Here's a follow-up to my blog yesterday about how to pay for free (and in some cases non-existent) services, if you really want to.

I checked one of my junkboxes today and found another flurry of spam relating to Limewire and other stuff (Open Office and something called Stream Direct). Here's what the Limewire mail looks like (it's practically identical to the one I mentioned yesterday, including the product code:

Get the New LimeWire Today
Download Music & Movies in High Quality

LimeWire is the web's most popular music and movie program.

LimeWire Code: 3967
Search and download just about anything <URL removed>

New features available:
-Millions of music & movies
-Lightning fast downloads
-No bandwidth limits or monthly fees
-Compatible with all operating systems

LimeWire Code: 3967
Get it on demand today <URL removed>

With over 20 billion files, and millions of users, you are almost guaranteed to find what you are looking for.

Best regards,

Mark Pathers
P2P Technologies

[Subscription information and unsubscribe link removed]

Clearly, the news about the demise of the Limewire service hasn't reached P2P Technologies yet, or, more likely, they're hoping it hasn't reached you. As before, the traclickmedia links for all these services redirect to custom web pages. Very professionally done, even to the small disclaimers at the bottom that make it clear that you're paying for the "wrapper" web page, not the product or service that you could get free elsewhere. The opt-out doesn't work: I tried it out on an earlier spam. 

Other considerations with credit card information aside, I presume that most people will not want to pay for access to a service and then discover that it's no longer active, and certainly you don't need to pay for this to get Open Office. I haven't checked the streaming service but I think I'll probably be back to this in the near future. The spammed emails don't reassure me that the web portal is reliable, even if it offers genuine services. Besides, the frequency of this stuff is beginning to bug me.

David Harley CITP FBCS CISSP
ESET Senior Research Fellow