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"Gouranga" spam - who's behind it and what it's about
- Who is Gouranga?
- Examples of the "Gouranga" spam
- Email to ISKCON Scotland
- Some comments from our visitors
Who is Gouranga?
In 2004 and 2005 we received several spams that looked just like the following, sent to several of our email addresses. We didn't have a clue what it was supposed to mean and got annoyed enough about it that we sent abuse complaints to the provider used for sending the spam.
After another recent spam of this type in January 2005 we did some research. Here is what we found:
Gauranga (Gouranga) was a nickname of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, a monk in India who 500 years ago founded the branch of Hinduism that during the 20th century was brought to the west by ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness, better known as the "Hare Krishna" sect).
Years ago the name Gouranga appeared on motorway bridges in the North of England and on various stickers, causing people to wonder what it was all about. It has been rumoured that the Scottish branch of ISKCON has been trying to spread the name of their spiritual ancestor through a guerilla-type campaign. We have no idea if there is any substance to these rumours. It's equally plausible that this is just somebody's sense of humour. Hare Krishna-related jokes in popular culture are not unkommon, such in the movie "Airplane" or the "Gouranga" references in the Playstation videogame "Grand Theft Auto".
We have contacted ISKCON Scotland by email about the spam but didn't get a reply from them. Instead we were contacted by another person who claimed to have sent all these spams. When asked for his/her motives, he/she replied:
Which is not the worst of motives, I suppose :-)Hello Joe, I am just very enthusiastic person, who wants everybody to be happy. :)))
- ISKCON Scotland - Gouranga - Hare Krishna
- Wikipedia article about Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu
- Wikipedia article about "Gouranga"
If you want to block this spam the easiest way is to add the following email address to your banned sender list (even though this is a fake sender address, it appears to be used consistently):
- NitaiGouranga@aol.com
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Here's another copy:Return-Path: <NitaiGouranga@aol.com> Received: (qmail invoked by alias); 13 Jan 2005 03:31:27 -0000 Received: from ppp-80-47-194-81.lns.access.uk.tiscali.com (HELO Nitai1) (80.47.194.81) by mx0.gmx.net (mx060) with SMTP; 13 Jan 2005 04:31:27 +0100 From: "Neateye" <NitaiGouranga@aol.com> Subject: Gouranga Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 03:31:24 -0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1251" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 1 X-MSMail-Priority: High X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 To: emailaddress Message-ID: <20050113033127.25207gmx1@mx060.gmx.net> Call out Gouranga be happy!!! Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga .... That which brings the highest happiness!!
Received: from [80.47.212.230] (helo=Nitai1) by mxeu1.kundenserver.de with ESMTP (Nemesis), id 0MKpV6-1CqKJ7453q-00086z; Mon, 17 Jan 2005 00:59:45 +0100 From: "Neateye" <NitaiGouranga@aol.com> Subject: Gouranga Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 23:59:47 -0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1251" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 1 X-MSMail-Priority: High X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Message-ID: <0MKpV6-1CqKJ7453q-00086z@mxeu1.kundenserver.de> To: undisclosed-recipients: ; X-SpamScore: 4.450 tests= X_MSMAIL_PRIORITY_HIGH X_PRIORITY_HIGH FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK Call out Gouranga be happy!!! Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga .... That which brings the highest happiness!!
From: "Joe Wein" <joewein@pobox.com>
To: <scotland@iskcon.org.uk>
Sent: Friday, 14 January, 2005 1:45
Subject: Fw: Gouranga
Hello,
I found your explanation of "NITAI-GOURANGA!" at http://www.iskcon.org.uk/scotland/ after receiving the following spam.
To be honest, I did not feel the highest happiness when I received it in my mailbox, I was rather pissed off!
What is the position of ISKCON Scotland regarding this spam?
Regards
Joe Wein
Yokohama, Japan
Our reply:Subject: Gouranga !!? Date: Tuesday, 01 February, 2005 I just had to react to your email / comment on :"https://www.joewein.net/spam/spam-neateye-gouranga.htm" I really do think that you have over reacted !? I mean receiving "spam" about how I could enlarge my penis or get lots of woman to sleep with might be a problem but being wish some happiness is not ! I have received that email many time so did lots of my friend and from all the people that I know it never offended anyone, on the contrary it put a smile on many peoples face, including me ! Of course in today world it could be somewhat scary to be wish happiness by a stranger but you really should give it a try ! Also, the internet is the biggest communication tool and people over reacting about what is "spam" are making that statement less and less true everyday. Might I suggest you acquire some email filtering tools if you can't handle a little unrequested mail ?
> I just had to react to your email / comment on > :"https://www.joewein.net/spam/spam-neateye-gouranga.htm" I really do think > that you have over reacted !? > > I mean receiving "spam" about how I could enlarge my penis or get lots > of woman to sleep with might be a problem but being wish some happiness > is not ! I have received that email many time so did lots of my friend > and from all the people that I know it never offended anyone, on the > contrary it put a smile on many peoples face, including me ! Hello Martin, maybe I did overreact, maybe I didn't. I think the email is inconsiderate. Whishing people happiness is one thing. Sending an obscure reference to "Gouranga" is another. It's puzzling for most people, who haven't got a clue what it's all about or how they can find out. It's like starting to tell someone a joke but then not telling them the punch line: It's a wind-up, it's annoying! If you want to make people smile, make them smile, fine. Don't get them worried about something they don't understand. They have enough to worry about every day. Can you see my position? > > Of course in today world it could be somewhat scary to be wish > happiness by a stranger but you really should give it a try ! I don't have a problem with that really. I help out dozens of people every day who receive scam emails. As a result lots of total strangers wish me happiness and I enjoy that. They don't do it in obscure ways though. > Also, the internet is the biggest communication tool and people over > reacting about what is "spam" are making that statement less and less > true everyday. Might I suggest you acquire some email filtering tools > if you can't handle a little unrequested mail ? That "little unrequested mail" happens to come on top of 500 other unrequested emails every day. I have had the same email address for the last seven years and as a result it must be on every spammer's CD ROM. About 80% of all email sent to my mail accounts is unsolicited junkmail. Of course I use a spam filtering tool, or I would have had to give up on email by now. Since this message didn't mention any spammy websites and my filter wasn't set up to treat "Gouranga" or "Happiness" as dirty words ;-) it didn't catch it as spam. I will be filtering for the fake AOL sender address used for this spam and hope that the sender will stick to that address in the future.
Here is another opinion, from a reader in Scotland:
Hi Joe,
Just read with intrest your page about the Gouranga E-Mails. Firstly may I start off by saying I have absolutley nothing to do with Gouranga, just read your website and decided to reply.
I myself live in Scotland and remember many, many years ago (probably going back about 10), every public phone box, every disused bit of billboard space streets, bus stops, everywhere you looked had a big "Call out Gouranga" poster on it. These went away (Got washed off or whatever) and a few years later appeared "Dial Neateye" posters.
I was at the time of these posters about 10 years old and used to always ask my family what the hell Gouranga and neateye was, and absolutley no-one could tell me. So there was the whole town covered in Gouranga posters, and no-one knew what they were.
I recently found out what they were at work a few days ago when a colleague told me : "They are strange people in orange curtains who come over to you in the street and ask you to say Gouranga. At first you tell them to go away because you dont know what there going on about, but after a while of them annoying you, you say it, just so they go away! When you say this amazing word, their faces light up, and they ask you for funds". Having never been approached by the Gouranga gang, I cannot say wether or not this is true.
However, thats a bit of history. After reading your website, you seem to be on a crusade to stop these E-Mails reaching you. Thats fair enough, however I think your reasons are wrong. I am now quoting you from your website :
"If you want to make people smile, make them smile, fine. Don't get them worried about something they don't understand. They have enough to worry about every day."
Now as I have already stated, there were posters all over town for years with this silly word on it, which no-one understood, however Im sure a few people smiled at it, just because it was, well, silly and pointless and a complete waste of time maybe. People didnt worry about it. It didnt concern them. The word wasnt harming them, and neither were the instructions on the posters, which incidentally read "Call out Gouranga, Be Happy!" and that was all. Im sure some drunks coming out the pub late at night tried out the posters theory, and maybe it did work, who knows, and really who cares?!!
I know personally when I recieved that E-Mail today it certainly put a smile on my face, maybe because I remembered the posters, or because of my colleagues description of the "Men in orange curtains". I dont know.
Anyways Joe, Im sure your a cool guy and all the rest, but really, try not to get so worked up about things. Try smiling at them, try taking the humor out of my E-Mail, it is after all supposed to be humorous.
Best Regards,
Andrew
OK Andrew, point taken. I promise I'll try to lighten up a bit :-)
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