An open letter to Those Who Would Phish:

You know, I realize that this type of scam is very cheap for you to run and all. And I realize that probably 99.99% of the people don't fall for it, but that the 0.01% that do make it profitable enough.

However, I would like to make two observations:

First of all: sending fake emails claiming to be from a bank/company I've never done business with? That automatically sets off alarms, and I would suspect it does the same in even the dimmest of us (see: 0.01%, above). I realize it would be a whole lot more work to actually check to see if I had ever bought anything off of eBay using the address in question or whether I had ever had an account with Bank of America, but man - it just looks sloppy when you don't even TRY to verify that your "mark" had anything to do with the business you are spoofing.

Secondly: this "thirty identical emails in fifteen seconds" thing? Doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the veracity of the email. When I walk back to my office after class and see identical "OMG WTF U BETTER CALL US WITH YUR ACCOUNT INFO !!!!1!!" emails stacked up to fill my in-box, I do not, in fact, think "OMG WTF I BETTER CALL THEM !!!1!!!" Instead, I think "fracking spammers" and try to figure out how to formulate a "rule" that would send that type of message to "Spam Hell."

So, in other words, phisher-spammers: I realize you already think I'm seriously stupid (I suppose it's that .edu extension on my e-mail address), but even if I were seriously stupid, I'd be a lot more likely to be taken in by a single e-mail rather than 45 of them.

Mostly, what I do, is offer up a suggestion to the Deity that if He's looking for someone to smite, sending the fleas of a thousand camels to your nether regions might be a good place to start, as I figure out how to tell the "Rules Wizard" to never allow a piece of spam like that into my in-box again. (And yes, you do keep changing them up. And I keep adding more rules. A sort of evolutionary arms-race, if you will.)

In summary: Me smart, you stupid, you're not getting any information out of me. I'm just gonna keep blocking your spam. No harm done.

That said, if you are ever caught, I hope you are extradited, tried, and sentenced in a country where being hung up for hours on end by your thumbs, or better yet, gonads, is not considered cruel and unusual punishment.