My Next Nude?

While I love the lighting in this image and think it would make a fantastic painting, I cannot use it. It’s copyrighted, somewhere. This partial-photo came as an attachment in an e-mail advertising a Canadian Pharmacy.

I am beginning to get a different impression of socialized medicine.

Here’s the full banner ad.

Notice, dead center, the Canadian spelling, I presume, of “which.” That was a tip that I probably was not dealing with actual Canadians. That, and the sentence We are the only store wich gives this great deal you!

Fake Headers
If you look at this e-mail as it come into my Mac’s Mail program, it looks legit—as do most fake e-mails—if you can ignore that the e-mail sender john@englishforum.biz goes by the name Ralph. But when I look at the Raw Source of the e-mail in question, the real “header” is revealed. See it here.

Being the vigilent son of an Eagle Scout, I want to report these things to the proper authorities, so I copy the header info to my clipboard, head over to SpamCop.com, and paste into their Interrogate window, click “Interrogate” and wait for the clues. Here’s what I got. You may notice at the bottom, SpamCop has determined the originating ISP, who can then track it down to the individual spammer.

To follow through, I just copy the results from the window above, and click the link(s) provided after REPORT SPAM TO:

For grins, I looked up ValorTelecom.com using BetterWhoIs.com. I got the following information:

Domain Name: VALORTELECOM.COM

Created Date: Dec 8, 1999
Updated Date: Dec 6, 2005
Expiration Date: Dec 8, 2006

Registrant ID: VALOR
Registrant Organization: VALOR TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Registrant Name: VALOR TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Registrant Address: 201 E. John Carpenter Frwy, Suite. 200
Registrant City: Irving
Registrant State/Province: TX
Registrant Country: US
Registrant Postal Code: 75062
Registrant Phone: 972-373-1169
Registrant Fax: 123 123 1234
Registrant Email: webmaster@ktc.com

Name Server: NS1.VALORNET.NET
Name Server: NS2.VALORNET.NET

Note that when I follow the provided link, it does not go to an eBay domain, it goes to this IP address. Always look at the URL/Address when you follow a link that involves your personal data.

Well, I reported it—as instructed by SpamCop—but didn’t call anyone over at ValorTelecom.com in Texas.

I am hoping they will send a much larger picture next time.

I still want to do that painting.