Proteogenix: Spamming to sell scientific supplies
Proteogenix, a French supplier of custom synthesis services, is spamming. It is unclear whether they are using an ESP or not; it doesn’t look like they are. The spamming domain 3go.fr is registered to a private person who wishes to remain anonymous. The ISP is OVH.
It appears that many businesses consider “corresponding authors” in papers published in scientific journals valid targets for direct marketing. Somehow methinks the corresponding author would be available for a discussion of the paper’s contents, and publishing an email address (which these folks appear to spider from electronic sources such as PubMed) would not constitute blanket permission to start marketing efforts. And so mail such as this becomes spam in our ever so humble opinion.
The spam contains no indication of the address source – or of why this address of a natural person ended up on this list; it’s a requirement in Finland (Personal Data Act, Section 25).
Spamming IP: serveur6.3go.fr [188.165.215.144]
Spam headers:
Return-Path: <rejetsemailing@proteogenix.fr> Received: from serveur6.3go.fr (serveur6.3go.fr [188.165.215.144]) by x (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id x (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NOT) for <x>; Wed, 15 Feb 2012 20:4x:xx +0200 Message-Id: <GENERATED BY RECEIVING SERVER> DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=proteogenix.fr; s=x; h=To:Subject:Date:Reply-To:From:Content-Type:MIME-Version; bh=D1iCPGj8hhey7FppJ0oBHMiISmMsvOnG6NBUPzlbR/c=; b=kL0gRcvNpqWKyE3rmmoZSg51aZNjxJ/6rVqQKO4tJXkuOijSW/tOHSH+6cjc+50FgmbaNavaPJufdVmhbIjf6xGqGXsKJIkAswBlWNrvNkGsePmnVGMweGJdLq+n3pkT; Received: from serveur4.3go.fr ([91.121.35.44] helo=localhost) by serveur6.3go.fr with esmtpsa (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.76) (envelope-from <rejetsemailing@proteogenix.fr>) id x-x-x for x; Wed, 15 Feb 2012 19:5x:xx +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="=_x" From: Emilie Proteogenix <eblelly@proteogenix.fr> Reply-To: contact@proteogenix.fr Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2012 19:5x:xx +0100 Subject: 20% on Gene synthesis. Proteogenix: Peptide - Protein - Gene - Antibody services To: x
Human-readable text/plain spam contents:
<img src=’http://www.proteogenix.fr/mailing/track.php?a=r&id=x’ width=’1′ height=’1′ alt=” />
[LINK: http://www.proteogenix.fr/mailing/track.php?a=c&id=x&u=x] Peptide – Protein – Antibody – Gene
Get 20% rebate on Gene synthesis.
Get a 20% credit from all your gene services orders to be used on any other
products or services available at Proteogenix.Example: Purchase 1000â<82>¬ in gene synthesis services and get 200â<82>¬ rebate
on any services or products available and described below. No minimum or
maximum amount.*[LINK: http://www.proteogenix.fr/mailing/track.php?a=c&id=x&u=x] Contact us for more information
*This offer is valid from February 8th to April 8th 2012. All genes will
have to be ordered and started during this period of time. Â You will be
able to use the obtained credit on any order except gene synthesis placed
and started before September 30th 2012. Offer may not be combined with
other promotions/offers/savings.Peptide Synthesis  Polyclonal Antibodies  Gene (cDNA) Synthesis
Use your credit on peptide synthesis and peptide conjugation services.Ex1: Peptide synthesis of 15 AA, 4 mg, purity >70% : 72,45â<82>¬*
Ex2:Â Peptide synthesis of 10 AA, 4 mg, purity >98% : 155,90â<82>¬*
*Prices are before discount.  Use your credit on anti-protein and
anti-peptide full packages.[LINK: http://www.proteogenix.fr/mailing/track.php?a=c&id=x&u=x] GM-PACK6 : Protein
production, Injections, Purification : 1790â<82>¬* (Amount and titerÂ
Guaranteed)[LINK: http://www.proteogenix.fr/mailing/track.php?a=c&id=x&u=x] GM-PACK5 : Peptide
synthesis, Injections and Purification : 1230â<82>¬*
(Amount and titer Guaranteed)  Get a credit of 20% from your gene
synthesis orders to use on any other service or product
(more than 150 000 listed).
[LINK:
http://www.proteogenix.fr/mailing/track.php?a=c&id=x&u=x]
Peptide Synthesis services  [LINK:
http://www.proteogenix.fr/mailing/track.php?a=c&id=x&u=x] Polyclonal
Antibody services  [LINK:
http://www.proteogenix.fr/mailing/track.php?a=c&id=x&u=x]
Gene Synthesis services
… [a great deal omitted here]
PROTEOGENIX SAS
[LINK: http://www.proteogenix.fr/mailing/track.php?a=c&id=x&u=x] http://www.proteogenix.fr
Phone : +33 3 90 20 54 70
Fax : +33 3 88 56 16 88
contact@proteogenix.frIf you don’t want to be informed of the latest technologies available at
Proteogenix, please unsubscribe by clicking here : http://www.proteogenix.fr/unsuscribe.php?i=a,b.
The domain 3go.fr also does not have a valid web site. I just checked http://3go.fr, and the following line of text is the only thing on the web site:
Ceci est l’emplacement pour le sous-domaine serveur6.3go.fr
In English, that reads:
This is the location for the subdomain serveur6.3go.fr
A legitimate ESP would configure this to redirect to their web page, even if they used a different domain for their web page. On part of being a legitimate ESP is that you don’t try to hide who you are or what you are doing.
This could belong to Proteogenix, or could have been registered by a spammer-for-hire and used to spam on their behalf. In the second case, this wouldn’t qualify as mainsleaze spam by the definition we use here: it wasn’t sent from either the company’s own IPs or a legitimate ESP.
[whois.nic.fr]
domain: proteogenix.fr
…
ns-list: NSL44894-FRNIC
nserver: serveur4.3go.fr
nserver: ns1.hb50.fr
source: FRNIC
http://serveur4.3go.fr goes to http://dreamhosting.fr, which also matches with the domain registration of hb50.fr. I don’t know if it’s a spammer for hire; it’s certainly a hosting operator with less clue than we’d prefer.
Yes, that appears to indicate that Proteogenix probably owns the domain. Personally, I would drop that domain and proteogenix.fr into the deny filters on my router at this point if I were not deliberately collecting spam.
(Un)interestingly enough, the same spam was seen at one of the ten year old traps on
Received: from serveur6.3go.fr (serveur6.3go.fr [188.165.215.144])
by x (Postfix) with ESMTP id x
for <x>; Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:1x:xx +0200 (EET)
(And I’ve just confirmed this address appears in PubMed too, in two scientific articles submitted over ten years ago.)
Still at it, from new digs. This is in my own spamtraps.