About Me

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Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Andrew was born in London, UK, raised in Toronto, Canada, and cavorted in Ohtawara, Japan for three years. He is married, has a son, a cat named Freddy and a dog named Shaggy (after the dudes in Scooby-Doo). He has over 35,000 comic books and a plethora of pioneer aviation-related tobacco and sports cards and likes to build LEGO dioramas. Along with writing for a monthly industrial magazine, he also writes comic books and hates writing in the 3rd person. He also hates having to write this crap that no one will ever read. He also writes an aviation blog: Pioneers Of Aviation ( https://av8rblog.wordpress.com/ ) - a cool blog on early fliers. He also wants to do more writing - for money, though. Help him out so he can stop talking in the 3rd person.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Spam And Spammers

Do you know what I hate?

I hate spam and spammers.

Ugh. I'm unsure if writing that grammatically incorrect headline was more painful or seeing a letter of comment awaiting my approval within my twice daily Japan - It's A Wonderful Rife blog.

Okay... for once, blogger.com's spam filter actually caught a legitimate spam. Blogger.com is the free blog-hosting site my blogs are created upon. I actually have no complaints about it.


But, as for the topic... I certainly hope the spam I received actually is legitimate spam (oxymoron). I'll show you what it is a few paragraphs later...


So... since spammers like attention, allow me to give you some. People should do their best to avoid buying whatever product this spammer is selling - something called the JunoWallet.

If the company wants to make thing better - show me  - contact me - explain why your company is involved with spam. Yes... I suppose you could be hacked... but considering what your product is....

Until then... Ugh.

The comment was on an older blog entry of mine, in which I wrote about the 19th anniversary of the Hattori shooting - that's the one about a short Japanese exchange student shot by a large U.S. man who thought the kid who was dressed up in Halloween gear was going to hurt him. You can read about that story HERE.
Anyhow... someone added some spam via the Letters section. To be honest - since it is spam, it never actually got posted, but the fact that someone tried... that makes me want to puke.

Here's the comment sent to me on March 28, 2012:

What a tragedy. But you know what can make this better? Free gift cards. You can do this with JunoWallet. JunoWallet is a free app for the App Store or Android Market. You earn money (gift certificates) in JunoWallet by downloading (and opening) other developer's applications or by getting referrals from your coworkers, family, or friends with an iPod Touch, iPad, iPhone, or Android device. It's nice to check my JunoWallet balance increase every day with little work on my end. I won't lie, you WILL NOT get rich by using JunoWallet, but you can use it to make a little bit of tax free money on the side. Use JunoWallet invite code: AG696287 for a one time, $.25 sign up bonus. All codes provide the exact same bonus. Sign up now and earn those gift cards!

No... the real tragedy is this spam.

The creator of the above comment is: MWeiss... who has been a part of the blogging hemisphere since March 2012.

Weisssssssss.  Of course, this may not be anyone's real name. It may be a computer program generating inane comments and ads if it spots a key phrase... whatever it is, it's spam.  

Anyhow... JunoWallet... is a real product... here's the list of people involved in that company - as pulled from their website... I'm not advertising their website - you can look it up if you wish:

Their home page reads:

Every company at its inception has certain people who made financial, time, and other sacrifices in getting that company off the ground and past failure. These sacrifices are greatest in the beginning of every company and key to the company's survival and success. The following individuals have put their fingerprint on the future growth and success of JunoWallet:

The Founders

  • Dr. Raghu Sastry
  • Dr. Jae Hoon Kim
  • Christopher Sweis

The Core 100 Team

  • Shannon Corrigan
  • Akira Doi
  • Laura Wappner
  • Duke Begy
  • Claude Jewell
  • Maureen Cutler (Ireland)
  • Todor Krecu
  • Mike J. Cacicio
  • Randy Sweis
  • Mike Nanay
  • Michelle Hillaert
  • Rohit Sherma

The Security Team

  • Skeeter Boy
  • Buddy

I'm not saying you guys are directly involved with sending spam... but if you are and even if you aren't, you need to get involved to stop it. Do you want to be known as a SPAM company - especially knowing what company your APP is for?

Really, people? Getting a JunoWallet will help you feel better about a miscarriage of justice? About a loss of life? About a family forever grieving?

That's the problem with computer spam. It just gets sent out without thought or consequence.

JunoWallet - Tsk, tsk.

By Andrew Joseph
As for the image at the top? Hormel's Spam? I actually really like to eat Spam! I do. Hormel is a great company... and I apologize for linking their product with the bad type of spam... but it had a Monty Python motif, and I love Monty Python as much as I love Spam