Viewport

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

My name is Winston Magui

Last week I posted my e-mail exchange with Winston Magui, a 19-year-old heir to a cocoa plantation on the Ivory Coast who suggested I give him my bank account information in exchange for 10 percent of $5 million his father had hidden in a secret bank account somewhere. Okay, call me wacky, call me crazy or call me obsessive compulsive, but Winston has brought new meaning to my life and and an outlet for expressing my frustration with the deluge of spam I receive on a daily basis.

It started with messing with him about sending me a few cases of cocoa to demonstrate his sincerity. When he replied saying he didn't have access to any cocoa I knew I had a real e-mail address being monitored by spammers. I responded to Winston's reply with an e-mail address from another "Nigerian" spammer and in turn gave his e-mail address to that spammer.

My ephiphany came when I realized that my Web e-mail program had the capability for me to send replies to e-mails using another e-mail address as the sender and the person to respond to. So, I have become Winston Magui. Winston responds to the non-stop spams I get and Winston gets his e-mail address added to the spammers list of active e-mail addresses. Even if the spam address he replies to doesn't exist, Winston gets the "return to sender" e-mail. It's the perfect anti-spam scenario.

For example, here are a couple of responses Winston made today:

Re: Whats your ZIP CODE? Meet local Christian Singles
From: "Winston Magui"
Date: Tue, November 1, 2005 6:21 am
To: "Where Christians Meet"

Dear Local Christians:

My name is Winston Magui. I am an Ivorian. I live in Abidjan. The post code is 2185. I live on a cocoa plantation and am very lonely. I would like to meet local Christian singles. I would like to meet any singles, Christian or not (I am not actually being the Christian myself). I would also like to meet married singles in my area. I do not care. I am so very lonely.

I am willing to trade cases of cocoa to meet the singles in my area. There is nothing I like better than long walks on the beach and then coming home to the plantation for a nice cup of cocoa with those little marshmellows in it.

I also have $5 million American dollars stashed away that I need to wire into someone's bank. Please to send details.

Yours in Christian Love, Winston

PS: I am not named after the cigarette

Re: Find local sex-addicts
From: "Winston Magui"
Date: Tue, November 1, 2005 6:26 am
To: "Dane ." <"Tory."@classifiedtoday.com>
Dear Dane,

Yes, yes...you are a godsend. I would like to meet local sex-addicts. My name is Winston Magui. I am an Ivorian living on a cocoa plantation outside of Abidjan. My postal code is 2185. I am also contacting the Christian singles site just to show you how desperate I am.

As one would think, I have lots of cocoa to trade for free sex with local Christians. I also have access to $5 million US dollars, but that is a bit more complicated and involves bank wires and the such. But if you want to send me your bank account numbers we can make a deal I await your response,

Winston "I'll satisfy you" Magui

Okay, I know that this probably isn't really helping things. My spam flow hasn't subsided. And none of the spammers will probably ever see any of Winston's replies. But, for a few brief moments when I hit send, I feel so free.

I almost feel like a cigarette...just not a Winston.

8 comments:

Naughti Biscotti said...

Haaaa haaaaa.... still laughing. You are going to push this guy over the edge.
Can you get any more brilliant?

R. said...

You do realize that while you can put any email address in the "From" and "Return-Path" headers the "Received" and "Message-ID" headers still tag the email as coming from your account and ip address right?

Time said...

Shandi, awww...stop. It was nothing. blush, blush.

R.

Yes, I know that you can still look at the headers and see it is coming from my account and IP address. But what are they going to do, spam me? At any rate, Winston gets copied on everything and hopefully gets annoyed if nothing else.

R. said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
R. said...

Well, your sysadmin might decide to delete your account. Or you might get your whole IP block put on a black list. Or since one of the ways spam gets sent is through unprotected compromised computers the spammers may decide to mount an attack on your network for vengance. Or nothing. That's the way things go.

Alex Pendragon said...

"Please, Obiwan Tim, you are the only one that can protect us from the Dark Side......zeeruft...zic......Please, Obiwan Tim, you are the only one that can protect us from the Dark Side........zeeruft....zic......Please, Obi.........

May the Force be with you, Dude!

Time said...

Thanks R, Winston and I will just have to wait and see.

the michael, thanks, but does this make you Princess Lea? I am strangely disturbed aroused at the same time.

Lights, May DSL be with you. You should be able to download those educational videos much quicker now.

Time said...

Lights, Now that you have high speed, here's a link you may enjoy:

http://www.angryalien.com/1005/wowbuns.asp