Ah, scammers, how we loathe them. They seem to have sprung up from the ground once the internet and email became popular. While the current email clients are very good at filtering out spam, and web browsers will warn you about most harmful sites, enough people fall for their tricks to make it a lucrative living. But this mass communication and the ability to reach almost anyone has been a very recent development. So how did they survive before then? Well, by doing the same thing they’re doing now. It was just a bit harder. Here I will detail how a few of the more popular scams were run prior to the internet. To begin, I start with one of the most well known:
Nigerian Banker has money he needs to get out of an account.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaay back when I was a youngster in high school with a brand new previously owned computer and 54k access to the internet whenever nobody else was on the phone line, I was just emerging as a photoshop master. I knew I could shoop anyone anywhere, so why not? I scoured the internet for quite a few minutes before arriving at what I decided was the perfect subject: Link from the Legend of Zelda. Plus there were new screenshots from his upcoming game – The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess – that looked much more realistic than those blocky figures from the N64 games. With my masterful skills, I carefully crafted a series of him in various locales. I present the finished product here, many years later, to show just how awesome I was, even when just started. And so, without further ado, Link’s Vacation!
Googling my screen name produced this gem from back in 2005. I have no idea about the context of this info, only that some group of teen aged girls thought it was funny as hell. I’ve separated out the actual conversation from her conversation about the conversation for your convenience.
lime margar iiTa: HAHAHA
lime margar iiTa: who is this?
MesmericKiwi: my name is *****
MesmericKiwi: and who do I have the pleasure of conversing with?
lime margar iiTa: who talks like that?!
XxGrEenLoVexX: i dont know but whoever it is i hate already
Since Clunkline has just entered its new glorious auspicious second phase of righteous harmony, known to non-party-members as Clunkline 2.0, we as the Clunkline staff feel it’s necessary at this juncture to issue a review of the past two years of Clunkline history.
We have completed the requested security report. We find that, while the newly redesigned Clunkline is impervious to most forms of internet tomfoolery, it is still vulnerable to some forms of “side-stream” attacks: attacks that come from outside a system, rather than within. For instance, a torrent of page requests that clogs your servers would be an in-system attack, but smacking your server with a sledgehammer would be side-stream.
Interestingly, hacking Clunkline’s password would be “brute force”, but breaking into your apartment, clubbing you to death, and stealing your server is side-stream. I dare say they have been misnamed! Back to the point. You should be aware that, in our test of your security protocols, our agents found it very easy to club you to death and steal your server.
Since the invention of video game achievements have become increasingly popular, it seemed only natural to extend these virtual markers into the real world. This list is far from complete, but it’s a start in the right direction. How many have you accomplished?
We at Clunkline love to network with our tubemates out there or the internet. It’s not easy to get an interview, though… Oftentimes those most important internetfolk are too awed by the glory of Clunkline or too resentful that soon they’ll be paying top dollar to advertise on our site in hopes of gleaning a few hits from this internet dynamo. However, every once in a while someone’s willing to swallow their pride and offer us a bit of time.
I listen to better music than you do. I know this, partly because I also know more about music than you do, but mostly because all of your favorite bands either suck, or they were way better before people like you started listening to them. Also you’re ugly and you smell bad. Go away.
Is he gone yet? Good, I hated that guy.
Anyway, the reason I have such a high standard in music is that every band I encounter is first put through a strict test to determine exactly how much I like them on a 0-100 scale. For this quiz, each band starts with 50 points, then add or subtract points based on the answers to the following questions:
Ladies, gentlemen, and members of Tardigrade species for whom gender has no meaning… I welcome you to the twilight of humanity. For centuries, these worthless fools have debated the numbers of angels dancing on the heads of pins, while they should have been counting the numbers of us who were on those pins, killing those angels.
Chronic MMO is a degenerative disease that frequently affects students and computer users in general. It can progress into stages that can result in incredibly unsanitary practices and eventually in a state of apparent death to the rest of the world.
It’s a fact: not all internet phenomena are created equally. Every once in a while, a bizarre idea spawned in the festering forums of 4chan will get lucky enough to make its way out into the real world and enter the everyday lives of normal people; but for every “Hamster Dance” or “Peanut Butter Jelly Time,” there are at least three other attempts at creating the next big cultural icon that never make it too far past the planning stages…
