BioMedLib: Spamming scientists
BioMedLib (bmlmail.com, bmlsearch.com) are spamming scientists with invitations to sign up for their service. They are doing their own bulking from what appear to be “business grade” cable connections from various providers, with generic rDNS, in Virginia. The domains are registered via Yahoo! to Mir Siadaty, of 1112 Rustic Willow Lane, Charlottesville, VA 22911. The bmlmail.com domain was only registered three-ish weeks ago. Something tells me signing up isn’t required for the “service” to continue.
Spamming IPs: 50.73.230.73, 67.233.102.183, 70.88.186.189 (probably many more)
Spam headers:
Return-Path: <mike@bmlmail.com> Received: from bmlmail.com (50-73-230-73-richmond.hfc.comcastbusiness.net [50.73.230.73]) by x (Postfix) with ESMTP id x for <x>; Sun, 11 Mar 2012 05:1x:xx +0200 (EET) Received: from localhost.localdomain (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by bmlmail.com (8.14.5/8.14.5) with ESMTP id x for <x>; Sat, 10 Mar 2012 22:1x:xx -0500 Message-Id: <201203110xxx.x@bmlmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="_----------=_x" X-Mailer: MIME::Lite 3.027 (F2.82; T1.31; A2.08; B3.13; Q3.13) Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2012 22:1x:xx -0500 From: Mike Greub-BioMedLib <mike@bmlmail.com> To: x Subject: Surname I: Topic. Journal; Year Issue:Pages
Another set:
Return-Path: <frank@bmlmail.com> Received: from bmlmail.com (va-67-233-102-183.sta.embarqhsd.net [67.233.102.183]) by x (Postfix) with ESMTP id x for <x>; Mon, 12 Mar 2012 09:1x:xx +0200 (EET) Received: from localhost.localdomain (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by bmlmail.com (8.14.5/8.14.5) with ESMTP id x for <x>; Mon, 12 Mar 2012 03:1x:xx -0400 Message-Id: <201203120xxx.x@bmlmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="_----------=_x" X-Mailer: MIME::Lite 3.027 (F2.82; T1.31; A2.08; B3.13; Q3.13) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2012 03:1x:xx -0400 From: Frank Rao-BioMedLib <frank@bmlmail.com> To: x Subject: Surname I, Surname2 I2, ...: Topic. Journal; Year Issue:Pages
Human-readable spam contents, heavily redacted to show only the generics:
You are receiving this email as you are the corresponding author of this publication. Not interested? Remove your email address by viewing the following link in your browser:
http://www.bmlsearch.com/nlnsrvys9034fnoi?&srvyi=x&qt01=x&qt02=x&dt04=xBioMedLib Sunday, March 11, 2012
===================================
“Who is Publishing in My Domain?”
===================================For your article
x
PMID: xthe following section is the top 20 articles published on the same topic since you published yours.
Please sign up to continue receiving this service (view the following link in your browser). This literature-monitoring service is provided to you free of charge by BioMedLib.
http://www.bmlsearch.com/nlnsrvys9034fnoi?&srvyi=x&wft=wims&qt11=x&qt03=x&mld=x&dt01=xThe monthly “Who Is Publishing in My Domain” service also includes free full-text publications (free PDF downloads), plus publications citing your article. You will be able to customize these lists to your informational needs in the registration page.
Please forward this email to your co-authors, so that they can sign up as well.
You can also sign up for a different article.
http://www.bmlsearch.com/nlnsrvys9034fnoi?&srvyi=x&wft=wims&cmpgnX=xRegards,
Mike Greub
Article Delivery Services
www.BioMedLib.com
Email correspondence: custserv@bmlsearch.com——————————————————————————–
List 1: Top 20 Articles, in the Domain of Article x, Since its Publication (x)
[list omitted]
——————————————————————————–
List 2: Top 20 Free-Fulltext Articles, in the Domain of Article x, in the Past 12 Months
[list omitted]
——————————————————————————–
List 3: Articles Citing the Publication x
[list omitted]
——————————————————————————–
Not interested? Remove your email address.
http://www.bmlsearch.com/nlnsrvys9034fnoi?&srvyi=x&qt01=x&qt02=x&dt04=xWe respect your privacy and do not sell or share your email address with anyone. Privacy Policy.
http://www.bmlsearch.com/?&cmpgnx=x&dt02=&dt03=&flnm2=bmlterms.htmlDisclaimer: The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) establishes requirements for those who send commercial email, spells out penalties for spammers and companies whose products are advertised in spam if they violate the law, and gives consumers the right to ask mailers to stop spamming them. The above mail is in accordance to the Can Spam act of 2003. You can opt out by clicking the link “Remove” and we ensure you will not receive any such mails from biomedlib.com
Copyright (c) 2012 by BioMedLib, LLC.
BioMedLib Article Delivery and the BioMedLib Logo are trademarks of BioMedLib, LLC.If you have general questions or comments, contact us at custserv@bmlsearch.com
BioMedLib LLC, PO Box 4786, 2150 Wise Street, Charlottesville, VA 22905-9998.[CommMgrTok:x]
As I suspected, signing up wasn’t required for the “service” to continue. Spam keeps coming in.
Are they hitting new/different spamtraps than they were at first? :/ If so, I agree — this is clearly not an opt-in service.
No, it’s the same traps that they told in the initial correspondence would have to sign up to continue receiving this service (see included human-readable spam contents in this post). They did nothing at all and… are continuing to receive this service.
“Service” should be in quotes there, IMHO. <wry grin> OK, that’s conclusive. They appear to have a business model based on spam. :/
Pingback: Service BioMedLib | Question/Réponse en IST
There’s a most interesting pingback on this article. It’s in French, so here’s a rough translation.
Euh, hein? It’s unsolicited bulk email, and that makes it spam. If BioMedLib had a strict NO SPAM policy, it would be sending messages to addresses that verifiably indicated they wanted to be on the list, and those only.
Publishing an article in a scientific journal does not indicate consent to be added to a mailing list. The “scientists” that I represent ceded control of these addresses over 10 years ago, and consequently, the articles they published with these addresses as corresponding author are that old as well. There’s nothing to be said in defense of BioMedLib: they’re spammers. The first message said “Please sign up to continue receiving this service”, somewhat hinting at the possibility that you might have had to do something in order to continue receiving the “service”, but given that the spamtraps, which don’t do anything but feed DNSBLs, have not taken any actions on the initial messages and are continuing to receive BioMedLib solicitations on the ancient articles, it doesn’t seem to have been the case.
$ host http://www.bmlsearch.com
http://www.bmlsearch.com has address 50.73.230.73
http://www.bmlsearch.com has address 70.88.186.189
$ host 50.73.230.73
host 73.230.73.50.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer 50-73-230-73-richmond.hfc.comcastbusiness.net.
$ host 70.88.186.189
189.186.88.70.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer 70-88-186-189-first-title-of-virginia-va.hfc.comcastbusiness.net.
Seriously. Who hosts a website on generic-rDNS DSL connections at home or office?
It bears to mention that the “on topic”ness of BioMedLib suggestions could use a little improvement (for the 10^9-ish kind of “a little”). As far as I can tell, they’re only looking at keywords in article titles; so you could get, say, articles on physics, a dozen different categories of both human and veterinary medicine, the visual arts, palaeontology and traffic safety as a representative sample of “top 20 articles published on the same topic since you published yours.”