MainSleaze

A couple of months ago the Senate campaign of Joe Kyrillos in New Jersey began sending campaign emails to one of my spamtraps, an email address that was closed in 2004. The email nonetheless indicates that the email address was added to the system on March 30, 2012. The email was sent by ESP BlueHornet, a division of Digital River. URLs in the message body point to a marketing firm, GeniusMailer.

This email appears similar in format and tone to the Vision to America spam that I reported last month, and The Political Insider spam that I reported a few minutes ago. It was sent to a different spamtrap, but one of approximately the same age and, like the previous spamtrap, probably an old closed email address rather than a pure spamtrap. These very similarly formatted emails were all sent by BlueHornet, but all URIs point to different marketing firms. I wonder if there is a single entity behind them. Is Digital River moving from pure ESP work to marketing to political campaigns?

All that I’m sure about is that the floodgates have opened on political spam, and appear unlikely to close til November. <wry grin>

Sending IP: 67.216.226.46

Spam Sample:

Actual Headers:

Received: from smtp.forteustis.bluehornet.com (smtp.forteustis.bluehornet.com [67.216.226.46])
        by <xxx> (Postfix) with ESMTP id <xxx>
        for <xxx>; Fri, 11 May 2012 12:xx:xx <xxx>
X-MSFBL: <xxx>
DKIM-Signature: <xxx>
Received: from [10.64.xx.xx] ([10.64.xx.xx:xx] helo=localhost.localdomain)
        by <xxx> (envelope-from <bounce-use=<xxx>@returnpath.bluehornet.com>)
        (ecelerity 3.4.0.22880 r(MessageSystems/Momo-3.4:<xxx>)) with ESMTP
        id <xxx>; Fri, 11 May 2012 10:xx:xx <xxx>
Message-ID: <xxx>
Date: Fri, 11 May 2012 10:xx:xx <xxx>
From: "Joe Kyrillos for U.S. Senate" <info@joekyrillos.com>
Reply-To: info@joekyrillos.com
To: <xxx>
X-Outgoing: forteustis
Subject: In Case You MIssed It: Friday, May 11, 2012
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:unsub-<xxx>@listunsub.bluehornet.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
    boundary="<xxx>"

Readable Email:

From: Joe Kyrillos for U.S. Senate <info@joekyrillos.com>
To: <spamtrap>
Subject: In Case You MIssed It: Friday, May 11, 2012
Reply-To: info@joekyrillos.com

*******************************************************
*Note: If you are having trouble viewing this message,*
*copy and paste the link below into your browser      *
*address field and hit the Enter button on your       *
*keyboard.                                            *
http://email.geniusmailer.com/<xxx>
 If you would like to change your preferences         *
 or unsubscribe, copy the URL below:                  *
This message was intended for: <xxx>
You were added to the system March 30, 2012.  For more information
please follow the URL below:
http://email.geniusmailer.com/<xxx>

Follow the URL below to update your preferences or opt-out:
http://email.geniusmailer.com/<xxx>

*******************************************************

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 11, 2012

CONTACT
Meaghan Cronin
732-221-1162
meaghan@joekyrillos.com

“Kyrillos’ proven fund-raising ability and the polling data combine to make one sit up and take notice. The challenger has developed quite a reputation in Trenton for shepherding Christie’s program through the state Senate: He helped push the governor’s pension reforms and property-tax and spending caps through a Democratic Legislature. He also opposed implementation of ObamaCare in New Jersey and has a long record of opposing tax hikes.”

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