What’s the Scam?

To subscribe to my monthly email newsletter, you have to enter your information on the webpage, and then reply to an automatically generated email. This is, of course, to prevent people from subscribing addresses other than their own. Starting last weekend, I have been receiving a lot of individual responses to those emails. Always one line: Thank you for the positive impact your emails have had on my life. Your emails are a game-changer. Your emails are a constant reminder of why I subscribed. Your emails rock. Thank you for the time and effort you put into creating these informative emails. Thank you for the passion and enthusiasm you infuse into your email content. Your emails consistently exceed my expectations. Thank you for the exceptional value! I responded to the first few, because sometimes I do get these nice emails from readers and I hadn’t yet realized it was all fake. But so many, and all at once—this is obviously AI. And obviously a scam, except I can’t figure out what the scam is. The addresses are things like: jnnvcddghjgfdryhj67@gmail.com nbhgdfhjedty896565@gmail.com jesikawells6873@gmail.com niffelatopserean92@gmail.com reinareyes983@gmail.com htfhtfhhjkgth@gmail.com All Gmail. None of the addresses has actually subscribed to Crypto-Gram. They could; whoever is sending the emails could easily have confirmed the subscription. My first thought was pig butchering—wanting me to respond and turn this into a conversation—but no one has responded to any of my responses. Anyone have any idea? Tags: scams Posted on September 1, 2026 at 1:36 PM • 6 Comments Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.