Hmmmm? To be believed?

[top fuel]

Random Email said:

Hi - *******@gmail.com Sent from Gemma Brown. I recently received a chain letter (A piece of mail that had been forwarded to me) that had your e-mail address in it along with several other peoples. I thought that as your mail address was on one of these chain letters (forwards) you may have others that you would be willing to send to me. I know that this might sound like a daft request but I can assure you that this is a serious request. I am involved in a university project that is based over a year and we are analysing Internet mail, we are trying to ascertain trends and patterns to come up with some fairly accurate statistics regarding the type of mail that circulates around the internet, we know that 70% of all mail is spam but what we don’t know is what percentage of that spam accounts for chain mail (forwards of any type, something that has been forwarded to you, a piece of mail that has formed part of a chain). Please send absolutely anything and everything that remotely resembles chain mail, forwards of any type (even the rude ones). My project is based over a year and I need one million forwards for this project to be a success, so please keep them coming and don’t worry I have some pretty huge mail boxes. I would be grateful if you would be kind enough to forward this piece of mail to all your friends as I need as much help as I can get. Please send all chain mail (forwards) to the following address. [e-mail] Everyone that helps will receive a copy of our results and findings in January of next year so please help if you can. Thanks Gemma

Got sent this today...

Now I looked at it and initially thought that it was just a way of gathering tonnes of addresses for "M4kE M£ B1G" type spam...

But I wnat to know for sure. Can anyone tell who the domain is registered to etc?

Or am I being too suspicious, with my complete lack of internet trust?

>> Edited by top fuel on Tuesday 17th May 08:18

[NiceCupOfTea]

Bin it. Is it worth the risk?

[wedgepilot]

Go to www.samspade.org/t/ and put www.research-project.org into the address digger. That should give you enough contact details to be getting on with.

[jolley]

top fuel said:

Random Email said: we know that 70% of all mail is spam but what we don’t know is what percentage of that spam accounts for chain mail (forwards of any type, something that has been forwarded to you, a piece of mail that has formed part of a chain). Or am I being too suspicious, with my complete lack of internet trust?

I would be suspicious too. How does sending her a selection of your e-mails give any indication as to what % of anything they are?!! (i.e. you could send her 10 e-mails, but they could represent 50%, or 0.1% of your total e-mails). As you said, it just appears to be a way of collecting more addresses... but I could be wrong, and it could be entirely genuine (just not scientific in any respect!).

[mcflurry]

jolley said:

top fuel said: Random Email said: we know that 70% of all mail is spam but what we don’t know is what percentage of that spam accounts for chain mail (forwards of any type, something that has been forwarded to you, a piece of mail that has formed part of a chain). Or am I being too suspicious, with my complete lack of internet trust? I would be suspicious too. How does sending her a selection of your e-mails give any indication as to what % of anything they are?!! (i.e. you could send her 10 e-mails, but they could represent 50%, or 0.1% of your total e-mails). As you said, it just appears to be a way of collecting more addresses... but I could be wrong, and it could be entirely genuine (just not scientific in any respect!).

but she already has your email addy...why would she need your spam stuff to harvest it?

[NiceCupOfTea]

To validate it? ie, make sure it's verified for inclusion on one of those email databases

[rpguk]

The research-project.org site is 'under construction' and the fact her name is followed by a number makes it seem very dodgy. I'm agree that its probably a way to collect as many email addresses as possible and knowing how every one of those bloody forwarded emails of the kitten with the cute face has a million email address already in it, probably quite a good way of getting good email addresses.

Leave it.

Also if that gmail address is your real one then its probably a good idea to edit your post to remove it as a SPAM bot will no doubt be along to read it before long

>> Edited by rpguk on Tuesday 17th May 02:03

[jolley]

mcflurry said:

but she already has your email addy...why would she need your spam stuff to harvest it?

To get the other addresses from the mail(other people in the chain), thus collecting even more people to contact..... (if it is a scam).