Non-native English?

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 6/28/02 2:12:05 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
RonButters at AOL.COM writes:

> Hi,This is a IE 6.0 patch
>  I hope you would like it.

Do NOT open the file.  "IE" stands for "Internet Explorer", and NOBODY would
send out patches for IE unsolicitated.  The sender is probably malicious.

(I have already reported this apparently-malicious e-mail to AOL.  You might
want to do the same---screen names TOSEMAIL1 and POSTMASTER)

In the past few days I have received half a dozen e-mails from addresses I
never heard of, each one with a file attached.  I have reported all of them
to my ISP (AOL).
They appear to be the work of native Spanish speakers, since the file names
are such things as "buscar.zip" (buscar = to search for) and the return
addresses include such things as atencion at conade.gob.mx ("attention at
something something Mexico").

     - Jim Landau