MainSleaze

This issue has been resolved. The blog remains posted because blogs shouldn’t disappear, to make sure that Google and other search engines and archives get the update, and in hopes that other people can learn something from it and the comments. 🙂

Blue Earth Labs, a developer and seller of water system purification systems, today sent a bulk email advertisements to an email address that has never heard from it before. The ESP is Constant Contact.

Normally a single spamtrap hit does not tell me much. However, this particular spamtrap was a role address for a small company, not a personal email address. It was also closed in 2005. Despite both of these facts, the spam email uses a personal name to address the purported recipient of the spam, a personal name that never belonged to that email address or (as far as I know) to anybody at the company. I suspect that Blue Earth Labs had a third-party perform an e-pending operation on their customer or contact list. As with most e-pending operations, there was probably a significant error rate. E-pending operations are also opt-out by definition; even when an email address belongs to the customer, that customer did NOT provide it to the company or ask to receive email from the company at that email address.

Sending IP: 208.75.123.197

Spam Sample:

Actual Headers:

Received: from ccm197.constantcontact.com (ccm197.constantcontact.com [208.75.123.197])
        by <xxx> (Postfix) with ESMTP id <xxx>
        for <xxx>; Mon, 14 May 2012 12:xx:xx <xxx>
Received: from <xxx>.prodcc.net (<xxx>.prodcc.net [10.252.xx.xx])
        by <xxx>.ccm197.constantcontact.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id <xxx>
        for <xxx>; Mon, 14 May 2012 13:xx:xx <xxx>
DKIM-Signature: <xxx>
Message-ID: <<xxx>@scheduler.constantcontact.com>
Date: Mon, 14 May 2012 13:xx:xx -0400 (EDT)
From: Blue Earth Labs <info@blueearthlabs.com>
Reply-To: info@blueearthlabs.com
To: <xxx>
Subject: News from Blue Earth Labs: Control Biofilm in the Water Distribution System
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
        boundary="<xxx>"
X-Mailer: Roving Constant Contact 2009 (http://www.constantcontact.com)
List-Unsubscribe: http://visitor.constantcontact.com/do?<xxx>
X-Return-Path-Hint: <xxx>@in.constantcontact.com
X-Roving-ID: <xxx>
X-Lumos-SenderID: <xxx>
X-Roving-CampaignId: <xxx>
X-Roving-StreamId: <xxx>

Readable Email:

From: Blue Earth Labs <info@blueearthlabs.com>
To: <spamtrap>
Subject: News from Blue Earth Labs: Control Biofilm in the Water Distribution System
Reply-To: info@blueearthlabs.com

May 2012
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Latest from Blue Earth Labs [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?<xxx>

Dear <e-pended name removed>,
Do you know if you have biofilm in your water system? If so, it can cause a myriad of problems. In this month’s newsletter, we’ll tell you about biofilm and what you can do about it.

<removed>

Contact Us:
1-800-259-4456
info@BlueEarthLabs.com
www.BlueEarthLabs.com [http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?<xxx>

<removed>

Blue Earth Labs | 5055 West Patrick Lane | Suite 102 | Las Vegas | NV | 89118