Synchronet 3.19a-Linux NewsLink 1.113