Spamsters using "generated" names now?

[SunnyD]

I remember in the infancy of spam, it usually was easy to determine whether the nature of an email was spam or not by simply looking at the From field of the email - most spam engines gave a raw or hacked email address that you could blatantly see was bad. Not to mention you could usually see some sort of "tag" on the subject line - which the subject line itself usually threw it into the spam bucket.

Now, my hotmail account (which I use solely for those companies which require me to provide them with an email addy - it's my spam account) has been getting more and more emails which are indeed spam, but from the outside look like genuine emails. The name on the from line sounds like a real person - something like James Wilson or Trisha Woodrow or something like that - seemingly innocent. Gone are the deluac39875jksafho83rt@someemail.com's.

Also, the subject lines are all seemingly personal as well - Did you get my other email?, or I misplaced your address. Gone here are the Horny Teens in Wet Action (x3fg2m) and Viagra now $15.99 each.

Of course when you open up these emails, it's - SPAM, but on the outside they're looking more and more genuine.

Are the spamsters getting more and more sophisticated or what?

Good thing I don't know a Tina DeFranco otherwise I might be tempted to find out whether or not I sent her those papers... lol.

 

[dabuddha]

Yeah plus the from addresses are from microsoft.com, oracle.com, etc. Legit domains. Spoofed of course.

 

[Blieb]

Uhm. I think maybe they're not getting smarter, but realizing that people don't care about the "enlarge this or that" emails.

Still, I get those spams too, so you know people are clicking on them.