The Millennium Shrimp

A couple of days ago this message floated through faceblah status updates:

FACEBOOK has agreed to let a third party advertisers use your posted pictures WITHOUT your permission. Click on SETTINGS up at the top by the Log out link. Select Privacy, then NEWSFEEDS and WALL. Select the FACEBOOK ADS tab. There is a drop down box, select NO ONE. Then SAVE your changes. (REPOST To LET YOUR FRIENDS KNOW!)

Today I saw this advertisement on a picture:

Jason Espino featured in facebook advertising

So, it really wasn’t an email rumor after all. Facebook, the hot internet application of the 21st century has, in it’s perpetual quest for a business model that actually generates money, hit upon the novel idea of whoring out it’s users’ information to advertisers.

Ultimately, it’s your decision whether or not you want to let them do that. If you don’t want it, be sure to update your privancy settings.

This “Capt.” at the UN “Directorate of International Payment and Transfers”(?) wants to give me an ATM card. All I have to give them is my name, age, telephone number, address and present occupation. I mean, it’s the UN, it must be legitimate!

UNITED NATIONS
(WORLD BANK ASSISTED PROGRAMME)
DIRECTORATE OF INTERNATIONAL
PAYMENT AND TRANSFERS.
870 UNITED NATIONS PLAZA 20-ANEW YORK NY 10017
WIRE TRANSFER/AUDIT UNIT
Our Ref: WB/NF/UN/XX027

ATTN: BENEFICIARY,
IRREVOCABLE RELEASE OF YOUR PAYMENT

We have actually been authorized by the World Bank and international monetary fund (IMF), to investigate the unnecessary delay of your payment, hence recommendation and approval of your claims for payment is certified as genuine.

During the course of our investigation, we discovered with dismay that your payment has been unnecessarily Delayed by corrupt officials of the Bank For this reasons, the formal officials that has been handling your payment before have been instructed to hands up from your payment due to the petitions and complain we have been receiving from all parts of the world against African countries the way they are delaying their beneficiaries fund. Some petitions we received made it known to us that some beneficiaries have loose all they have achieved in their life time due to the way they are been treated in regards to their Contract Payment, Inheritance and Lottery Award Winning. and also we noticed that the corrupt officials were  Trying to divert your Fund into their private accounts. To forestall this, security for your funds Was organized in the form of your personal Identification number (PIN) and your payment has been approved via ATM CARD, this will enable only you have direct Control over this fund.

We have also agreed with the World Bank and international monetary fund (IMF) that, we will handle this payment ourselves to avoid the hopeless situation created by these corrupt Officials. We have obtained an irrevocable payment guarantee on your Payment,  from the World Bank and international monetary Funds (IMF).We are happy to inform you that based on our recommendation/instructions; your Entire contract fund/ inheritance claim has been credited in your favor through our overseas paying bank. You are therefore advice to contact:

REV VINCENT FISHER International Auditing unit, United Nations Liaison Office London United Kingdom on EMAIL: revfisher_un@live.com to collect your original ATM CARD with your access PIN code. Once the ATM CARD is delivered to your door step, you will have total control access to your funds because the ATM CARD will be upgraded and activated in your favor.

NOTE: You are advice to reconfirm the following information to Rev. Vincent Fisher to avoid any further delay in processing of your payment. Your full name, Your Age, telephone number, mailing address, Present Occupation.

Thanks for your cooperation

CAPT. GEORGE DONALD
UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK

Got this email from mom this morning:

If you receive a mail called’ POSTCARD,’ even though sent to you by a friend, do not open it! Shut down your computer immediately. It has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever. This virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday, and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus. This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital information is kept.

Actually, this virus is very serious, and you may already be infected with it. To see if you are, right click on my computer and go to properties. If it says something along the lines of “windows 98, Windows XP, Windows 2000″ you’ll need to do a fresh install of your operating system. Download the Ubuntu Live CD, burn the disc and then do a re-install of your computer. Be sure to reformat your hard drive, too. And you’ll never have to worry about viruses again.

Got an interesting email this morning:

Dearest beloved one,

I am Mrs. Evangeline Wells, a citizen of United Kingdom, a widow to late Frederick wells. I am 61 years old, suffering from long time cancer of the breast, from all indication my conditions is really deteriorating and it is quite obvious that I would not live more than three months, according to my doctor and from all indication regarding to my medical analysis, the cancer stage has gotten to a very bad stage after the series of breast surgery conducted by the specialist .all the efforts made to put a resuscitative measure was to no avail, my doctors confirmed that my tendency of lasting long is not Transparent.

I love machine translation!

Another interesting factoid - the reply-to address was at Live.com. Is this part of Microsoft’s post-Yahoo internet strategy?

That’s why I only drink Coca-Cola!

Subject: DON’T BUY PEPSI IN THE NEW CAN! Don’t buy Pepsi in the new can. Pepsi has a new ‘patriotic’ can Coming out with pictures of the Empire State Building , and the Pledge of Allegiance on them. However, Pepsi left out two little words on the pledge, ‘Under God.’ Pepsi said they didn’t want to offend anyone. In that case, we don’t Want to offend anyone at the Pepsi corporate office, either! So if we don’t buy any Pepsi product, they will not be offended When they don’t receive our money that has the words ‘In God We Trust’ on it HOW FAST CAN YOU FORWARD THIS ONE?

I used to do “reply all” to the people who would send me these things (because someone is wrong on the internet!). Here’s the snopes page on this particular email rumor.