Geek Drivel

Maybe spammers don’t need to have even average intelligence to make money at it?

I’ve gotten a large number of spams recently (all caught by SpamBayes with no real difficulty) that have one sensationalistic headline in the subject line, and a completely different one in the body of the message. Case in point:

Subject: Facebook hacked into, millions of accounts lost Apple ipod sells one billion units [URL removed] – Using Opera’s revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

(A large number of them also include that Opera line. It’s said that any publicity is good publicity, but I’m sure the people behind Opera view that kind of support as a decidedly mixed blessing.)

Maybe the spammers think that two headlines are better than one, or maybe they hope to get around some anti-spam defenses with that, I don’t know. To me, it just makes it obvious that it’s garbage. But it begs the question… if they’re still making money with that kind of thing, who’s stupider — the spammer, or the people that must still be clicking on the spam links?

(And yes, it’s a rhetorical question.)

The collective tech sphere (which has been holding its breath wondering what lawsuit-happy Apple was waiting for) can now breathe again.

The article says that this “pretty much spells the end for Psystar.” He’s probably right, because it’s not likely Psystar can afford to defend itself… but if it can take this all the way to a trial, there’s a very good chance that it would win. And if that happens, Apple can bend over and kiss its huge computer profit margins goodbye.

But, as I’m sure Apple’s management is counting on, there isn’t much chance of that.