Thursday, May 21, 2009

You gotta admire his persistence

Over this past weekend, a drama played itself out in my Gmail inbox.

(Another, far more interesting drama played itself out in my Gmail spam folder over the same time period. This one involved e-mails from the likes of Skaff Oliva, Sodawasser Steven, and Dick Stratton [...seriously?], "massive gains of 3-4 inches", "exposed Gaga", and "scientists' mass suicide".)

Saturday night, I got an e-mail with the subject 'Facebook Registration Confirmation'. My curiosity got the better of me, and a quick perusal revealed both that it was legitimate, and that it had been sent to an old e-mail address of mine that I have forwarded to the current one.

That was weird. Somebody tried to sign up for Facebook using one of my old e-mail addresses.

An hour or so later, my inbox received another message - this one auto-forwarded from an even older address, giving me a link to change my password to the first old address.

So after signing up for Facebook with my e-mail address, this guy realized he couldn't get into my account and used the 'forgot your password?' function.

The next morning, I wake up to two more Google Password Recovery Assistance e-mails.

Later Sunday, I get an e-mail - again sent to the first old address - with an invitation to Facebook from somebody I've never heard of.

I no longer think that somebody was trying to sign me up to Facebook using a long-dormant and seldom-used e-mail address.

I think somebody genuinely thought that percussionist@gmail.com (hey spammers, have a free shot!) was their e-mail address, and are still stuck trying to figure out how they managed to forget their password AND not have the e-mails properly sent to their old address.

But boy, they sure tried every trick in the book.

This might also explain the e-mails that address occasionally gets as part of an e-mail distribution list for the Libertyville, Illinois high school band.

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Expect fewer updates over the next while. I just started a new job, and the working life seems to leave me a lot more drained than the student life. I'm still going to aim for posting twice a week - once mid-week, once on the weekend - but we'll see how that plays out.

I can only imagine flawlessly.

--Ryan

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