warning....contents may offend some people :evilgrin:
http://www2.b3ta.com/top-10-cutest-kittens/from....
http://www.news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1031442003Lazy Guide to Net Culture: RIP email pranks
Stewart Kirkpatrick
skirkpatrick at scotsman dot com
Email is dead. This may come as a bit of surprise to those of you who used it this morning but it's a goner.
snip..............................
Spam, email worms and virus hoaxes have conspired to kill off one of the greatest communication tools mankind has ever seen.
....snip....
However, the curse of spam has killed not only email but a particular inventive vein of popular culture: the internet practical joke.
Gone are the days when you could happily send your mate a program that caused his PC to bellow "I am gay" while his screen went bright pink. Now such third party software will be suspected of being a virus, red lights will flash, klaxons will blare and the IT department's SWAT team of trained killers will abend your dongles for being a naughty cube drone.
The Symantec Security Response site even lists jokes as a threat. While understandable, this is a pity as some e-pranks are hilarious.
Most of them follow a "jack in the box" approach, which involves emailing someone a innocuous looking link that leads to something extremely, err, ocuous. A not terribly subtle and very offensive example of this is the "Go "**** yourself" page at amishrakefight.org. It displays what a coat of heraldry expert might describe as the compartment "Go **** yourself" accosted by two digiti impudici rampant. In the background a woman shouts variants on the word "****". (Of course she doesn't actually shout "star, star, star, star", she shouts something unsuitable for a family publication, viz and towhit: ****.)
A more intelligent - and infuriating - prank is the aptly named mostannoyingwebpage.com. It presents the user with dozens OF pop-up dialogue boxes that all need to be clicked away before you can escape. Unlike other "pop-up hell" sites you can't just quit out of your browser. Oh no, every single box needs to be seen. I lost the will to live at about 93. Some pranks are downright vicious, like b3ta.com's Top 10 Cutest Kittens. Don't be put off by the innocent-sounding title, the mischievous team at b3ta.com advertise it thus: "Get your mates sacked by getting their PC to shout rude stuff."
.....snip.....
Yes, that's the one.
Warning: this link is absolutely, totally, completely and utterly not safe for work under any circumstances whatsoever and contains language that minors and most majors will find deeply offensive and upsetting. (Having said that, if I'm having a particularly bad day at the office, I'll go to the site deliberately, crank up the volume and wait for the IT SWAT team to arrive.) It's at www2.b3ta.com/top-10-cutest-kittens. You have been warned.For practical jokes that verge on the sinister go to cityhumor.com/prank/. A particularly nasty one involves emailing a friend a "love test". They then fill in facts about the secret objects of their desires and that information is promptly sent to you for your amusement. The most vicious prank sends an email to your target purporting to offer software that will hack other people's passwords if they enter the relevant email addresses. After the victim has done this a warning flashes up saying that hacking is a crime and they have been caught in an online sting that will involve the imminent arrival of law enforcement officials at their home.
It then generates a fake CNN story about upcoming arrests in the "operation", complete with personal details of the victim, supplied by you in advance. It's a very convincing and very well executed joke, but sadly doomed to become extinct - as very few people will now even open an email of unknown provenance.
Farewell, email. Thanks for the good times.
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