uStarMeStar – and the ultimate stupidity test from “ustarmestar.com”
uStarMeStar - The ultimate stupidity test (uStarMeStar.com)
Note: zarbydoof.com and Defpics.com operate on the same principle. And all of these sites have hit the top of searched-for terms recently.
You may have received a spam message from ustarmestar asking you to visit it and see pictures of you, uploaded to uStarMeStar site. You don't recall uploading them, but curiosity and vanity get the better of you and you go to ustarmestar.com. How did they really get your name? Well, the mystery is solved as soon as you get to the site, and it asks you to enter the name of the friend who referred you. You don't know what to do, you enter the name of a random friend - they are the next victim! Worse still, you enter your own email and password, which may allow the site to access your Myspace site or email account and send messages to all your friends.
Another possibility is that a real friend of yours referred you to ustarmestar. You should give them a piece of your mind, as will become apparent shortly. They weren’t being very clever.
So here is how it works:
uStarMeStar - first screen:
It asks for the email and full name of the person who referred you
It then asks you to enter a password: you do (or you can just skip this stage by clicking submit), and proceed to a page that asks you how you found out about the uStarMeStar site. It gives you a list of email services.
Then it says - "Final step! Verify your mobile phone number to ensure a proper match", and this is where the real nastiness stars. You are asked for lots of personal information under the pretence of having to match your details:
By filling this in, you will be giving consent to a company called Freelotto to spam you. The terms state that in return for joining a lottery dishing out prizes, you will be asked to receive promotional emails and view advertising on the company's website.
Note that some variations of this site urge you to sign up with "offers" or "deals" for any number of other services, but the principle is always the same.
Finally, after you close this window you get a screen saying:
And then this:
At the bottom of the monkey picture, it asks you to forward this "cute" joke to all your friends.
But uStarMeStar isn't cute. It is a spam campaign that gets you to sign up with the "free lottery" or other promotional sites under false pretences, and gets you to submit a lot of personal information, including your email address and password (dangerous).
Perhaps you should send this article to all your friends instead... In fact, at the speed that uStarMeStar is spreading on MySpace, your friends will be grateful if you did warn them...