Analysis of scam email.
It's a scam.
It's gotta be a scam. I had a gut feeling by the end of reading it for the first time, so I decided to pull this email apart and examine every detail that I can to see if it was some part of a scheme to separate me from my money or just someone wanting to get out of Russia (even then it's a bit of a scam). Also, I'd never been on the fuzzy end of a scam like this, so I thought I'd play along until they asked me to do whatever it was that would be profitable for them.
The first thing I checked was the email header (nerd talk warning!): the ip and the header match, and gmail thinks it comes from a valid yahoo account. So that checks out but I would be more comfortable with an ISP email which would allow me to track down the locality of the person who sent me this message, but people quite legitimately use yahoo accounts for privacy and that's no big concern.
The time and date checks out too. The reply was about 1/2 an hour after I sent the email, which is kinda quick, but after you do the time conversions (which is a bit tricky because yahoo's mail server is in New York and this person is allegedly writing from a part of Russia), it works out that this person sent me this email at about 1:34 PM. How a non native speaker can write such a long message in such a short space of time is debatable, but posting on a internet website looking for someone to marry has got to draw a lot of responses, and writing beforehand a blanket response for everyone for the first round of weeding out weirdos sounds like a good strategy. But it's still a bit suspicious though.
The next thing that's really noticible is the line truncation - the way you're seeing it is exactly they way I first saw it and it's very suspicious. I have a yahoo mail account and I sent a long email message to my gmail and I couldn't replicate the effect. I came to the conclusion that the line truncation is probably due to the entire email being a cut and paste job or due to the email being invisibly forwarded because lines can end up being truncated using those methods. (by 'invisibly forwarded' I mean the email doesn't look like it's forwarded, but it actually is due to the fact that it's possible to manually clean up those signs that indicate that the email is forwarded).
Regarding the content, there's not too much that's remarkable other than the fact that she describes herself as Christian - the funny thing is that she attaches some 'sexy' photos of herself in the email (omitted here). Would a god fearing woman do such a thing? I guess it depends on how desperately she wants to get out. Next is about her friend Klava. Keep that name in mind.
One other thing I found striking is her taste in music - "One of my favorite singers is Sting, Tony Braxton and Whitney Huston". A little old, don't you think? She's also appealing to the lowest common denominator - yes, it's a way to start conversation, but it still feels a bit odd here.
There's more to come, and more obvious proof that this a scam. I'll post them soon.
Question: Am I a nerd?
Answer: Yes.
Oh, I'm posting some photos from the Halloween party at my flickr account. They are scary because people are wearing masks and you cannot see their face. There are also pumpkins and they are scary because of the fact that people have carved scary faces on them. The candy/lollies were sweet but not scary. If your sarcasm-detector is still on, please turn it off now.
P.S. There's a cold snap so I went and bought a thick jacket that just shouts Alaska-chic (actually, I was gunning for a Northern Exposure look). I guess I'll put up a photo eventually.
