I think I just got my first spam from a government body! Specifically, VisitWicklow.ie spam from Wicklow County Tourism. It says:
Wicklow County Tourism is launching its sparkling 2008 Christmas campaign this month, with an extensive festive section on our website www.visitwicklow.ie/xmas . Here you will find all the information you need about what is happening in the Garden County this season including Christmas parties, seasonal events, carol singing, festive markets, Santa visits, great accommodation packages etc.
It was sent to a spamtrap address, scraped from an old mail archive. This address is a dedicated spamtrap; I’ve never used it for non-spam-trapping purposes, nor has it ever opted-in to receive mail. So there was no question that I granted permission to anyone to mail it.
The address delivers mail to my personal account — that’s what I do with my spamtraps, until their volumes get too high. So it still qualifies as a "personal email address". Here’s the full spam with all headers intact.
It appears the message originated at IP address 87.192.126.62:
inetnum: 87.192.126.32 - 87.192.126.63 netname: IBIS-PA-NET descr: BreezeMax-KilpooleHill-Comm-E 3MB 24:1 (2) country: IE admin-c: IRA6-RIPE tech-c: IRA6-RIPE status: Assigned PA remarks: Please do NOT send abuse complaints to the contacts listed. remarks: Please check remarks on individual inetnum records for abuse contacts, or remarks: failing that email abuse reports to abuse@irishbroadband.ie. mnt-by: IBIS-MNT source: RIPE # Filtered
Kilpoole Hill appears to be south of Wicklow town, just the right spot for a wireless tower used for Irish Broadband access from The Murrough, Wicklow Town (mentioned as the address for Wicklow County Tourism in the mail).
Suggestions? Did anyone else get this? How do I report spam sent by the Wicklow County Tourism Board?
Update: they also hit the Irish Linux User’s Group submission address. I wouldn’t be surprised if they scraped the addresses of other ILUG subscribers, then…