The grand conspiracy

Yahoo changed their mail function not too long ago so that subscribers (participants?) could get instant messages without opening their instant messenger function. The list of why this is a problem is longer than I have the time or interest for, but the shortest and most important version is that unless you change your defaults, you are constantly spammed.

“Spammed” spell checks, how cool is that?

Now, while I totally endorse spam messages that say, “Are you there Ossurynot? Check out my hot PIX!!!!!” I’ve always been a little put out by the truly meaningless spam. It generally looks like this: “Hey Ossurynot, alighar hfiqor?” or “3748?” or “ef3?”

Because the internet is all about open fetish, I assumed the messages were soliciting a kind of sex I was too old, uncool, or both to understand. I’ve never been really good at decoding the personals section in the newspaper either-- I was in my 20s before I figured that WM and SWF weren’t some sort of organizational code the newspapers used -- but something didn’t ring true about the sex connection for me.

My secondary theory -- and this will certainly cost me my ACLU card -- was that I was being recruited by foreign nationals and that they assumed I understood the language they were typing in. So I started responding, hoping to maybe get a job as a double agent, or at least confirm my suspicions.

THEM: ““Hey Ossurynot, alighar hfiqor?”
ME: “I’m sorry, I have to admit that I don’t know what that means.”
THEM: “Alighar hfiqor???!!!!???”
ME: “No, really. I don’t get it. Send me something in English.”
THEM:"ef3? 3748?"
ME: "I got nothin'"

They never responded. I resolved to get the FBI involved but then got interested in something else and forgot. I never even thought about it again until this morning when I found this on Digg:

Holy Hell!

The freedom-hating terrorists figured out that passing codes randomly to strangers on the Internet wouldn’t uncover their operatives fast enough so they took advantage of this Internet craze to deliver the codes to as many people as possible. They’ve also protected themselves from prosecution by specifically saying the information wasn’t to be put on the Internet.

Cagy bastards.

So if the FBI is out there (and I know you are) you’ve got to get on this immediately. What we know for sure is that the American operative in charge of doing whatever vile thing this sign commands has a name that looks or sounds a lot like ossurynot. But you’re the professionals. I leave it to you.