That's a new one... dad's received an e-mail today purporting to be from the ASACP and attempting to blackmail him into making a "modest, voluntary donation" to convince them that he's not involved in child pornography.
Of course, it's nothing of the sort.
A closer look reveals that (a) it was sent by an ADSL customer of SBC and (b) it had an attached zip file, asset088.zip, which contained one file with the name asset. txt .exe (with many spaces before the .exe). That looks rather like a worm or a virus.
One feels like one ought to complain to somebody about this, but to whom? As the ASACP says in the notice they've put up on their website, "there is very little that can be done to prevent these types of cyber attacks". Theoretically they could trace down that SBC customer, but more likely than not it's just a zombie and the real perpetrator is elsewhere.
Here's the text of the e-mail dad got:
Subject: CP investigation was started
Hi! I am abuse manager of asacp.org, the organization which fights with the child pornography expansion in Internet. We look through great number of our member's reports. Though we are not governmental organization, we gained a great experience working with FBI. In a number of cases we participate in analyzing of data bases, got from web hosting providers, in order to reveal child porno traffic systems.
I'd like to inform you that investigating activity of the one of child
porno sites; we found e-mails data base, in which was your e-mail
[e-mail address elided]. In view of this, I have two versions: either you are the client of this shop, or your e-mail appeared there accidentally. I sincerely hope that it was accidental coincidence and believe that you are interested in this version as well. If you show a good will, make modest, voluntary donation on our site: http://www.asacp.org/donation.html, I will be convinced in your being not implicated in this business. Don't forget
to indicate your e-mail address in the payment comment. In attachment
to this letter I sent all the details, showing that your e-mail address
found not accidentally in our database. Also there is the list of US
law clauses, under which you can be made answerable.
Good luck!
From: Joan <joan@asacp.org>
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