I recently had an interesting message arrive in my system; after viewing the message, 100% of those polled agreed on what it was. What do you think?

What do YOU see?

If you answered spam, you’re on your way to having the mentality of a spam analyst.

This message has many hallmarks of classic unsolicited commercial email:

  1. the middle of the message says “Click Here” in big prominent text
  2. there’s an “opt-out” banner, announcing that this is an ad
  3. the ad contains a “unique ID”
  4. despite the (intentionally obscured) address, the message does not say who it is actually from
  5. the “call to action” link is http :/fefcbdacggbfg.[redacted].info/alphaville/4754-1b416/ — random sub-domain, published in the .info top level domain, with a directory name comprised of two random words, and a sub-directory that looks like yet another unique identifier.
  6. everything in this message except for the “unique ID” under the opt-out banner is actually an image.

Those of you who are actually interested in psychology will also note that the inkblot is not actually part of either the Rorsach or the Holtzman Inkblot Test. It seems to me that this message is more designed to take advantage of those who are willing to try anything to get a job. In the long run, an accredited educational institution will likely be much more beneficial.