I have been remarkably free of spam for quite a while, but I got one today.

The sender was someone I'd never heard of, with a woman's name and another woman's name in the "Subject" line. The email itself contained a few words arranged in two nonsense sentences, and a link to a website.

I did not click on the link. As obvious as that course of action was, it actually took a bit of conscious effort -- I'm a very curious person.

I ran the website's name through Google and nothing obvious came up, but it could always have been hacked by someone.



Which is the long winded way of getting to my question. Is there any way to test a website to see if it's dangerous before you go there? I'm pretty well-protected -- I'm running Firefox with NoScripts and a few other addons, a good Hosts file, etc., but still didn't think it would be awfully smart to go there ... but I'm still curious as to what's hiding behind the door.

Thanks!

The 2 nonsense sentences could be another language. Have you tried a translator?

Oh no, they were English words but they made no sense either individually or put together. For instance it included the words "orbital," "swimming pool," things like that. Arbitrarily grouped and terminated with a period, but not a sentence in the sense of having a subject, verb, etc. The words struck me as nonsense because they had no meanings in common.

I probably didn't do a good job of explaining that.


EDIT: I assume that some English words were pasted together to make it look (to a machine, at least) like the email contained a legitimate message and pass through spam filters.

And, BTW, I wish there was another name for this -- I like Spam, sliced, fried and served on rye bread with yellow mustard.

I use these to check url's
LinkScanner

Dr.Webb Check URL Scan

Norton Safe Web

This is a useful thread. Thanks for the links Boop.

Thanks, boopme.

The first link didn't work for me -- I assume it's incompatible with Firefox or some of the addons I've got -- but the other two worked. Neither of them reported a problem with the page, but I haven't checked it out in person.

I'll keep these links, though. I have stumbled upon hacked sites in the past.

You're very welcome