Later that night as I switched off all the lights and went to sleep I could hear the flapping of wings and see foggy fiery lights outside the translucent panes of the window. I checked to see if it was locked and made a trip across all the rooms checking every single window in the house. One of them in another bedroom had been open.

I wiped the tiny beads of perspiration across my forehead with the back of my palm and peeked outside anxiously. The air was thick with smoke and there was a huge fire at the far end in one direction. I thought I heard something and ducked inside closing the window. My ears were already cold. As I tiptoed back to my bed, I could hear the flapping of wings inside the house. I started closing the door to each room after confirming that each was free of birds. Finally, in my bedroom, I found the bird. It was large, dirty half-white, and gave me a piercing look enough to make my heart stop. I quickly closed the door of that room and assured myself that it wouldn’t bother me for the night.

I then walked into the other bedroom, closed the door shut, locked it from inside, and forced myself to sleep.

After some time, I started feeling lighter. And lighter. I slowly opened my droopy eyes and saw the bird perched on my torso doing something. I didn’t move. It was busy, perhaps sucking my soul, and I felt no weight. I thought I became one with the world.

***

With that scary thought I woke up from my actual sleep realizing all that to be a nightmare. I sat there thinking about the dream. I never finished Sigmund Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams but I had exercised before trying to connect different aspects of my dreams to reality, recording a lot of them dutifully.

First, I blame Tana French’s In The Woods, a wonderful book, for sleep deprivation. I had been reading it late into the nights, the only time I am able to manage to read books these days. Second, I watched a Google Tech Talk about measuring performance that morning — I’m a software performance engineer — and the speaker mentioned how Intel’s policies make it extra hard for the academia in particular in pinpointing the exact reasons for the phenomenon called “measure bias”.

I just wanted to share with you because this is the first time ever that spam played a role in my nightmare, though the spam too had been part of it. Did this ever happen to you?

Disclaimer: I am not accusing Intel of anything. The dream could as well have been about an AMD Athlon processor.

Post from: EveryJoe

Spam Gives Me a Nightmare

First thumb rule is to keep your mouse away or tie your fingers from accidentally clicking on the links within the message or downloading the attachment.

Second thumb rule for any kind of spam (apart from cheesy forwards, I guess) is: DO NOT REPLY. Not even if they ask you to click “Unsubscribe” or reply back with that keyword in the subject.

Third thumb rule is to click “Report Spam” or some equivalent button provided by the mail service provider. This enables the service provider to take automated actions in identifying future spam from the same source, curbing it or at least sending it to the Spam folder instead of your inbox.

If you come across what seems to be a particularly malicious spam mail, you can help further by forwarding it to spam@uce.gov. The Federal Trade Commission uses the spam stored in their database to pursue law enforcement actions against people who send deceptive email.
Here is a little more unsolicited advice for tackling specific kinds of spam mail:

Forwards: Sharing interesting things that we’ve come across online is being increasingly done using social bookmarking tools. However, forwarding some messages or for that matter even addressing a large group is inevitable. Cleaning the previous headers containing scores of lines of unknown email addresses and headers, and using the BCC column while forwarding to your own contacts are two invaluable pieces of the same cake.

Phishing: If you’re really tempted by a mail from what claims to be your bank, open the official bank website directly and try navigating from the home page to this page. If the website doesn’t contain the link you’re looking for, it is not worth it.

For News, Offers and Porn, trust Google to provide the latest information.

For Personals, get offline.

Post from: EveryJoe

Three Thumb Rules to Defend Yourself Against Spam

Man has known spam for as long as he has known God. Probably even before scams in the name of religion began, spam did in the form of sermons. Before we get into a circular debate about religion, let us first talk about spam in general. I predict that the world will soon witness spam awareness campaigns like AIDS awareness campaigns, and with good reason.

Here are the most common types of spam we get in our mail boxes.

Forwards: …Microsoft agreed to pay $1 for every 100 people this mail reaches. Please forward to all your friends…
Chain mails are now so old that after hundreds of funny chain mails mocking other chain mails, they are slowly decreasing. We are getting used to other easier ways of sharing interesting online material through social bookmarking tools. A malware-carrying chain mail is still disruptive, and sometimes destructive, because most forwards come from close contacts.

Gifts: We are pleased to inform you that… Congratulations!!! To begin your claim processing process…
The Nigerian Scam is a synecdoche fast becoming synonymous to advance-fee fraud. A mail about you getting lucky with a large lottery, or becoming a benefactor of a big bequest, or being chosen by the President himself to channel offshore funds from a soldier back into the economy just in time for the bailout. Just in time. The catch is that you should pay the bank or the corrupt bureaucracy a small fee for the funds to be released. Quick. Perhaps this is the most-studied and most well-known spam, rather scam, and I still read about people falling prey to this every now and then. This is what made me take up this common topic.

News: Click link to watch President-elect Obama’s victory speech.
This is increasingly becoming a formidable form of spam potent enough to wreck your PC with a single click. Remember the Bush-killed-Obama spam?

Offers: Uncensored Internet Television Now Available.
Offers to enlarge equipment, offers to buy drugs without prescriptions nor taxes, offers to buy novelty goods for nickles. Weeks before Thanksgiving is when this kind of spam increases. If shopping is a woman’s sport, I wonder why there aren’t as much spam targetting women. Are they missing something? Or do they believe that men are innately more stupid? Never mind.

Personals: Find true love on Christian Dating.
These are heartfelt imaginary love letters written by mushy members of the spam industry. They have a beginning, a middle, and you get to write the end. Again, I’ve seen them being targeted on the male audience (and the lesbians). Are they secretly more lachrymose?

Phishing: Please log into your bank accout and confirm the transaction.
Phishing is often clubbed with news for better results. A day after news about troubles in Wachovia Bank broke out, I received a mail from the bank with some links and directions. I didn’t go through it, because I don’t hold an account in Wachovia, but I’m sure it had been imaginatively written persuading me to login and perhaps transfer my money to some other safer and numerologically lucky numbered account.

Porn: So do you want to see me $#*!$@?
Funny how many fall trap to the stupidest spam. Porn is allegedly the single largest category on the web and also the single largest virus carrier.

As a conventional blogger who religiously follows spam I have to write this: If you don’t bookmark or forward or share this article with at least thirteen others, your PC will automatically reboot seven times today.

It will, anyway. Keep watching this space for ways to defend yourself against spam.

Post from: EveryJoe

Types of Spam Mail