Good morning.. You've got SPAM!

This post is a tribute to all spammers, the faculty and the hostel wardens included. After Halley’s recent post on spam and how-to-compose-spam, I thought I had to share with all you readers, some of the classic mails, which have managed to stay on top of my all-time-spam list. So all you non-IIIT readers, I can’t assure you that any of the stuff that follows would make sense to you.

DISCLAIMER: All the mails, which have been quoted here, are 100% original and have not been tampered. Any resemblance of these mails to one of the mails in your mailbox may not be pure coincidence. To quote V here, there is no such thing as coincidence, just the illusion of coincidence.

I’d like to start off with the legendary Prof Ramamurthy. If there had to be a faculty representative in spamming, he is the most deserving candidate. If a top-10-spammers-of-IIIT list were to be released, his name would figure at #1 position. All his mails are addressed to the students mailing list and I often wonder why his account never gets blocked. Please note smr’s reply to this mail of his, which was sent 3 times over a span of 2 days, threatening students with F-grades in projects. Also do note the format used by the Prof. in the mail.

Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 14:05:16 +0530
From: Sunil Mohan Ranta
To: students@students.iiit.net
Subject: [Fwd: [Students] Deadline for projects]
Hi all,
Whoever has taken projects under him PLZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ submit it as soon as possible otherwise your account will be blocked :)

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Students] Deadline for projects
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 13:57:05 +0530
From: Rammurthy
To:

Dear Students of SEMESTER PROJECTS,

1. I discussed with the director regarding project submission. YOU HAVE 20 days more to show your SEMESTER PROJECTS.

If you donot show the project alongwith report etc,
YOU WILL RECEIVE AN "F" grade for the project

2. IF YOU HAVE TAKEN A PROJECT, CHECK WITH Mr. Appaji if a grade has been given.
------------MAY BE I FORGOT TO SUBMIT THE GRADE.

Also this provision extends for another 20 days.

With Regards,
Rama Murthy, Garimella

Now that I am done demonstrating to you the Ramu-style of composing mails, let’s look at another genre started by Prof Reddy at the beginning of the 20^th century. This mail of his gives you a fair indication of his talent in composing mails. Please read the mail completely and if it doesn’t crack you up, then nothing can. It is in reply to a mail sent by Prof Ramancharla asking the students not to damage window panes while playing cricket.

Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 17:33:14 +0530 (IST)
From: P.Krishna Reddy
To: Pradeep Kumar Ramancharla
Cc: Dr. Vasudeva Varma , govinda , Dr. Karlapalem Kamal , Dr. P.J. Narayanan , sharma@iiit.ac.in, students@students.iiit.ac.in
Subject: [Students] Fw: damage of glass panes of library building

It is causing accidents. The cricket ball is about to hit my children and wife twice. They just missed. Please look for alternative plan.

Cricket should not be played near faculty quarters where children and family members move freely.

It is OK to play other sports. But, no to cricket.

-P.Krishna Reddy

If you failed to notice, let me quote him again.

“Cricket should not be played near faculty quarters where children and family members move freely.”

Move freely? This is exactly why someone must not be involved in agriculture dept. for too long. He is referring to them as if they were some kind of cattle.. grazing all over IIIT.

Moving on, we have another mail from our fabled Prof. R, which was not publicized because of unknown reasons. Although this in no way is connected to spam, it figures in this post for a very special reason. Please note the timestamps, or rather the dates of the mail to which Prof. R has replied.

Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 18:46:56 +0530
From: rammurthy
To: IIIT Magazine
Subject: Re: magazine website

Please forward the magazine to all
ALUMNI of IIIT. This was a suggestion
from Prof. Sangal

With Regards,
Rama Murthy

----- Original Message -----
From: "IIIT Magazine"
To:
Sent: Monday, February 24, 2003 11:18 PM
Subject: magazine website

> Dear All,
> The magazine website is up and running. Kindly have a look and
> send in your comments.
> You can download and/or read all the issues of Echoes and The Interface.
>
> http://192.168.36.200/~mag/
>
> -Mag Team
>
Another prominent mail sent by our dear R was asking Dr PJN on how to convert a .doc file to a .pdf file. He also cc-ed it to students mailing list. Now how ignorant can one get? [-(

Coming to the student community, most of the spamming is done while subscribing to a mailing list. The most affected are the ones subscribed to the cybergames mailing list. And how could I forget the mother of all spam, the life mailing list, which perpetuated spam and made it larger-than-life. Ignoring it would be a sacrilege. A lot has been written on the utility of this mailing list. Right now, thanks to I.V, we have a raging debate on whether the swimming mails should be sent to LIFE or not.
A sample mail received (if you have not YET unsubscribed from LIFE) would look something like this:

Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 22:48:45 +0530 (IST)
From: ABC
To: XYZ,life@students.iiit.net
Subject: Re: [Life] reg FF mess

XYZ, I WHOLE-HEARTEDLY agree with you.
On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, XYZ wrote:
>
>PQR, I TOTALLY agree with you
>On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, PQR wrote:
>
>> DEF, I completely agree with you
>> On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, DEF wrote:
>>
>>> IJK, I second that.
>>> On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, IJK wrote:
>>>
>>>> I agree.
>>>> On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, Krishnakanth wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> * Here goes the actual spam.. ranging from stationary shop lafda to the FF
>>>>> mess. Wonder why the attendance issue has not been raised yet :P*

Sometimes the “I agree” statements are accompanied by emotionally moving, sob stories like how PQR had to go all the way to Indiranagar to buy a Rs.3 Reynolds refill because the stationary shop was closed, or how ABC had to borrow an A4 size sheet to copy a Physics assignment because the stationary shop was closed. Such gross injustice! Does god even exist?? Another craze that has caught up with our (ug3) batch is sending test mails and replying them in an unending loop. But the best part is - no one is complaining! When the batch topper (read I.V) himself sends spam, who dare protest. :D

So there you go ladies and gentleman. All “I agree” and “I do not agree” comments are welcome :D But after what happened here, fuzzy, only one from your family can comment. :P And so to conclude this fiasco in Prof Reddy’s own words, it is ok to mails, but no to spam. :P Jokes apart, the best mail ever sent by any faculty was the one sent by Dr.PJN on Felicity ’05. Anyone interested in this mail can ask for it in the comments section. Please mention ur mail id as well.

PS1: I’d like to thank Halley for sending me a broken-eggs-rotten-tomatoes BLN mail which I decided not to include because the post is already too long. (There you go.. I acknowledged you :D)

PS2: In fact when I had subscribed for Campus Green Club, all the subscribers got a mail from a company inviting us to try out their newest product which when used, claimed to enlarge the private parts of the stronger sex. [-( You can contact Shivudu for more details. :D

PS3: V for vendetta rocks. I have been promoting the movie so shamelessly that I figured out I might as well ask for some royalty from the makers of the movie. But watching it in IMAX is a pleasure in itself. I’d recommend it to each and every one of you. The dialogues especially are very powerful.

PS4: Tipo got his ass kicked in 1v1 snow. However once we agreed to play using scouts he managed to salvage some pride by putting up a decent show. What is happening to CEG snipers?? IV, are you listening? :P

PS5: For those who found this post boring, here’s a link which you might find very interesting.