Spam from Sheffield Hallam...

[watervole]

I'm sure at least one person on my flist is connected with Sheffield Hallam university.  Do you think the psychology department know their PhD students are spamming LJ?

Dear Livejournal User,

Apologies for spamming you through your Livejournal account, but I am writing to invite you to
become part of a study into online communities.

I am a researcher at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK.  I am conducting a study which looks at
the psychological processes involved in community interaction.  The study will involve joining and
participating in a Livejournal Community that has been created for this research.  All the interactions
within the community will be documented and analysed together with personality tests that all
members will take before the study begins.  Each member will also (privately) rate all the other
members of the community for things like trust.

To take part you will need to be available to regularly access the community.  You will need to be
prepared to complete a thorough online psychometric test which will cover aspects of your
personality (this should take approximately 30 minutes).  You will also need to be prepared to
complete an online questionnaire based on the other members of the community on three separate
occasions (this should also take approximately 30 minutes).

All information given by yourself with be treated as confidential.  Your name and your Livejournal
user name will not appear anywhere within the research.  The other members of the community will
not have access to any of your information.

The study will last 15 weeks.

Unfortunately I cannot offer you payment for taking part in this research, however I believe that it will
be a rewarding experience and if nothing else, it will allow you to meet new people!

If you are interested in taking part in this study, please reply to this email with your Livejournal
username and I will send you more details.

I hope to be hearing from you soon!

-------------------
Sue Jamison-Powell
PhD Researcher
DTESS Research Group /
Brain Behaviour and Cognition Group
Psychology Department
Sheffield Hallam University

Tel (0114) 225 5841

Comments

[peaceful-fox.livejournal.com]

Grrrrrrr.

[dougs.livejournal.com]

This has happened to a couple of friends (but not me) and we're now actively interested in finding out how she arrived at her list of invitees. Specifically, whether the victims were suggested to her as likely candidates by other individuals, or whether she's trawled a list from somewhere. Also we're interested in whether she's written to you at your @livejournal.com email address, or at some other address.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Being crap at message headers and the like - I've forwarded it to you to make sense of.

When I look at it, it seems to be addressed to her.

It said 'dear LJ user'

[dougs.livejournal.com]

Ah.

There's a line amongst the headers which says:

> Received: from coffee.shu.ac.uk (coffee.shu.ac.uk [143.52.2.44])
>   by livejournal.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6FD921CE6B7;
>   Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:36:42 +0000 (UTC)

So it went via LJ, and therefore was originally sent to your LJ address.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Which means she's targeting people she doesn't know personally but is possibly selecting journals on some vague basis.

I wonder if the victims are on the flist of someone she knows? If you know several of the targets, then she's either spamming millions, or else she's managed to selectively target a relatively small group of people. Are they all UK people?

[dougs.livejournal.com]

Don't know if they're all UK, and I doubt my poll will resolve the question since it's not going to be a wide sample.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

No. She has reached across the ocean to me.

Paranoia Rules, UK?

[inamac.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I don't want to worry you, but Sheffield Hallam tend to get a lot of Government research contracts...

One mans spam is another mans research, clearly.

Re: Paranoia Rules, UK?

[earthbound01.livejournal.com]

So you think it might be sincere? If it is, I'd be interested in doing the research. If it isn't, I'd like to join the study!
(I'm a guy who googled the email and came across your lj-discussion)

Re: Paranoia Rules, UK?

[watervole.livejournal.com]

It's sincere. It's been followed up by others like dougs. Annoying, but sincere.

She's now apologised for sending out the spam.

Re: Paranoia Rules, UK?

[earthbound01.livejournal.com]

Maybe this is all part of the experiment. I don't think there's anything in the AAA or APA that says you can't spam people.

Re: Paranoia Rules, UK?

[earthbound01.livejournal.com]

but then those are the American counterparts to whatever organization she'd have to answer to. Maybe the brits are a little ahead of the curve on that one...

Re: Paranoia Rules, UK?

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Apparantly her supervisors approved her method of recruitment. I suspect they may reconsider in future if they've any sense. I was on the verge of writing a letter of complaint to the university and I probably wasn't the only one.