Now, most of the mail that comes this way is spam. At least it used to be, now that I have some filters in place there's much less of it. I've found that most spam is sent without my address in the To: header (they put it in the "envelope destination" instead), since that would generally require far more resources on the spammer's end. It sucks up just as much of the world's bandwidth, of course, not to mention the collective anger it causes.
Of the remaining mail, about half tends to be spam generated by these web pages. Not by the pages themselves.. ever since I removed the mailto: links that has gone away. But rather spam that comes from the domain name registration. Within weeks of registering lothar.com I had half a dozen bits of mail suggesting for much happier I would be if I had my web site listed by various directory services. I still get a lot of mail assuming that I'm some kind of IT professional who has put together a site solely dedicated towards selling something, and that I wouldn't mind receiving tons of unsolicited mail offering me ways to sell more.
For example:
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 03:56:53 +0000 From: "John" <John@Launcher.Com> To: "Brian" <Warner@lothar.com> Subject: Re: The Castle Lothar Brian, Launcher.Com will soon debut a comprehensive new web site directory. We would like to include a free listing for The Castle Lothar. Listing your site for free with Launcher.Com will help thousands of web users more easily find your site. To receive your free listing, please complete and return the entire form below. Thank you. John@Launcher.Com New Listings Coordinator mailto:John@Launcher.ComSigh. The Net isn't about unconscious broadcasts to anyone who might possibly have an interest in what you have to sell. Having machines talk to people isn't at all interesting. Helping people talk to other people is what's cool.
The trickle of personal mail that is actually sent by humans falls into three categories: old friends who don't know my work email address and only remember "um, something about Lothar.." (for which it is handy that I'm also the postmaster and undeliverable lothar mail comes my way too), friends who are telling me to update my web pages because they're so old, and random strangers who see something on my pages that they want to comment on. And most of the last category has tended towards the bizarre...
So, anyway, the mail here hasn't been too interesting. Feel free to send me something better.
Date: Thu, 05 Sep 96 17:22:18 -0500 From: "John W. Warner" <jwarner@deleted.edu> To: warner@lothar.com Subject: Updates on your life! I think that you ought not wait so long to update you parents (and the rest of the world) about what is happening in your life. Wedding pictures or something! needs to go onto your web page. -- John W. WarnerOk, dad, here you go. Wedding Pictures to your heart's content.
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 96 17:55:08 -0600 From: "John W. Warner" <jwarner@deleted.edu> To: warner@lothar.com Subject: (no subject) Pretty dull board. No updates since June! -- John W. Warner
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 1997 21:30:59 -0400 From: Blizzard <blizzard@cgocable.ca> Organization: Maison To: warner@lothar.com Subject: marilyn You get the same name that Marilyn Manson get!!! Cool!Hmmm. I got lots of names. Which one does Marilyn got?
From: "Deana Grimm" <punks_r_us@hotmail.com>
To: warner@lothar.com
Subject: are u manson?
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 16:28:54 PDT
Hi! i found your web-page, and you make it sound like your
Rev.Marilyn Manson.Well.......are you? stupid question, I know.
can you e-mail me back soon? thanx.....
(a girl known as)
Punx
Uh huh. It sounds like my Rev. does what exactly? Oh, right, you're.
Hmm. That depends. Who is Rev. Marilyn Manson? And of which church are they
a reverend?
From: Reaper01@aol.com Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 19:56:37 -0400 (EDT) To: warner@lothar.com Subject: man dude you are lucky you have the same name as marilyn manson if you dont know who he is visit my web site †hêRêàpêr'sH꣣HôusêAh, this starts to make sense.. but dude, you're going way overboard on those Latin-1 characters. Yeah, I know they're popular, the new RFCs are letting them go all over the place, even email headers aren't just for ASCII any more. But what exactly are you trying to spell with that URL?
From: "Me " <spatel@cyberenet.net> To: <warner@lothar.com> Subject: hi Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 19:10:43 -0500 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 first of all, dont publicly give oyut ur e mail on the internet. = Second.... are you Marilyn manson? Cause if you are, and that is = Mariyn's real name, then you are on e %$$#ed person. If i met you, i = would just beat the living %^&$ outta you. Enjoy.Charming. "Enjoy" I shall. For more details on this thread, see my Who the hell is this Marilyn Manson character anyway page.
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 1997 21:52:29 -0500 From: Joshua McFadden Subject: Phil To: warner@lothar.com X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 Ummm.... Sorry, I have no idea how to use PGP key. I know HTML, I know Javascript, and I have a valid Missouri driver's license, but I dunno--I'd be willing to admit being a bit myopic now and then. <grin> But you'd be amazed what you find on the 'net whilst avoiding comp sci assignments. Actually, I found your site by entering random www.*.com domains and seeing what popped up. But in January, you mention that you think Phil is the center of the world and knows everybody... have you ever considered that he may in fact be Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light? Find someone who reads more Dilbert strips than I do and they can tell you more about him. But I think it's an interesting conjecture. Just had to throw that at you. (Oh, and the page in my sig blows and will die as soon as I have the time, so if you actually want to see a good piece of work, look at it after Christmas. <grin>) Josh M. http://www.oberlin.edu/~jmcfadde/beverage ftp://132.162.222.60Well, I have noticed that Phil has a tendency to yell "Spoon!" at unexpected moments. But I suspect that it has more to do with the Tick than with shady figures from Dilbert. Oh, and the page in your sig doesn't blow, although it is a tad cryptic. I appreciate anybody who quotes Douglas Adams. And the green lettering on the whale page is quite nicely done.
Brian Warner <warner@lothar.com>
Last modified: Sat Aug 5 08:43:01 PDT 2006