When Good Spammers Go Bad 305
pfleming writes "According to this blog article on BadTux by Eric Green, the constant harrassment of spammers has a price. You get a Cease and Desist letter- or more correctly, your ISP gets a C/D letter. But, if you're a hard core geek you just might get your site more notice as it gets mirrored out onto sympathetic hosts.
Also mirrored in other locations."
Kind of on topic (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It was going ok. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:My own list of spammers... (Score:3, Interesting)
I've got logs to show that they spammed me.
If they take me to court, I'll counter-sue for double the amount they're claiming, consisting of:
a) Trespassing on private property
b) Bandwidth
c) Harassment and mental anguish
I'll also punch them in the face on the way out of court.
Re:My own list of spammers... (Score:2, Interesting)
You are actually rebooting some poor schmuck who used to have a "slow" computer, and now has one that doesn' work right.
Check to see what netblock the dsl line is in and let the provider know instead.
Re:My own list of spammers... (Score:4, Interesting)
Look at it like this.
We are a private company and we have a mail server.
We refuse to accept ANY incoming connections from networks that have had spammers on them at one point. What is anyone going to do to stop us from firewalling them?
It's like saying that someone's going to sue me for putting my hands over my ears when I hear them talking about how good George fucking Bush is. I know they're wrong. I'm sick of hearing about him. I refuse to listen further.
As for posting the list, I am not forcing anyone to use it. I'm simply stating a fact: these addresses spammed us, and that you can use the script provided to blacklist the networks involved. If people download it and use it, that's not my problem.
It's like me saying that Nike products are made in sweat shops and people should buy them because they are supporting a company that believes in slave labour. I'm only stating facts. If people stop buying Nike products because of what I've said, then surely Nike is the cause of that, and not me - I'm only spreading facts.
As for the 'innocent' personal on a network that has had a spammer on it and is now blacklisted
As for there being 'absolutely no excuse for striking back against computers on the other side of the world'
Sales and Marketting (Score:5, Interesting)
Apparently the sales guy thought that by sending me junk, he now has the right to call me whenever. First time I told him I wasn't interested, second and third times I added not to call me back. Fourth time I laid into him - he called by bosses number. Fifth time I did some research and sent his boss and a few other high-up's in the company an e-mail explaining how I had nicely asked to stop being bothered by the company and that they have now left a very bad impression, and that I talk with lot of other people that they may want to deal with, and am not afraid of sharing my opinion of a company if asked.
The VP of the company sent me an e-mail back saying (THE SALES GUY) IS DOING A GOOD JOB GETTING THE NAME OUT THERE SO BUY SOME PRODUCTS FROM US. (no lie - all caps).
Upshot is I've not been called anymore.
I look at it like X-10 - they've made some good products, but as soon as marketting/sales starts to lead, even the best company can get dragged downhill.
Better iptables use... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: when good stories go down (Score:5, Interesting)
The McDonalds case / UK defamation law (Score:4, Interesting)
Ah, yes, that one. People were standing around outsides McDonalds restaurants giving out flyers that accused them of various unfortunate things. If memory serves, they took the flyer producers to court on defamation grounds, and successfully rebutted a couple of the points, notably including the fact that their food was found to be nutritious by the court. A few days later, the flyers were back, with the claims the court found against removed, and a big banner over the rest basically saying "PROVEN IN COURT!".
If ever there were an own goal in a legal case, that was probably it. Anyone have a link to detailed info any more? Makes fun reading if you've got a few minutes to kill. :-)
Incidentally, there is some legal protection for freedom of expression in the UK, including under the ECHR if memory serves. However, what's wrong with defamation law overriding freedom of expression? You want to be able to say anything you like with impunity, even if it's wrong and damaging to someone? I have no problem with a clear standard that if you want to say things negative things about someone else publicly then you have to be able to back them up. Why is that a problem, either in principle or in practice?
Wow -- he may not be right but he's not clueless (Score:1, Interesting)
#1 -- You have to be on your tippy-toes to avoid "opting in" in the way Spammers think "opt in" means; namely, giving them/someone they know/your friend's cat/a total stranger/your school/your workplace/anyplace they can hack into your email address.
This in direct opposition to what Opt-In really is: they send you a one-time email, which you have to explicitly confirm by doing a reply and/or click-back before they send you anything.
#2 -- That they are somehow legitimate businesses. Sorry Eddy, but it doesn't add up. Especially since even the "legitimate" businesses spam us. I haven't gotten K-fucking-asses-mart to get one of my forwarding aliases off their damned bluelight email list yet, because some marketroid decided it'd be cheap to buy a few cds full of spidered emails.
K-Mart and the rest. Doesn't matter what they're selling, I won't buy from them if they email me about it. The only place that has authorization to email me back is Amazon, but that is because I ACTUALLY WENT AND ORDERED STUFF FROM THEM FIRST.
Make some sense here Eddy? You have no right to try to bug me to create a business relationship, and you buying/spidering an email address doesn't count as a business relationship.
#3 -- It was hidden a little more, but: to give a phone number/physical address of his business would be his death knell.
In the real world, a phone number and address of the business are the first things we want. I expect the same of anyone I buy from online as well: that I know exactly where they are should something go wrong. Amazon I know exactly where they are.
Eddy on the other hand fronts for sex-aids and porn and all the other crap that won't even put their return address on what they shipped. The local post office has tons of unreturnable dildos from people like that.
If we had his phone number and address he'd never have a moment's peace.
Hey, can anybody get this guy's address for us?
I feel like mailing someone a box of what my cat did last night.
Re:already taken (Score:3, Interesting)
VioPac on Bank Balance Eliminator (Score:4, Interesting)
Today, VioPac would like to offer you a quiz. It's very easy, and will take only moments of your time. In fact, it only has one question, and it is this: What rocks more, Iron Maiden or Evidence Eliminator? Think about that carefully now.
The correct answer, of course, is Iron Maiden. In fact, there is very little out there that could beat Maiden in any contest you care to devise. Observe:
Simply put, the spammers at Evidence Eliminator have now threatened the ISP that hosts Evidence-Eliminator-Sucks.com with a libel suit in England. As intended, the ISP in question can't afford to defend itself in a foreign country. What this means is that every one of you, regardless of your nation of origin, should write to Iron Maiden immediately and ask them, politely of course, to find these EvElim scumbag spammers and beat the shit out of them.
Note: I don't think he's *really* serious about writing to Iron Maiden :-).
Slash dotting Evidence Eliminator (Score:3, Interesting)
By getting the website of Evidence Eliminator linked to someplace in this thread, you know that the spammers site will get slashdotted, smoking his pitiful server, and driving the bandwidth bill into the obscene-osphere
I have visions of the site owner falling to the canyons below in a manner very much remindful of the wiley coyote when he figures this out.