I received an impressive email scam recently. My response was to forward it to the email provider’s abuse contact (abuse@outlook.com) and file a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center (ic3.gov). I’ll include the whole email later. The bottom line: Scammer has my password and will humiliate me if I don’t pay $1900 in bitcoin.
The scammer’s email landed in my spam folder. I was given a deadline of July 11. I didn’t clean out my spam folder till today (July 15).
In fact, the scammer does have one of my passwords: a throwaway password I use with throwaway accounts. When a web site makes me “register for an account” to retrieve information I want, this is the type of password I used to use. Now that I use password manager software (Lastpass specifically) I choose passwords more randomly and let the manager remember them.
There is no way to verify an email’s contents except through cryptography. Until every email client includes encryption and reliable authentication, we should always doubt an email’s source.
As I said 
I’m not often a fan of conspiracy theories, except for entertainment value. This one is interesting because it combines international intrigue, the elections, and our world of notoriously poor email security.
The text attached to this post was submitted as a web site comment. No doubt some spambot was supposed to select randomly from the text to produce a unique-looking spam message. I know I’ve received lots of spam comments that this script might have generated: personal-sounding messages that are content-free.