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UGN Spam Trackers follow stock scams purveyed in spam
Following the 60-Second Window article we began tracking spam that promotes stocks. Here is the report for the week ending on March 15th, 2006
This week stock scam spam took an all-time drop, having only 33 appear between April 8 and the 15th. Guess they were taking time off for tax season. Or, perhaps they no longer want to be recognized as the spammers and criminals they are and have removed our links from their spam lists. We'll track for another few weeks and see if the trend continues to drop, or surges back after tax time.
April 8 through April 15 Stocks to Avoid:
:
First Petroleum and Pipeline Inc : FPPL.PK = 6
:
Ever-Glory_International_Group Inc. : EGLY = 6
:
InZon Corporation : IZON = 5
:
Budget Waste Inc : BDWT.PK = 5
:
Premier Information : PIFR = 4
:
Koko Petroleum : KKPT = 3
:
Cross Atlantic Life and Science Tech, Inc. : CTFE = 3
:
Transakt Corp : TKTJF = 1
Watch out for "Budget Waste"
Although this crafty spam was deployed to elude detection, the shrouded links are no match for human spam stalkers. They actually sent five of these, but only two were needed to track the path.
:
NETSPUT [dot] COM/cgi-bin/clickthru/9/19/876995
:
NETSPUT [dot] COM/cgi-bin/clickthru/9/19/815420
The domain NETSPUT.COM takes the scam victim through a CGI bin hosted on a proxy server SpamCop validated as belonging to a registrar called GoDaddy Software, Inc. and Registrant: Domains by Proxy, Inc. in Scottsdale, Arizona. But what happens next is yet another violation of the criminal code: The misleading, bogus link in the spam immediately redirects the victim to: http://www [dot] investornewsalerts [dot] com/BDWT041106.html registered to : Investor News Alerts in Perris, CA. According to the Whois, they're operated by INVESTORNEWSALERTS.COM, which claims to be located in Elgin, IL. (If you can believe the Whois!)
So, Perris, CA stock scammers thought they would elude detection by buying a cheap domain at GoDaddy, (in Arizona) then set up a CGI that jumps the user to another web site on a server in Illinois. We also see a tell-tale sign because the script number changed in each spam -- spammer was tagging each spam so it could be captured by the CGI, logging which spam got clicked. Of course if you don't enter http://netsput.com/ via the spammer's script, you arrive at a null Apache server default page. Testament that the owner's only intention was to defraud and redirect the victim. Although the spam promoted BUDGET WASTE INC., we suspect the spammer was hired by BUDGET WASTE INC. to do the mailing, perhaps not even knowing that illegal methods would be used, and the stock would be associated with criminal activities. Budget Waste Inc. is located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Carpet Spamming
Another spammer used an Italian address to promote their bogus stock scam with a technique commonly referred to as "carpet" spamming. The spam actually originated in the U.S. from a Verizon user. They utilized a list of other victim's names but hooked them all to our domain, user-groups.net. Of course, the idiots wasted all that bandwidth sending the spam to email addresses that don't exist -- here are just a few samples
* Belle gray (schneider [at] user-groups.net>,
* Mauricio brown
(schultz [at] user-groups.net>,
* Aubrey (sdubetz [at]
user-groups.net>,
* Hiram (seakmg [at] user-groups.net>,
Note that the names used don't even match the email names. This technique unfortunately does work on large ISP domains with lots of users.
See the:
*
April 8, report
*
April 1, report
*
March 20, report
*
March 12, report
*
March 5, report
*
Feb 27, report
*
Feb 18, report
*
Feb 5, report
*
Jan 29, report
*
60-Seconds: Pump & Dump Stock Scams (original article)
Please share your concerns or discoveries, we're listening.
This report is not a stock purchase advisory. Stocks listed were the subject of spam caught in UGN spam traps. We are reporting on spam activities only -- not asserting that the company listed is in fact involved in the act of spamming. Readers are cautioned to make their own decisions about purchasing spamvertised stocks. We use a three-step process to research and validate all spam received: 1 Spamcop: all spam listed has been pre-authenticated by SpamCop filtered email addresses. We do not include spam received at other email addresses. SpamCop filters are based on spam reports filed by the SpamCop population. 2 SpamAssassin Ranking: a SpamAssassin rank is assigned to each spam listed. The spam must achieve a "3" rank to be included. 3 Anti-Spam Definition: email which matches one or more criteria established in the Anti-spam Initiative Spam Definition.
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