Haw! This is TOO funny. (FBI.GOV trojan virus email)

OK, so today a couple ebay phishing attacks made it through my greylisting because you have to whitelist ebay due to the fact that they have a cheezy, broken outgoing email system.

So I thought, what the hell, I might as well report this to the FBI's IFCC office so they could find the phisher and shut down the (probably compromized) server.

When I went there there were two options: file a "complaint" or leave a "tip". But the "tip" office left the IFCC system entirely, and I had this premonition of my "tip" bouncing around through a bunch of desks of gumshoe agents and never making it to the Internet division.

So I decided to file a complaint instead. Nothing really wrong with that -- they imply that your supposed to actually have had money stolen but they don't say it, so technically I'm just fine filing a complaint.

So I upload a copy of the phishing emails and fill out the forms and save a copy of my complaint number/etc. I leave my computer, go have lunch, screw off a bit, and come back and...

There's a copy of the "You visit illegal websites" spam in my inbox. Now I had not bothered to actually look at the details of this spam because my graylist usually keeps such things away from me, so what do I care. I had never gotten this one before. I didn't instantly recognize it as a virus.

So I got a beer, to keep my caffeinated imagination from running around with me. I unpack the attachment carefully and find a lame ass .pif virus in it. So then I remember the FBI hoax story and look it up and sure enough... but for a split second I'm thinking -- wow the FBI really wants onto my computer!

I checked my logs and it turns out that there's probably nothing to it, as it was sent to a different email address than anything appearing in my complaint, and the mailserver sending it was a dialup service. (Probably what happened is that an infected MicroSerf dialed in, lost his connection, and dialed back in and got the same address, both times initiating an outgoing mail dump from the virus, which was timed just perfect to get by my graylist.) It's pretty sad, though, when due to the general state of bungling that goes in the IT server field, I had to seriously entertain the possibility that the FBI's own complaint system is infested and being used to harvest emails for the scam FBI email virus.

Anyway, for all my fellow tinfoil hatters, just beware -- a cooincidence can happen to you. Don't have a cow when it does :-)

:hi: