New Type of Spam Targets Developers

I recieved a rather odd piece of spam in my inbox recently.

Instead of trying to sell me something useless like a larger penis or bigger breasts (mine are big enough, thank you), or the usual Christian spam (yes, sadly I have had to add the word "Christian" to my spam filter), this one offered me a programming job.

At first glance, I thought this was an attempt to extract personal info from me...maybe an attempt at identity theft, but I have been told that this isn't exactly the case. (thanks for sharing your knowledge & experience tinjaw)

In tinjaw's own words:

tinjaw> no, it is low-level recruiters who troll the Net looking for people that have computer knowledge to fill some client's needs. Most of the recruiters that do that are crappy recruiters with openings at crappy companies.

If that is what it truly is, then they really are crappy recruiters. Anybody casually glancing at my website can clearly see that I am a Delphi programmer and not VB.net or C#. I mean, the animated "Built with Borland Delphi" graphic is on almost every page of my site. And it's not like it's all that tiny, either. How can you miss this?

And where on my site is there any kind of indication I have the kind of skills that they are looking for?

Give me a break! I am a damn n00b! Even in Delphi I am not qualified for any type of programming job.

If the job was local to me, I would almost be tempted to fabricate and submit the info to make it look just like I was the perfect person for the job...then screw them up royally with whoever they have a contract with, by being the n00b that I am. (could I actually do otherwise?)

They would still have to pay me for any time on the job, right? I think I could manage to learn how to write 'hello world' in both VB.net and C# in time to duplicate it on my first day on the job without needing to refer to a book.

Or maybe I'd spend my time on the job making clocks...and then sue them for discriminating against the disabled when they fire me. (my obsession with time & clocks could be considered symptoms of a mental disorder, by some)

Of course I'd never do anything like that for real. I am not that type of person. So don't take me seriously and think I am some type of dishonest asshole. I am not.

It is not in my character to deceive anybody in order to obtain a job. And I am not the lawsuit happy type. The odds of me suing anybody is pretty low...even if they deserve it. (Norman Brodsky of Perfect Courier deserved it...deserved to be royally sued! But I was just happy with dragging his ass to NJ a few times and settling out of court for 2 weeks pay and a letter of recommendation signed by him.)