MARDOX ALERT

It’s ten o’clock, and I’ve only been home from the vet’s for a few minutes. Clueless is holding his own, but in spite of me grossly overfeeding him he’s failed to gain any weight. It’s concerning, but at least any overt signs of illness have pretty much been banished for the present.

I hadn’t intended to make an entry at all tonight, but then I found a piece of rather insidious drek in my dummy email in-box, and thought I should make mention of it in case anyone is tempted gets it and is tripped up by it. Mardox.com is infamous for sending out email spam offering something for free in return for registering at their site. Their current game is offering to put you on their search engine. Do NOT make the mistake of doing this. Responding to this email only verifies your address is valid and active. If they get such validation you’ll find that you not only do not end up on any search engine of theirs, but that they’ll immediately turn around and sell your email address to every spammer known to cyberspace. There have been reports of people getting hundreds of pieces of spam in just a few days’ time after falling for one of their gags.

Since the email address they used is only displayed here at Dear Diary, I’m assuming that they’ve harvested email addresses that are displayed on this site. If you want more information on these skunks, check out http://www.htpcompany.com/fraud_alert.htm. Beware also of Bannerscape, which is a Mardox company and is advertised on the bottom of their “solicitation” letter. If you use a spam killer in your in-box that accepts manual addition of domains to be blocked, a nice (though abbreviated) list of these can be found at http://www.webthatworks.it/docs/code/spam/spammers.asp?what=spamD. In fact, clicking on any of the URL’s in this mail message is something less of a good idea.

This has been my public service effort for the day.

Following is the text of the phishing email I received from Mardox:

From: [email protected] [Add to Address Book] [View Source]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Regarding: www.deardiary.org/show/diaries/12117
Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 12:31:27 +0000

This e-mail has been sent to inform you that your
web site URL has been submitted to our search engine
database. This is the URL that will be included.

URL : www.deardiary.org/show/diaries/12117
DATE : 12/19/2004 7:31:21
USER IP : Unknown IP. User had used an automated software for url submission

In order to complete this request we require that you
click on the web site link below. This will confirm
that you wish to be included in our search engine
database at no fee to you.
http://www.mardox.com/confirm.cgi?T937095R43234

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We can get your web site banner seen over
5 million times. Visit our web site for more
details. http://www.bannerscape.com

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If you would like to have your web site ad sent
out to over 300,000 people then visit our web site
at http://www.safemaildeluxe.com

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If you feel that you have received this message in
error or that someone else is using your e-mail
address without your authorization, please
report it to us by clicking on the link below. We
will investigate this matter and make sure that
you no longer receive any futher messages from us.
http://www.mardox.com/clipout.cgi?T937095R43234