ict-Media GmbH:
Web und Internet

Usually the few articles in this blog are in German. This one - for obvious reasons is in English.

Did you also receive an E-Mail "From: The Internet Society <harris@isoc.org>, Subject: Join Us in the Fight Against E-Mail Spam!"? Those who are experienced users of the Internet may easily have identified it as phishing and spam.

• It uses URLs with dubious domains (http://internetsociety.us7.list-manage2.com/) that neither belong to the domain internetsociety.org nor to isoc.org.
• It uses URLs which allow user tracking. This (...u=2b178aff2ccabee9328e5c659...) will tell them that it was you who clicked on the link, because there is a record in their database saying u=2b178aff2ccabee9328e5c659 belongs to your E-Mail address.
• It uses external content, which - when loaded - tells them that the mail reached you. They know it because the URLs of the sources also contain this 2b178aff2ccabee9328e5c659 string.
• Last not least it asks for money.

Given all the spamming and phishing that is going on in the Internet it would not be worth mentioning this E-mail. If there was not a pitiful punchline: This mail was sent by the Internet Society and is meant as part of the campaign "Join the Fight Against Spam!" which seems to be supported by the Internet Society.

Update: Ted Mooney, Senior Director, Membership & Services apologized for the e-mail and promised to improve.