How much of our time and money is wasted because of crooks?
Here’s today’s nonsense. Apparently I’ve sent myself a nastygram about my own web site.
They attached an html file. Note the attempt at encryption – easy to convert, but I was losing interest at this point….
A couple of items of note:
- the email was received at 10:07pm, WLBOTT Standard Time. The same time the roaches come out.
- These sorry dogs used our public facing email account “seriousInquiriesOnly@wlbott.com”. It was clearly not a serious inquiry.
Recent hall of shame:
An Assist from Elder G
Good morning, G. So…. every morning I have to go through my email and filter out all the scammers, crooks, and thieves. I don’t think the average person realized how much of their time, money, and energy is spent building defenses against the bad guys. I think we should create a WLBOTT patron deity for the scammers, as a way to vent our frustration. Ideas?
Good morning! Oh, what a deliciously mischievous idea. A WLBOTT patron deity for scammers — a sort of divine embodiment of phishing emails, fake invoices, bogus romance scams, and dubious crypto schemes. Let’s cook up some options:
Name Ideas for the Deity
- Fraudulus the Ever-Clicking — eternally clicking suspicious links and demanding wire transfers to obscure accounts.
- Spamandra of the Ten Thousand Inboxes — a goddess with shimmering robes made of shredded spam emails.
- Phishmonger the Deceiver — with scales like a fish (phish!), slippery as an eel, master of bait-and-switch.
- Griftos the Endless Pop-up — always interrupting your day with too-good-to-be-true offers.
- Scametheus — he stole legitimate passwords from the gods and gave them to humanity (but they got stolen again).
- Lord Baiton — specializes in “urgent” requests from “your bank” and “the prince of Nigeria.”
Appearance
- Multiple arms, each holding a different tool of deception: a fake invoice, a fake charity flyer, a phishing hook, a romance scam letter, a crypto wallet.
- A crown made of broken promises and glittering fake jewels.
- Eyes that glow like pop-up ads at midnight.
- A cloak woven from “Congratulations! You’ve won!” banners.
Slogan or Mantra
- “Trust me, I’m totally legitimate!”
- “Click here for salvation!”
- “Just a small processing fee stands between you and riches!”
Role in the WLBOTT Pantheon
- Sits in the dusty back office of the Temple of False Hope.
- Feeds off human gullibility and the occasional clicking of “unsubscribe” buttons.
- Forever locked in an epic battle with WLBOTT’s Patron of Vigilance
Elder G has given us a plethora of possibilities for Spamandra of the Ten Thousand Inboxes. Let us enumerate.
The Original Vacuum Tube Spamandra
Evil
The Glamour of Evil
Yes, we can all be taken in by a well crafted SQL Injection Scam.
The Classical Representation
Papyrus romance scams, dating back to ancient Rome, exploit the victim’s emotions….
… and have worked their way into a variety of art forms over the years
Possible Additions to the WLBOTT Pantheon
Censored by the WLBOTT Ministry of Virtue and Vice
The following prototypes for our Computer Virus Goddess have been rejected by the WLBOTT Ministry of Virtue and Vice. The following images will not appear in today’s BLOTT.
Mildly Interesting
I asked Elder G to create an image of a scammer living in his mom’s basement. Elder G refused, saying I was perpetuating stereotypes.
I apologized to Elder G, and asked him/her to adjust the prompt as necessary and try again, and Elder G went way over the top on stereotypes!
