Anatomy of a Facebook Scam

So I got yet another post to my Facebook timeline by a relative who unwittingly clicked a series of buttons and posted a link on their page.  So I said to myself, self, I build websites for a living, surely it can't be too difficult to figure out what is happening.  So I mucked about and took some screen shots.

Click to Embiggen Animated GIF

As you can see they are laying a submit button over the comment box.  Nothing too interesting.  What these particular people are doing is positioning the Facebook box inside a large div with a background image that looks like a simple math problem.  Then setting the CSS opacity of the Facebook box to 0.  So you get to click on a Facebook button that's invisible.

Make your zipper knight the best in the whole town.

Make your zipper knight the best in the whole town.

What is a zipper knight, and is there any advantage to having the best one? Zippers and knights are commonly known, but has anybody beheld a zipper knight? To delve deeper I checked my Dictionary.app for alternate definitions.

zipper |ˈzipər|
noun
1 a device consisting of two flexible strips of metal or plastic with interlocking projections closed or opened by pulling a slide along them, used to fasten garments, bags, and other items.
2 a display of news or advertisements that scrolls across an illuminated screen fixed to the upper part of a building.

knight |nīt|
noun
1 (in the Middle Ages) a man who served his sovereign or lord as a mounted soldier in armor.
• (in the Middle Ages) a man raised by a sovereign to honorable military rank after service as a page and squire.
• poetic/literary a man devoted to the service of a woman or a cause : in all your quarrels I will be your knight.
• dated (in ancient Rome) a member of the class of equites.
• (in ancient Greece) a citizen of the second class in Athens.
2 (in the UK) a man awarded a nonhereditary title by the sovereign in recognition of merit or service and entitled to use the honorific “Sir” in front of his name.
3 a chess piece, typically with its top shaped like a horse's head, that moves by jumping to the opposite corner of a rectangle two squares by three.

Because the mail specifically mentioned my zipper knight we can throw out quite a few of these alternates. I've never owned an illuminated screen affixed to building so zipper definition 2 is out of the picture. I live in modern times in America so the poetic/literary knight and the chess knight are the only reasonable options there.

This is now either a reference to some man who is devoted to the service of my zippers (making sure they are properly zipped and maintained) or some kind of a zipper related chess piece. I'm not interested in some dude constantly looking at my sugar lumps so my first zipper knight is out of the question completely. The only reasonable option is that my zipper knight is some kind of zipper pull attached to a chess piece. This leaves me 31 pieces short of a portable chess match but if you are a super goth and have a pair of those pants with zippers and chains everywhere you might be in business (you just need to find a punk and/or rude-boy with a checkered jacket and/or shirt).

Dorvillier Henness: one wife iss not enough

I have One wife and two mistresses... I can **** them all several times per day!
YOU CAN TOO: CLICK HERE

She had caught up her hat, put it on, and hurried in his
possession than on his recollection of shall dance the gout
away, and be thankful to he watched his opportunity of taking
darnay aside murmured george smiled apologetically. I think.

---

Dorvillier Henness, Ssnake-man to the Sstarss.
This message has caught me off guard. The subject clearly states that one wife iss not enough leading me to think that thiss messssage would help me obtain a ssecond wife. Unfortunately Dorvillier's ssolution is to add mistresses to the mix. I double checked and triple checked my math and I keep coming up with the same equation.

1 wife + 2 mistresses + asterisks several times per day = 0 wife + 0 mistresses + divorce court.

As to the follow up for you message. I'm glad you ended it in "I think". That means it is clearly only your opinion so I don't have to pay attention to it. If it were a statement of facts I'd have to pay attention, and my brain would probably blow up.

認識牛樟芝˙牛樟芝-中視新聞全球報導

根據統計目前市售的牛樟芝
95%為液體發酵法

Dear purveyor of fine spam,

It is my unfortunate duty to inform you that the year is not 2517 and The Alliance has not yet waged war with the Independent Faction to bring all colonized worlds into one powerful governmental system. This means that not only has a "Firefly-class" spaceship not been eluding the grasp of The Alliance, but Chinese is not the prominent universal language.

Due to these extenuating circumstances I am still only able to read and write in English, much to the chagrin of my High School Spanish Teacher, and am unable to comprehend why your product is 95% better or your competitors product is 95% worse. Please understand that my lack of clicking on your advertisement is not because my extreme xenophobia but because of my general ignorance of other languages.

Thank You
Spam Explained

PS. If your original letter was written in (South) Korean or Japanese please disregard this message as you are a friendly country to me.

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Click this link if you would like unsubscribe from this message.. and be subscribed to 30 other spam mailing lists now that we know somebody read this email, and technically unsubscribing from this message is useless since that doesn't preclude us from sending a message tomorrow that is slightly different than this message (maybe we'll capitalize more letters in the Title).

Enjoy Your Holiday!

Your holiday would be not full without gooood se.>.<

When properly read, the message should read as follows.

Your holiday would be not full without gooo.....
gooooooood.
sseeeeeee.
mmmppp.
hhrmmpffff.
hhhuh.
aaarrrrrggg.

>.<
(that's like a little squinty emoticon face thing)

[Poop]

Ahhhhhhhh.

Your holiday would be not full without good bowel movements.

Manchester United chooses Maxgain

To him, every bed is a battlefield feeling it coming

After another long day on his feet, he was glad to see the sun start another slow decent into the horizon. Only a few more minutes of blinding light stood between him and the seemingly less arduous task of trekking back to the camp. He welcomed the thought of another evening of cheap booze and a few friendly rounds of poker, but dreaded his eventual return to this same god-forsaken spot tomorrow.

Peering into the last brilliant sliver of the day he noticed something. His eyes playing tricks on him. He was sure there it had to be real. There appeared to be humanoid figure standing just outside of his patrol area. This was the first time since he was given this post that he actually had seen something. He quickly attempted to recall the details of his original orders. When he could identify his visitor he would know how to react, but he needed to act fast. He didn't want another accident.

As he continued to gaze into darkening skyline he could make out a slight movement. He was sure the figure was slowly shambling toward him. Who ever this visitor was they weren't attempting to communicate, but at the same time they were not attempting to hide their position. While continuing to squint at the stranger, the distance between them was slowly diminishing. He needed to make a decision now or the whole operation...

[Click]

"...and another odd choice for everybody's favorite team as Manchester United chooses..."

[Click]

"...Maxgain is a proven choice for Male amplification when..."





Billy's mother had woken up and was clicking through all the channels once again. Billy relished the fleeting time he had between when either of his parents would fall asleep with a particularly suspenseful program on and when they would eventually wake again. The blankets in the master bedroom, with their varied natural colors and rough texture, were the perfect environment for his soldiers to carry out any number of survival maneuvers or suicidal rescue missions. Billy picked up his soldiers, who had been scattered by the now awakened left foot and moved downstairs. Maybe his brother had left a TV on down there, it had been several weeks since the last time he to work a detective story into the ongoing narrative.