Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

Remember when Microsoft said they'd limit how many emails the free Outlook accounts could send daily

Fri, 09 Jan 2026 05:36:41 GMT

GUESS WHAT! Ain't gonna happen. Apparently they got some negative feedback, which means they did a poor job of educating users with legitimate needs on how they could work with the limit.

All it required was correctly configuring your email client. It's not difficult, and MS would tell you how to do it. Your ISP could tell you how to do it. You could find instructions online on how to do it. Instead, you're letting a bazillion spammers slam everyone's inbox because MS won't rate limit how many emails can be spewed forth.

When it comes to Gmail, "...those who need to send more than 5,000 messages per day to Gmail accounts must set up SPF/DKIM and DMARC email authentication for their domains." Basically, users have to make sure their email is configured correctly to identify their domains and have opt-outs within their emails. Their web hosts should be able to do that. Granted, MLM Pat probably doesn't have the skills, but they should be able to hire someone who can. There are LOTS of freelancers out there with the chops.

Sigh.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-cancels-plans-to-rate-limit-exchange-online-bulk-emails/

https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/01/07/1659220/microsoft-cancels-plans-to-rate-limit-exchange-online-bulk-emails

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Microsoft starts blocking improperly configured bulk mailers

Tue, 20 May 2025 00:02:22 GMT

If a mailer is trying to send more than 5,000 emails a day to Outlook.com, Hotmail.com, or Live.com email addresses, and the server is not configured to standards, Microsoft is going to block the emails from going through their networks with an error message. Yahoo and Gmail have been doing this for some time.

Specifically, "... (the) SPF record must clearly identify which IPs can send on your domain’s behalf. DKIM must sign the message with a valid key. And DMARC needs to be published, with alignment to either SPF or DKIM. Preferably both. Without all three in place, Microsoft will silence you."

This will make it harder for fly-by-night spammers to get messages through as they often do not have top-shelf IT people supporting them. It will also cause problems for legitimate mass mailers who use third-party email providers who also do not have top-shelf IT people who may be a little soft on their mail server configuration.

But this is the price paid because scammers are determined to make sure that we cannot have nice things.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoftdefenderforoffice365blog/strengthening-email-ecosystem-outlook%e2%80%99s-new-requirements-for-high%e2%80%90volume-senders/4399730

https://betanews.com/2025/05/05/microsoft-email-blocks-start-may-2025/

https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/05/05/1817247/microsoft-cracks-down-on-bulk-email-with-strict-new-outlook-rules

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Speaking of spam....

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 20:48:46 GMT

It looks like my McAfee subscription has been renewed about a dozen times now! So is that good for twelve years, or am I 12x protected?

Ignoring the fact that I do not and never would use that product.

(I just deleted two "invoices" from my spam folder. Why they think the sender having my name would make me think they are authentic is completely beyond my ken.)

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I just received an email that's guaranteed that I'll open it!

Mon, 13 May 2024 20:23:32 GMT

No, that's not the word. What's the word?

Not. Guaranteed that I'll not open it.

The subject line is: Ꮯοոցrаtսⅼаtіоոѕ Υοս hаⅴе ѕսссеѕѕfսⅼⅼу Ԝοո аո ΝFΤ іtеⅿ !

You send me an email with shifted case and multiple fonts like that, you ain't gonna win me over, skippy! Not to mention trying to hook me into an NFT scam?

Nope.

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For 2020 robocalls claiming voters would get mandatory vaccinations, violators get $5M fines!

Thu, 08 Jun 2023 17:05:49 GMT

AND COSMIC JUSTICE!

The robocalls targets black zip codes in cities with large black populations, with a black voice actress reading the following script:

Hi, this is Tamika Taylor from Project 1599, the civil rights organization founded by Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl. Mail-in voting sounds great, but did you know that if you vote by mail, your personal information will be part of a public database that will be used by police departments to track down old warrants and be used by credit card companies to collect outstanding debts? The CDC is even pushing to use records for mail-in voting to track people for mandatory vaccines. Don't be finessed into giving your private information to the man, stay safe and beware of vote by mail.

The robocalls violated several calls because they targeted cell phones and went up against anti-KKK laws. And the people behind them got nailed bigly.

But here's the best part. As a part of their supervised community service - they "...were ordered to work 500 hours of community service." The ordered community service consisted of registering voters in minority and low-income communities, the FCC said."

Oh, the irony! And the glee!

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/06/robocalls-claiming-voters-would-get-mandatory-vaccines-result-in-5m-fine/

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Received an amusing PayPal scam email

Mon, 24 Jan 2022 15:56:02 GMT

The standard "your account is suspended" crap. But as I was scrolling down to the bottom to get to the button to forward it to spoof@paypal.com, I noticed the following bit of text:

𝖧𝗈𝗐 𝖽𝗈 𝖨 𝗄𝗇𝗈𝗐 𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝗂𝗌 𝗇𝗈𝗍 𝖺 𝗌𝗉𝗈𝗈𝖿 𝖾𝗆𝖺𝗂𝗅?
𝖲𝗉𝗈𝗈𝖿 𝗈𝗋 "𝗉𝗁𝗂𝗌𝗁𝗂𝗇𝗀" 𝖾𝗆𝖺𝗂𝗅𝗌 𝗍𝖾𝗇𝖽 𝗍𝗈 𝗁𝖺𝗏𝖾 𝗀𝖾𝗇𝖾𝗋𝗂𝖼 𝗀𝗋𝖾𝖾𝗍𝗂𝗇𝗀𝗌 𝗌𝗎𝖼𝗁 𝖺𝗌 "𝖣𝖾𝖺𝗋 𝖯𝖺𝗒𝖯𝖺𝗅 𝗆𝖾𝗆𝖻𝖾𝗋". 𝖤𝗆𝖺𝗂𝗅𝗌 𝖿𝗋𝗈𝗆 𝖯𝖺𝗒𝖯𝖺𝗅 𝗐𝗂𝗅𝗅 𝖺𝗅𝗐𝖺𝗒𝗌 𝖺𝖽𝖽𝗋𝖾𝗌𝗌 𝗒𝗈𝗎 𝖻𝗒 𝗒𝗈𝗎𝗋 𝗀𝗂𝗏𝖾𝗇 𝗌𝗎𝗋𝗇𝖺𝗆𝖾 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗀𝗂𝗏𝖾𝗇 𝗇𝖺𝗆𝖾.

Here's the amusing part: they didn't address me by my name, just my email address. That would have certainly woken me up if they had my name!

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Ooooh! I got a fraud alert from Chase!

Tue, 01 Dec 2020 15:04:57 GMT

Dear Valued Customer,

During our usual security enhancement protocol, we observed multiple login attempt errors while login in to
your online banking account.

We have believe that someone other than you is trying to access your account for security reasons, we have temporarily suspend your account and your access to online banking and will be restricted if you fail to
update.

* * * * *

I didn't discard the email out of hand. While we don't do any checking/savings/credit card with Chase, Russet's Subaru from the elk crash last year is financed through them, so I had to open it.

Yep, spam.

Love the spacing! Unfortunately you can't see the multiple internal spaces between words, like you can't see that the Dear Valued Customer is not lined up with the rest of the verbiage. I particularly loved the "during our usual security enhancement protocol" and "errors while login in to" and "We have believe". And 'we believe someone is trying to access my account for security reasons'? They're going to improve your security, or my security, or what? The second paragraph is a complete mess.

Of course, the email address of (at)Frontier.com was a complete giveaway. They don't even make a decent attempt at hiding their domains anymore!

I don't think they completed their Financial Spam Email 201 course.

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Now this email scammer isn't really trying, or maybe is just starting out

Sat, 14 Sep 2019 15:12:15 GMT

Classic spam:

"We have recently detected that different device user a attempted gaining access to your Online account linked with your email, and multiple password was attempted with your user ID.
It is now necessary to re-confirm your account information to us.

If this process is not completed within 24-48 hours. We will be forced to suspend your Account Online Access as it may have been used for fraudulent purposes.

Please Sign in to visit and update profile immediately www.bankofamerica.com.

Please remember to review your statement to see transactions, payments, and other important account information and disclosures.

Thank you for being a Bank of America customer.
You received thik email as part of your existing relatienship with us."

We've got classic bad spelling and English grammar usage, indicating country of origin being non-native English speakers.

And the big tell? The email domain it came from: Hotynews.com. They didn't even try to disguise the domain!

But there's something else hidden in this message that you can't see because I cut them out: at the end of paragraphs are the phrases "SHOP NOW", "SOLD 50% OFF" and "Buy now"! They set the text to white text on white background, so they're invisible, and presumably links to shopping sites somewhere, but I can't be bothered to activate the message or look at the HTML code behind it.

So not only are they trying to steal your account credentials, they're trying to get you to buy crappy merchandise!

My wife pointed out that even with these obvious tells, they're still going to net a few accounts from incautious people, which is kind of tragic.

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Been getting some interesting text message spam recently, also email spam.

Thu, 06 Jun 2019 20:58:14 GMT

One last night, one a week or two ago. Dangerous information that could lead to infectious payload obscured.

The older one:
From:
checkinfowellsrecurringdepositXXXXX[Bad username or site: fatalerrornerd @ com]

Message text:
(Suspicious Activity) http://bit.ly/2WeXXXXX CustomersWellsBank LimitedActivityAccountLocked82
-----
So we have horrible structure, no actual English language, just run-on words. And I'm supposed to take a text from an email domain of FatalErrorNerd.com seriously?!

Last night's message:
From:
investmentwellsauthXXXXX[Bad username or site: investingnews @ com]

Message Text:
(WellsFargo) Your account was Limited - http://bit.ly/2ETXXXXX
Please update your personal information to avoid account locked.
Thank you
-----
Well, at least we have English sentence structure, even if it is a bit stilted, indicating a probable non-native English speaker. Definitely not reviewed by a corporate communications executive.

The first one says CustomerWellsBank, which implies I'm the customer of something called Wells Bank. There is no Wells Bank. The second one at least is explicitly trying to trick me if I'm a Wells Fargo customer, which I would not be a customer of those bastards in a million years. If they gave me a million dollars up front to open an account I'd deposit a penny and leave it there.

So on to email!

This one is a little bit interesting. A couple of weeks ago I had a problem on my iMac: something went REALLY weird in Firefox, and attempting to do ANYTHING in FF totally blew the mind of my video card and made the display dangerously unviewable, as in anyone epileptic in viewing distance would be incapacitated. I made the decision to create a new user account on my computer and copy everything from A to B. I don't run from accounts that are admin-privileged, so I signed on to an admin account, opened two finder windows, pointed them to the respective user data trees, gave the admin account appropriate permission, and it was literally just drag and drop. I left iTunes alone until I did some research, and that was also easy to do: I was overcautious. As it turns out, my FF problems sort of followed me, and I ended up deleting it and reinstalling it. Fortunately I had made a backup of my bookmarks the previous week, so nothing was lost.

The interesting bit was that when I deleted the damaged user account, I recovered an additional 200 GIG of disk space! And this was after running cache-clearing utilities! I don't know what was hidden, but clearly something was.

ANYWAY, on 6/2 I received an email allegedly from Apple Support. Clearly it was not. Now, the story gets interesting right off the bat: I couldn't copy and paste the text of the email! The whole thing apparently is in unicode! It appears to be text, you can select and copy individual letters and words in the text message, but when you do you end up with a big block of hexadecimal code! The second interesting thing appears because I don't let email messages load graphics because of email trackers. An interesting phrase appeared: "Hasil gambar untuk apple". I assumed this probably represented a placeholder or image tag for the Apple logo, and plugged the phrase in to Google Translate. The result was Indonesian Malay!

So the only way I could copy the message would be to retype it from scratch, which is what I'm doing. At least the header was required to be in ASCII-128 and copied properly.

Email Message:
Apple Support <bg45ng-h7skdj37sjdh3nh4fz3.rigayunah42@0477-politikus53.bg45ngg.<b>XXXXX.inginselamyadiamdigoa.org> [wow! I didn't know Apple used .org email addresses!]
Today at 10:16 AM

To wwXXXXX[Bad username or site: yahoo @ com]

This message contains blocked images. [from my not allowing images to load]
Message body

Hasil gambar untuk apple [the forementioned Malay]

Dear wwXXXXX[Bad username or site: yahoo @ com]

For your protection, your Apple ID is automatically disabled.

We have prevented an unusual sign in attempt on your Apple account. This may have been because you're signing in from a new location or from a different device. Please review the sign in details below:

Your account access has been locked for the following reason(s):
-Juni 2 2019 : We check your account log in with other device.
-Juni 3 2019 : Your account has been locked until this issued has been resolved. We will wait for 1 week or your account has been disabled permanently.

What to do Next:

Please Click the login button below to your Apple account and provide the requested information before 1 week. Through the Account Review, if we don't receive the information before this deadline, your account access may be further locked permanently.

Sincerely,
Apple Support

This email was intended for ,.
Copyright (c) 2019 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.
case-id bG45nG

-----

Well! If you do a quick read, the English might pass muster, but it doesn't on a close read. The Juni months instead of June is a dead giveaway. But it's always the email addresses that they fail at. Another curious thing is the centered text at the bottom, associated with the Dear [my email address]. Apple would have my [first name/last name] and could/probably would include it if they actually contacted me. These scammers don't. I'm guessing the comma/period might be a missed mail merge that didn't fill properly.

Anyway, fun stuff to look over.

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Got a wonderful piece of spam recently

Thu, 25 Jan 2018 03:15:31 GMT

From: Yahoo Security <87503176.11BF7B5CFC9BBB4072468Asadewnaxdfanuw@fviggqnauynfwi.com>
To: ww...
Sent: Monday, January 22, 2018 6:55 AM
Subject: Something is Wrong With Your Email Account

You need to call now 1 855-XXX-XXXX

We Have Detected Unusual Activity With Your Yahoo Account on Your Computer

Login Has Occurred on 1/22/2018 @ 3:04 AM EST

From IP: 34.124.12.1 Geo Location Found: Eastern Russia

If This Was Not You Please Call the Yahoo Security Team
(Be at your computer)

1 855-XXX-XXXX

First off, take a look at that wonderful email address. Yeah, that's clearly Yahoo Security.

Next, Look At How Every Word (almost) Is Capitalized. Doesn't everyone Send Emails Like That?

One might assume that this originated in Russia. Maybe yes, maybe no. Wherever it came from, they used American date format and an American time zone. Now the IP address is interesting. If you do a lookup of an address, you can usually find out who the ISP is. In this case, it's HALLIBURTON IN HOUSTON, TEXAS! Remember Dick Cheney's old digs before he became Dubya's veeps? Yep, them. So somehow an IP address of 34.124.12.1, which terminates in Houston, TX, somehow generated a login to my Yahoo email in Eastern Russia?

You can look up the location of an IP address at sites such as https://www.melissadata.com/lookups/iplocation.asp.

You'd think these twits could at least have looked up a big city in eastern Russia and gotten their IP address to give it some verisimilitude.

I tried doing a traceroute on the address, but after it left my ISP after the third hop, it just sort of died. I suspect Halliburton.com has some sort of countermeasures that eats such requests and puts the incoming traceroute packets in to a loop: I killed the program after 50 steps without result. Houston shouldn't have taken more than 8 hops or so from southen NM to establish it was in SE Texas.

I blocked out the phone number: according to 800notes.com, some people have called it and it has something to do with Hillary and Russian collusion.

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Wow. I just received a Nigerian Prince private email on DW!

Fri, 29 Sep 2017 13:56:52 GMT

"HELLO MY DEAR
Hi,....

Greetings from my sincere heart, i gotten your contact via searching i made on the Internet.

I have been undergoing treatment for Cancer. My husband was murdered alongside our only son GREG by those who are envious of his position in the same office.

Before his death he made a vow to use his wealth for the down trodden, orphanages and the less privileged in the society.

Having known my critical condition I decided to donate this fund to an individual or better still a God fearing person like you who will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct here in. I am seriously down by the cancer.

I want an individual that will use this fund and provide succor to poor and indigent persons, orphanages, and widows and for the propagating peace. What is required of you is your honesty, trust and sincerity.

Any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing for another individual for this same purpose. Please be sincere in your heart.

I will like TO SPEAK WITH ON PHONE, so I appeal to you to humbly provide your phone to enable me speak with you on phone.

Reply Me Via My Personal Email:...... (elizswy@yahoo.com).....

My Regards To You And Your Family.

Thanks With Deep Love & Gratitude

Elizabeth S. Wylie
(WIDOW "

Yes, the message ends with an open paren. The DW profile was created on the 29th and has no posts or information on the profile, though curiously it lists a full street address in Ohio. I blocked this person and hopefully DW will purge them.

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