Spammers have upped the ante in their bid to tap into interest created by the US presidential election this week to punt penis pills other assorted pharmaceutical tat.

Junk mail messages doing the rounds claim either Barack Obama or John McCain are dead in order to trick the credulous into visiting Canadian pharmacy websites. The messages, masquerading as breaking news, include subject such as "Barak and McCane killed", "McCane died of heart stroke" and "McCane’s wife private video" - all reproduced here verbatim.

McCain-themed pharmacy spams were around before the election but none plumbed such depths of bad taste.

The junk mail rickrolling ruse follows a spate of emails that punted clips from Barack Obama's acceptance speech. These messages actually led to websites laced with Trojan horse malware in the guise of Adobe Flash updates supposedly necessary to view the clips. ®

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