Turn Back the Spam of Time

wired news ^ | 8.29.03 | Brian McWilliams

[freepatriot32]

This summer, Dave Hill got a refreshing break from the run-of-the-mill spam that routinely invades his e-mail inbox. Instead of hawking mortgages, penis-enlargement pills or weight-loss products, a message arrived that seemed straight out of a science-fiction novel.

The anonymous e-mail offered $5,000 to any vendor capable of promptly delivering a collection of far-fetched gadgets for conducting time travel. Among the mysterious devices sought by the message's author were an "Acme 5X24 series time transducing capacitor with built-in temporal displacement" and an "AMD Dimensional Warp Generator module containing the GRC79 induction motor."

[freepatriot32]

Now I know if anyone can find time travel machine parts on earth or space its going to be freepers so what do you say lets help this guy out :-)

[Alouette]

I know if anyone can find time travel machine parts on earth or space its going to be freepers

Here ya go.

[freepatriot32]

PERFECT!!!!

now if you could just hop on in there and go back and give hillary clintons dad a box of condoms i would greatly appriciate it hell i ll even pay you gas money :-)

[Oorang]

With threads like this it looks like it's going to be an entertaining weekend

[Oorang]

I like how you think. If you throw in a box for Bill Clinton's daddy I'll chip in on the gas money as well.

[MalcolmS]

I've gotton quite a few of these emails.

I couldn't help him though. My speciality is anti-gravity.

[Graybeard58]

"Untrained minds may disagree with me, but they don't have access to the sources that I do," he said"

He's looking in the wrong places for help. The Asylums are full of people with the same resources.

[PsyOp]

Wild. I've received several of his e-mails. What a nut! Here is one of the one's I saved:

Hello,

I'm a time traveler stuck here in 2003. Upon arriving here my dimensional warp generator stopped working. I trusted a company here by the name of LLC Lasers to repair my Generation 3 52 4350A watch unit, and they fled on me. I am going to need a new DWG unit, prefereably the rechargeable AMD wrist watch model with the GRC79 induction motor, four I80200 warp stabilizers, 512GB of SRAM and the menu driven GUI with front panel XID display.

I will take whatever model you have in stock, as long as its received certification for being safe on carbon based life forms.

In terms of payment: I dont have any Galactic Credits left. Payment can be made in platinum gold or 2003 currency upon safe delivery of unit.

INSTRUCTIONS MUST BE FOLLOWED EXACTLY: Please transport unit in either a brown paper bag or box to below coordinates on Wednesday August 6th at (exactly 5:00pm) Eastern Standard Time on the dot. A few minutes prior will be ok, but it cannot be after. If you miss this timeframe please email me. I will not be there prior to 4:45pm EST, so do not transport before then.

Item is to be delivered at (out of service tennis court) located at: Latitude N 42.47935 & Longitude W 071.17355 and the Elevation is 119.

WARNING: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO TRANSPORT ITEM BY REGULAR MEANS OF TELEPORTATION. THEY ARE MONITORING AND WILL REDIRECT THE SIGNAL!! I DO NOT CARE HOW YOU HAVE TO GET IT HERE, JUST DO IT IN A WAY THAT NO SPYING EYES WILL POSSIBLY BE ABLE TO REDIRECT THE TRANSFERENCE. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU BE ABLE TO MONITOR THE TRANSFER.

HOW ARE YOU GOING TO SEND IT SO THAT THEY CANNOT REDIRECT IT??? If in doubt do not transport actual unit until your method of transfer can be confirmed as a success. You just might need to send a intergalactic courier to deliver item safely to me. If so be VERY careful at how they approach me IN MY WHITE CAR.

After unit has been delivered please email me at: info@federalfundingprogram.com with payment instructions. Do not reply directly back to this email.

Thank You.

[tet68]

First off, the hard drives must be coated in Vaselene,
then suspended in three axis by thread, and there you have it.

Just follow the directions.

"Slithy were the borogroves that didst gyre and gimbol in the wabe."

The vaselene makes them slithy you see?

Anyone else remember this?

[Graybeard58]

"My speciality is anti-gravity".

Odd that you should mention that, I am working on just such an invention. When perfected and I unleash it, it will cause all virus senders and hackers to float gently off the face of the earth, to be further repelled by any mass they approach. Let them bounce around in space for awhile. That'll learn 'em.

[PsyOp]

Here's another (good thing I forgot to empty my trash).

Hello,

I'm a time traveler stuck here in 2003. Upon arriving here my dimensional warp generator stopped working. I trusted a company here by the name of LLC Lasers to repair my Generation 3 52 4350A watch unit, and they fled on me.

Since nobody in this timeline seems to be able to deliver what I need (safely here to me), I will have to build a simple time travel circuit to get where I need myself. While it might be hard to find parts in this time to build anything decent, I need easy to follow schematics from the future to build one which is safe and accurate that will not disrupt the time space continuum with both forward and backward capability accounting for temporal location settings (X, Y, Z, n), which can be built out of (readily available) parts here in 2003. Please email me any plans you have. I will pay good money for anything you send me I can use. Or if you have a dimensional warp generator available, and are 100% certain you have a (safe secure) means of delivering it to me please also reply with a secure way to contact you. Send a separate email to me at:

Do not reply back directly to this email as it will only be bounced back to you.

Thank You
Brian Appel

Ya gotta love crazy people!

[Cboldt]

He's a time traveller alright. The instructions he sent me included:

"Please transport unit in either a brown paper bag or box to below coordinates on Tuesday August 5th at (exactly 5:00pm) Eastern Standard Time on the dot."

Everybody knows Woburn, MA (Latitude N 42.49735 & Longitude W 071.17355) is on Eastern DAYLIGHT time on August 5.

The spam was much more entertaining than most.

[justlurking]

With a little deft Photoshop work, Hill created an online store offering a range of the sci-fi items sought by e-mailer "Bob White."

The online store is still up:

http://www.davesplanet.net/store/

[Oorang]

Ya gotta love crazy people

Time to check the meds!

[JoJo Gunn]

Looks like a bowling ball with red peppers circling it.

[Graybeard58]

"Looks like a bowling ball with red peppers circling it".




Well Duh!!! How else are you going to channel 2.2 kilo joules of energy, easily enough to warp up to one metric ton at a time?

[martin_fierro]

FREE PC PROTECTION (not an exhaustive list): Spyware removers: Spybot S&D AdAware Bayden Systems Popup Popper: Blocks popup ads well in MSIE MailWasher: Good for pre-screening & bouncing SPAM AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition: Free anti-viral protection Windows Update: At least install the critical ones ZoneAlarm: Excellent Firewall Test your firewall from without with ShieldsUP! Test your firewall from within with LeakTest Alternative browsers: Mozilla Opera

[muir_redwoods]

Actually, most cosmologists find the idea of time travel to be less of an absurdity than faster-than-light travel. There is nothing fundamentally violative of physics as we understand it about time travel but the engineering seems more than a bit non-trivial.

Actually if we get another Clinton administration it might be a return through time to the days of lies, deceit, and philandering with young female interns. And Bill might get into the act as well.

[tophat9000]

My speciality is anti-gravity.

Cool I've got a shirt with a real bad roast beef gravity stain on it... can you help?