Spamhuntress

A few months ago I got an e-mail from a company that sells large bean bag chairs. They wanted to send me one in exchange for a review in my blog. After thinking about it I said why not, and asked if they were sure they wanted to send one all the way to Norway. They said sure, but probably didn’t understand where Norway was. It then became clear somebody had nixed the idea of sending it to Norway, and the guy stopped responding to my e-mails. This is typical behavior of big companies when dealing with smaller companies or the common man. They don’t respond instead of telling you straight that they’re no longer interested.

I disapprove of this kind of behavior. I don’t care that it’s done and expected in certain industries. I happened to know what was happening because I’ve got friends who’ve had it done to them and had explained the procedure in detail.

But I thought to myself that this guy had picked the wrong tack - I’m a blogger, and bloggers are not without power. This method is used when the one it’s done to has no power. Well, this company would not have approached me unless they considered me to have power. So I’ve been fully planning on doing something about this - outing his behavior. Had he done the right thing and told me they’d had to reconsider because of the huge shipping cost to Norway, I would have felt done right by. This isn’t about them not sending me a bean bag, but about their behavior.

Now is the right time to tell this story. I’d wanted one of those bean bag chairs ever since that company approached me. I’d never heard of them before - these are square and BIIIG, much bigger than the old fashioned sacco bean bags (I’ve had three of them plus an ottoman, thoughout my life). I happened on a news story in Norway talking about them, so I knew there was another manufacturer.

Last week I saw a story in the newspaper about a company that had ordered 500 bean bags for a rock festival that went bankrupt. They were stuck with those bean bags and decided to sell them to anyone who wanted a memento of this rock festival - it had been an institution in Norway the preceding years. I found the phone number of the guy and called him, securing an exemplar. It arrived today. Incidentally, they’re all sold out!

They’d bought 500 bean bags from China complete with the brand of this rock festival. The box was so big there was no way I could get it into my car. I had to take it out of the box and the plastic bag, and shove it into the back seat. It filled it almost completely and obscured the rear window. It’s HUGE! The fabric is what we call beaver nylon (really heavy duty stuff) with polystyrene beads and is 180×140, though it appears smaller because the fabric is rounded because of the stuffing. There’s an inner sac, so it’s possible to wash the outer lining (the inner lining already ripped!) - I don’t think all bean bags have that. I was hoping I could use it as a guest bed, but it’s so full of stuffing, it’s a bit hard at the moment. It’ll do wonderfully as a TV lounger, if I can only fit it into my apartment!

Anyway, I love these things, even though it’s definitely better if you have lots of space…

So, I’ll finally tell you about manufacturers:

The company that approached me is the one selling the Sumo line of bean bags. They have tried to appeal to geeks, that’s why they send it to bloggers for reviews. Keep my experience in mind if you decide to buy from them.

The original design of this type of bean bag is said to have been invented by Finnish Jukka Setälä and is named Fatboy. It’s available in most countries, and is sold by either Fatboy or Marimekko. Here’s one of their websites: Fatboy USA

What I found out after some research, is that this type of chair is made by countless manufacturers all over the world. And maybe you’d like to make your own?. Mine came from some nameless Chinese outfit. They come in many price ranges, and in many variations and qualities. There are even some with alternative fillings and linings. Those other fillings sound really interesting, BTW, polystyrene beads are fine for sitting, but not quite as good for sleeping. Many of these companies also make alternate designs and sizes.
US:

• Beanbag Zone (also sells fatboy cheaper)
• Voodoo Big Bean Player (cheap)

UK:

• Sploosh beanbags
• Forsyth 4
• Elephant beanbags
• Beanbag bazaar (on sale now, cheap)
• Great beanbags

Germany:

• Sitting Bull

Alternate designs:

• Beanbag Chair Bazaar - US
• Ambient Lounge - UK

Alternate filling:

• Overstock Zoe Tan
• Overstock Zoe Red
• Lovesack (Shredded dorafoam filling, and more expensive)
• Comfy sacks (Comfy foam, but cheaper than lovesac)

Alternate outer lining:

• Waste (Discarded automobile upholstery)
• Yogi Poof (stretchy material and cheaper)

The latest trend (and it isn’t caught by my spam filters yet) is spam e-mails with fake news headlines. I’ve seen Tom Cruise killed in an airplane crash, and Nicole Kidman losing her baby (after it was born, even!).

Inside the e-mail, there’s another fake news headline. For example OJ Simpson admitting to murder (like that’s going to happen).

I tried one of the links, and it ended in a 404. Another ended in a page that serves up watch.exe under movie.gif.

I didn’t try it, but for the foolhardy, here’s the link:

fretga.es/about.html

You’ll need to add www. in front of the link, or you’ll get a 404 error.

Another domain used this way is weertevents.com. Lots of Google hits from the spam e-mails. Looks like it’s now possible to web spam by sending spam e-mails because of all the list archives. Also check SiteAdvisor’s page on it.

Check out vnunet’s analysis that it’s the Storm worm that’s cranking out these spam e-mails.

Right now I’m wondering about the domains used to host the malware - the places the links are pointing. The domain registrations are old, and appear to belong to the original owners of the domain. I found pages on archive.org dating from last year on one of the domains, and the main page still has the same content. IP numbers are pointing all over the place. So I’m wondering - have the original owners sold the domains with the content, and haven’t gotten around to changing the domain registration? Or are the websites hacked?

Another domain (crucis.es) has had it’s original content removed, and you only see what appears to be a flash video player similar to youtube. Hello movie.gif…The old site was an empty wordpress installation. Google indexed it as late as July, 10.

Update July 18: I’ve seen several examples of one page used by spammers inside what appears to be a working website. I’ve also seen a few examples of websites suspended by the webhost. I’ve seen a few examples of sites that appear to have been completely erased - presumably by an owner trying to remove the way the hackers got in.