Generic E-mails - a red flag

Lately I have been receiving a lot of e-mail I know are spam and could potentially be very dangerous. The current batch of spam or phishing e-mails which address to my e-mail box have the body of the message start off by saying;

Hi. Class Mate

Hmm… Well I haven’t taken formal classes except for certification courses since 1990. Could it be a college, high school or earlier classmate? Truth be told it’s none of those but the spammer is hoping someone who does have classmates will fall for the e-mail scam. From what I have been reading clicking on the links in this e-mail activates a “worm” which in turn uses your computer to send out more spam.

Another generic aspect of the same e-mail is their is no defined purpose for sending the so called, digital postcard. Finally the web address they want me to click on is not a real web address but is an undefined I.P. address. by the way an I.P address is a series of numbers that any web address has but domain name system was developed to make finding and referencing web sites more user friendly.

Please be aware of this kind of e-mail at has at least 3 warning flags as I mentioned above. Information week has additional information on what is called the storm worm.