My theory of republican projection predicts that the reason republicans are so “worried” about vote fraud in mail-in ballots is because they’re frauding the hell out of things. We’ll see. Out here in Pennsylvania, on the rural back road, there is zero excitement for Biden; it’s all Trump signs. And confederate flags.
For the last couple of weeks, I have been getting txtspam – always from the same number, always incompetent bullshit. I’d have blocked the number except it’s interesting in the same way that watching a cruise ship hit a dock is interesting. Do Trump’s fans get inspired by this and send their money? I can’t imagine it, but I can’t imagine Trump as president and it has been nearly 4 years.
Those republicans sure do seem to love the absentee ballots! You know, those incredibly fraud-ridden, corrupted things? Anyone more intelligent than a house-plant ought to notice the contradictory messaging going on, here, but as a former security guy what blows my mind is the thought that someone is expected to click on one of those links and give up their voter information.
I did the experiment, on my heavily locked-down system I used to use to decompile phishing attacks, and the websites in question are malfunctioning. That, or they are trying to download malware to my machine but can’t learn enough about the software loadout to select the correct payload. I’m not going to invest any time trying to figure out what’s going on.
The last one bothers me a bit: “RECORDS SHOW YOU HAVEN’T REQUESTED A BALLOT.” I’m assuming that’s a bluff and that they actually have no idea. In fact, I have no idea how they got my phone number in the first place. This is another example of why, as a security guy, I complained when lawmakers left cut-outs in anti-spam legislation for important political messaging. Sorry, pols, it’s spam no matter who’s sending it.
Another thing I have noticed is some social media are now including “get your absentee ballot here!” links. Those aren’t postings by Joe Rando spammer, they’re built into the engine of the site:
I expect that such advice is going to have an effect. This election, more than any other, is going to belong to the young, and anything that motivates them to get ready to vote is a good thing.
The first sets of spam I got from that number were more like something penned by the great Alfred Jarry:
Am I supposed to believe that the message came from Don Jr.? Or Pres Trump? Who is Lara Trump? What the fuck? The randomly hashed URLs are so encouraging. Yes, I checked a few of those and the DNS resolved all to the same address (at the time) and the site was down, or couldn’t figure out what malware payload to send me.
The idea that Don Jr will receive a list of everyone who has requested a ballot to vote is … unsettling, if it were true. But I’m not worried, because Don Jr’s so coked-up he’ll have trouble focusing on the list and searching for my absent name.
Mostly what I am taking away from this is how terribly bad political marketing is. This is below incompetent; it insults the intellect of the very people they are (allegedly) reaching out to.
There is so much action going on around trying to get people to sign up for absentee ballots that I believe there are big opportunities for fraud – not by trying to submit double votes, but by trying to muddy the water to the point where voters go to some rando site, give their personal information, and are told, “your vote has been counted” – then they later find out they didn’t actually cast a vote at all. I’m going to drive the 4 miles up the road to the polling spot, just to see what’s going on (and vote); liberal nightmares include gun-toting rednecks outside of the polling spot, but I’ve yet to see anyone, not even a cop. And never a line. It’s tempting to walk in there strapped with cameras but I don’t think there’ll be anyone there to photograph. And I’ll leave my L1A1 (which I can legally carry in my truck) at home; I won’t need it but it’s only 4 miles if I have to run get it.
Is this actually political marketing, or is it just common-or-garden scamming with a political flavour? Hard to tell the difference these days… But there’s a reason why all the big right-wing sites are (apparently*) infested with ads for assorted scams – the audience have pre-selected themselves as gullible and easily-led.
(*So I hear. I have better things to do with my time.)
That seems alphabetically unlikely.
The idea that Don Jr will receive a list of everyone who has requested a ballot to vote is … unsettling,
As a database guy for numerous county-level campaigns, I get such lists all the time (usually with requests to send e- or snail- mail -ready lists to the campaign manager). Of course, we know that doesn’t apply in this situation, because the President and his namesake both promised the nation that Junior would apply himself strictly to business concerns going forward.
Has it been personalized? I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re just doing random numbers.
Although somehow my number with my wife’s name has ended up on the democratic spam lists. Neither of us are sure how that happened.It’s not a lot of texts though, and unlike you, I instantly block.
There’s a Family of Donald Trump WikiP … looks like Eric Trump married one Lara Yunaska.
Does she have some sort of name recognition among Republicans that I am not aware of?
Maybe the point is that it’s sorted by date-time. Earliest gets seen first.
That seems alphabetically unlikely.
If only I were the only person on the list, I’d be right at the top.
$.01
Unfortunately the sites are bunged. Makes me wonder if some dem operatives are doing denial of service.
Any Trump going through a long list of voters the way Santa Claus might does seem rather unsettling. It take on a rather sinister hue when you consider that they really aren’t above cheating and, as I’ve said before, Trump effectively already has declared himself the winner, now. Wanna-be-tyrants and naughty/nice lists are not a fun combination to contemplate, particularly not in a country that has had a lot of practice at police violence.
You’re more right than you know
Wondered about that too. Seems she’s “.. a former American television producer and campaign adviser to the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump. She is married to the president’s son, Eric, with whom she has two children.”
Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lara_Trump
Plus :
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/politics/a10213528/lara-trump-yunaska-eric-trump-wife/
& this being the klassy Trump klan :
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8774883/Omarosa-claims-secret-tapes-Lara-Trump-badmouthing-Donald-Melania-Ivanka.html
Although a voter in WA state (which has an amazingly functional mall-in ballot system with lots of non-postal ways to submit your ballot) I get text messages repeatedly asking me to vote for corrupt Mitch for senate in Kentucky. I usually waste some time with useless replies before blocking them.
Democrats, or white-hat spam-hating hackers?
Lara Trump is (was?) also the recipient of at least $15,000/month from the Trump Campaign treasury and personal presidential piggy bank.
Says who “crime does not pay!”?
What is an L1A1?
avalus @13: google is your friend.
“I have no idea how they got my phone number in the first place.”
Having worked for someone who at one point did some “SMS promotion” I know that they buy in lists of numbers from other s[p|c]ammers. Sometimes collating and sorting these lists into numerical order reveals some statistically unlikely-seeming sequences, such as a block of a thousand consecutive numbers from XXXXXXXX000 to XXXXXXXX999.
When 950 of the thousand phones thus targeted are still on retailers’ shelves it can lead to some awkward questions. I stopped working there not long after that.
My theory of Trump is that when he talks bad about somebody else he is mainly talking about himself, because (a) that’s what he knows best and (b) it deflects any potential criticism.
starblue@#17:
My theory of Trump is that when he talks bad about somebody else he is mainly talking about himself, because (a) that’s what he knows best and (b) it deflects any potential criticism.
My theory of Trump is that when he talks bad about somebody else he is mainly talking about himself, because that’s all he cares about.