For this assignment, I used this Robot Voice Generator to read my spam comments from my blog. I thought it would be interesting to use a robot voice instead of my own voice or a different generator to read spam comments, since spam comments are usually automatically generated by “robots” and usually sound pretty nonsensical. I pasted four spam comments together in the generator and put some spacing between them in Audacity.

This is a spam email I received on my umw email account. I usually receive many of these spam emails and you can easily tell it is fake and spam. Never click on random links from spam emails or you will get your email account hacked.

I was initially attracted to this assignment due to the sheer amount of spam my UMW email account has become inundated with.  I liked the idea of reclaiming these annoying adds/tricks, so I found a poorly phrased piece of spam relegated to the junk section of my email.  In recording my reading of the email on Audacity, I was somewhat inspired by phonetic punctuation in that I tried to read the piece somewhat literally.  As such, I read the words in all caps with a great deal of emphasis, capitalized words with some emphasis, and words without spaces between them very quickly.  I essentially was trying to underscore the ridiculousness of the spam itself.  In this way the piece has a bit of a rhythm to it, with some sections that sound somewhat normal and some sections that seem quite odd.  This was a fun way to take control of these emails in a manner that allows me to poke fun at them.

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For my last assignment, I did the assignment where I have to read a spam email out loud. I looked through my school email’s spam folder, and found this gem:

These “your account is invalid” phishing emails always have horrendous grammar and spelling. I love them. Anyways, here’s my rendition of it:

I think spam emails are really neat, because while the internet has allowed plenty of people to connect with each other, it’s also allowed for scammers to much more easily find targets. They can easily send out massive numbers of emails to try to get people to give up their data. Even if 999 out of 1000 ignore it, there’ll be that one person who falls for it and gives up their password or something.

On the other hand, it’s really interesting how almost every spam email has incredibly poor grammar and spelling. I imagine they’d get way more people to fall for the phishing attempt if the email actually, you know, looked somewhat official and realistic. Something like the email I read probably won’t get too many people clicking on it because it’s just so obviously fake. Still though, this type of scamming just couldn’t really exist pre-internet. You could maybe mass-send letters, but that’d take a lot more money (all those stamps) for such a low return on investment. Spam emails are free, so even with a very low chance of catching someone, ever person you catch is fully profit. Crazy.

I took back spam this week.

http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/taking-back-spam/

My work email is being bombarded by promotions and whatnot we’re doing. They’re things of which I don’t have to be aware. Here’s an example:

I used audacity to record myself reading one of the emails I constantly receive. I added on some elevator music to liven up the mood. The result is heard above.

This assignment was kind of relieving.

This was a quick one-star assignment to read spam. I interpreted it in a different way- I read a SPAM radio ad from the ’50s instead. I found the ad here and thought what it would sound like if Delia read it- small-time voice actress and all.

After I found the ad, I had to transcribe it. I then found some background music from my iTunes library- it’s Red Velvet by NicolArmafi. I cut it down to be about a minute long and made it very quiet. I then recorded myself reading the ad a few times and picked the one I liked the best. I had to edit a few clicks out, but this one is mostly just my voice.

This was a fun little challenge to do as my final audio assignment. I immediately knew I was going to use this strange text message that I received about a week ago offering – at least I think it was offering – a free cruise. I always immediately delete spam, but luckily I screenshotted this particular one, probably to show a friend because I found it so comical.

It was fun to actually read this aloud and hear how ridiculous it sounded. I wonder if people creating this spam (if it is people?) realize that this really doesn’t seem very credible. Anyway, I had fun with this simple audio challenge, and it really shows how once you say something aloud it can take on a whole different life. Reading it is funny, but, honestly, trying to say it is hilarious.