I recommend pre-emptively blocking emails from Cupventi and quite possibly Beehiiv for good measure

Occasionally I get spam in my Gmail account. 

It's usually fairly straightforward to deal with - deleting, unsubscribing, reporting as spam etc. You can also set up a redirect so that if an email arrives containing a keyword it bypasses your inbox and goes to the Bin or some other holding mailbox. 

Generally telling Gmail that an email is spam and unsubscribing means that's the end of it, not so with 'Cupventi' who seem more determined to irritate me with their spam emails about coffee, using Beehiiv as their newsletter provider (Beehiiv are somewhat the innocent party here). A different spam newsletter, also via Beehiiv, was easier to get rid of.

I initially unsubscribed from the daily (!) Cupventi newsletter and reported it as spam so was surprised to receive another message a day later. I contacted Beehiiv on Twitter to let them know that Cupventi were misusing their system and they told me they'd look into it. 

Everything went quiet for a while but a couple of days ago I received another one so I repeated the process of unsubscribing, reporting as spam and letting Beehiiv know. I also set up a redirect so that anything that mentions Cupventi or Beehiiv is automatically re-routed to my Gmail bin so I'll literally never see another message from them again unless I check. Guess what I stupidly just did. I'm quite irritated.

So... I have decided to republish without permission their copyrighted text, mangling all the links to they can't point to anything to show you precisely what you're not missing. No need for you to wait to be subscribed unwillingly to their repetitive (see bits I've bolded) blethers about coffee, feel free to pre-emptively block Cupventi, and possibly Beehiiv for good measure. 

Spam email below

 

Google could warn people who are searching for "how to buy bitcoin" about scams like this email

I've just received another one of those 'warning' scam emails telling me that some malware has been added to my computer to monitor my activity and a video of me is to be sent to all my contacts unless I pay up. It's twaddle.

These emails all ask for payment in bitcoin and include a search suggestion to find out how to do that as presumably most people have no idea (I don't). I ran the suggested search for "how to buy bitcoin" and was a bit disappointed that there wasn't a warning from Google to let people know that this search is often related to scams.

------

From: annmariereid@c.anopost.ga
Subject: Fwd: ❗ ATTENTION! You are screwed now Jo Brodie...

Do I have your attention?
You are really screwed now and you better read this... !

Your device was recently infected with a software I developed,
and now you have a problem you need to solve,
because it has gone too far..

You probably noticed your device is acting strangely lately.
That's because you downloaded a nasty software I created
while you were browsing the Ƿornographic website...

The software automatically:
1) Started your Ƈamera and begun recoding you,
uploading the footage to my server...
2) Recording your device screen
3) Copied all your contact lists from mail program, facebook
and your device chain
4) Started logging what you write

The problem is that it has cought you while you have been
ʍasturbating.. and I didn't plan to see that.. but I did.

I now have the Jo Brodie.mp4 file with you
ʍasturbating to this hardcore stuff... ugly!! :((


Let me get straight to the point.

If you do not do what I ask you now, I will upload this
ugly video file with you ... and the stuff you were watching
to several video upload sites and I will send the links
to all your friends, family members and associates.

I am sure they will not like what they will see and I am
also sure you don't want me to do that, right ?


So do you want me to uninstall the nasty software from
your device and stop recording you?
Do you want me to forget about this whole issue??

I think 2,000 USD is a fair price for my silence. I know you
can handle to send me this money - and it is enough for
me to get lost. So how do you send the cash?? Bitcoin.

I checked right now and 1 Bitcoin is worth 4,960 bucks.
So...

Send exactly 0.409482 BTC to my Bitcoin wallet.

This is my Bitcoin wallet address:
3HSiUV[redacted]QLb4tbaVf2SgWbhi

If you do not know how to send cash using bitcoin,
type 'how to buy bitcoin' in google. There's plenty
of guides.

Ok.. so what if you decide not to pay ?
Well if you want to test my patience - go on.
I will destroy your social life, you can count on that.

You think that visiting Police is a good idea ? Nope.
I don't live in your country and I know how to stay
Anonymous. I will send the compromising video to
everyone you know!

Just send me the 2,000 USD and we forget about
the whole thing. I have family to feed too.

***********************************************
Send 2,000 USD worth of bitcoin to this address:

0.409482 BTC
to this address:

3HSiUV[redacted]QLb4tbaVf2SgWbhi

(copy and paste it - it's cAsE sensitive)
***********************************************

After you send the money to my wallet (exact
amount!) - I will see it and I will remove the video
and deactivate the rec software.

I give you 5 days only to send the transfer..

The time starts ticking after you open this letter
(I included a pixel in this message and I will
know when you read it).


Don't try to contact me - I am using an untracable
email to deliver this message to you.

I am waiting for your cash.
And don't forget the shame if you ignore me.

Annmarie

Ways in which your email address can 'give you away'

Update: For Twitter at least there's a way to stop people from finding your Twitter account based on your email address, see details in the image below - thanks to Aerliss who commented below.

"You can keep your email private on Twitter though. If you go to settings, under your email is a little tick box that says "Let others find me by my email address". Unticking that should solve the problem, as long as Twitter plays nice." - Aerliss

-----------------------------------------------

Not 'give you away' in the 'you've something to hide' sense but I'm quite interested in the way the internet and social media allow already public things to surface in a way that people might not be aware of. A while back I created a spare Twitter account with one of my umpteen email accounts so that I could give it to my mum to follow me. She didn't want to sign up to anything herself but was curious to play around with it. Sadly she died before she had much opportunity to use it but the account lies fairly dormant and is locked.

I was a bit surprised later to get an automated request to follow me from a friend who'd signed up to Twitter. After they'd signed up they authorised Twitter to access the contacts list that lives in their email account - and my email address was among them. This then let them decide which people they either wanted to follow directly on Twitter or, if they're not on Twitter, to send them an invite by email to join. Had my account not been locked then my friend would have just been able to start following me.

Twitter already had my email address and knew which account I had and was able to share this information with my friend. This seems a little bit like oversharing to me...


When friends (or business contacts or anyone that has your email address) authorise a social media tool to access their contacts list your use of that tool (or not) is 'surfaced' and your email address becomes available to said tool. A number of people have been fantastically peeved to receive repeated email requests from LinkedIn to join the service - these arose from precisely this sort of 'invite all contacts' and for a while it was difficult to persuade LinkedIn to make it possible to block this sort of thing. I think it's all sorted now.


Of course this is exactly the sort of thing you'd expect from tools where sharing is the default - there's really nothing wrong with it and I've signed up to things after email invites. I just think it's helpful to be aware that your email address leaks information in this way.


Here's what I wrote (as section 35) in my guide for celebrities who are thinking about using Twitter. I hope they have social media managers to tell them this sort of thing anyway!


---------------------------------------------------

35. Your email address can give you away

Be careful (or at least aware) what email address you use to create your Twitter account
If other people (friends, agents, lawyers) have your email address in their contacts then they can find your Twitter account if you used that email address to create your account.

If your friend is on Twitter then s/he can authorise Twitter to access his/her email contact list and so can find out which of their chums / clients is also using the service. If you're in there, you'll show up. You may or may not want this. If you don't like this, and would prefer to be under the radar, then consider using a disposable email address.

A commenter on another post I wrote about this pointed out that on Twitter at least you can protect against this by unticking an option to 'let people find you by email' - click on the image below to enlarge it and follow the steps.

The picture below shows what your friend sees when they authorise Twitter to access their contacts information. Note that the email systems (Yahoo, Gmail. Hotmail and AOL listed on the right) have nothing to do with YOUR email account but relate to the type of email they're using.

If someone lets Twitter read their Yahoo contacts and my academic email address happens to be there then they'll find my Twitter account.