Mark J. Blair
I just got an unsolicited email from a gmail address regarding a supposed sell-off of vintage computer gear, without any details, and with blind distribution. I have no intention to follow up on it, but I'm left speculating whether this is a legitimate collector sell-off or if scam emails have gotten this good at targeting niche interests.
Mar 13 at 5:25pmWeb
Show threadMark J. BlairMar 13
On a related note, you've probably seen a lot of those fake order confirmation email/text scams which are intended to make the recipient panic about a large purchase they didn't make, presumably so they will contact the scammer's scam center for the next stage of the phishing scam. I just got my first phone call version of one of those, and the robocaller was even smart enough to leave a voicemail. I presume that doing this at scale has been made possible by LLM AI.
Show threadMark J. BlairMar 13
Well, even if this call was made with old fashioned robocalling, I expect that a combination of LLM AI + voice synthesis is going to allow robocall scammers to make much more convincing targeted calls.
Show threadMark J. BlairMar 13
I'm just so tired of of the constant flood of spams and scams. I feel like that, among other things, has burned out much of my empathy. I don't like what it says about me that if I could press a button to inflict skunk spray and herpes on the scammers who annoy me, I think I'd press it.
Show threadMark J. BlairMar 13
Hey, "Skunk Spray and Herpes" could be a cromulent band name. I wonder what their preferred genre would be?
Show threadKevin Karhan Mar 13
@NF6X pretty shure the latter one, cuz AFAICT anyone in the #VintageComputing scene is at the very least properly introducing themselves (even if it's just i.e. some viewer/fan/…) giving a short recap (even if it's just linking towards something.interesting (like what hapoened with the liquidation of "Computer Reset")…
Show threadMark J. BlairMar 13
@kkarhan I agree. I'd expect a collector to at least have enough insight into other collectors to provide one or more general categories of what's in the collection. I'm just kind of surprised that scamming at scale has apparently gotten advanced enough to target such a tiny niche interest.
Show threadKevin Karhan Mar 13

@NF6X luckily addons like ReportIt! for @thunderbird exist thag make it easy to report the #Spammers to their hosters…

  • Obviously this is just a "Ping eMail" to check validity of list entries, with the sole aim to then use the validated eMail oneself.to continue the Scam or validate it further against i.e. #PayPal and others for your classic #RefundScam!
Mark J. Blair (@[email protected])

@[email protected] I agree. I'd expect a collector to at least have enough insight into other collectors to provide one or more general categories of what's in the collection. I'm just kind of surprised that scamming at scale has apparently gotten advanced enough to target such a tiny niche interest.

OldBytes Space - Mastodon
Show threadShawn WilliamsMar 13
@NF6X if I get an email about a sell-off of unobtainium vintage tubes I’ll let you know
Show threadTim 🎮Mar 13
@NF6X the repeat of the exact phrase and capitalisation of the subject with that extra space right after it in the body tells me it's been clumsily mail merged from a template with a variable topic and sent to a mined list of potential victims. The rest of the email is totally vague and isn't at all how someone would approach getting rid of a collection of retro computing gear. This is 100% a scam.