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When Good Spammers Go Bad 305

Posted by Hemos from the whip-lash-from-spammers dept.
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."
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When Good Spammers Go Bad More

When Good Spammers Go Bad

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  • It was going ok. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rf0 ( 159958 ) <rghf@fsck.me.uk> on Monday July 21, 2003 @07:45AM (#6489732) Homepage
    I was impressed with the article until I got to the comment "I mean, what do I care about what Windows losers get scammed out of?". Now I like Linux much as the next geek but thats just going to aliante people.

    M$ might be a monopoly but at least they have bought some form of consistency

    Rus

    • Re:It was going ok. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by IIRCAFAIKIANAL ( 572786 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @08:01AM (#6489817) Journal
      No doubt. Calling someone a loser because of what O/S they are running automatically *makes the caller* the loser. Thankfully I've never met anyone like that in the flesh - just on the wild expanses of the Internet. Everybody I've ever met runs whatever O/S they need to do the job, whether it's Linux, Windows, BSD, or whatever.

      That kind of shit is what makes Linux advocates all look insane and results in me having to explain that, no, not all Linux users are short-sighted, socially-inept zealots every time I bring Linux up at work. It's a lot easier to sell Linux to people without the idiotic pomposity.

      • Oddly enough, I've met plenty of people who are like that in the flesh, but they have universally been Windows users. I have been harassed and even threatened by Windows users because I prefer to use Linux.
    • You're new here, right?

    • Re:It was going ok. (Score:5, Informative)

      by interiot ( 50685 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @08:05AM (#6489842) Homepage
      That was a bit of hyperbole. I don't think he would have spent time collecting all this info and putting up various mirrors if he didn't want the truth to get out and save people $100.

      Here's most of the paragraph that you quoted from

      • I offered to take down evidence-eliminator-sucks.com for free. All they had to do was take all mention of me off their site. I mean, what do I care about what Windows losers get scammed out of? But no, they had to go off and hire a solicitor to spew out a cart00ney, and now it's too late for that: the site is now hosted on several servers scattered around the Internet, and I couldn't make the site go away now even if I wanted to.
      What he's refering to is this page [evidence-eliminator.com] on evidence eliminator's page that twists the truth a lot about Eric Green.

      Anyway, if he wanted to be more accurate, he probably would have said "I care a great deal about evidence-eliminator removing untruths on their website about me, more than I necessarily care about getting the truth out."

      • Re:It was going ok. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by ameoba ( 173803 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @08:19AM (#6489919)
        my god. I can't believe that any real business would be so fucking childish as to post the picture, name & address of their detractors. that right there, regardless of any of the other stuff surrounding it, is enough to put them on my shitlist.
        • Christ, that page is pretty offensive. I don't care if they were 100% lying about "evidence eliminator" or outright claiming that it was only used by child sex rings, that kind of crap is indefensible.
        • Quothe that page...

          By February 2002, Mr. Green has spat his dummy again - adding a bizarre and rather sad fantasy story entitled "Evidence Eliminator destroys marriage" to his collection of anonymous rants, gay insinuations, and bogus legales

          What kind of company would use "gay" to describe anything? This sounds more like script kiddies trying to run a buisness on something you can do with dd if=/dev/urandom of=/target/file/to/remove count=sizeof.file on a linux system.

          Tm

      • Re:It was going ok. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by JesterXXV ( 680142 ) <jtradke@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Monday July 21, 2003 @11:11AM (#6491097)
        Wow...IANAL, but this seems like outright libel to me. Sounds like he could sue them.

        libel n.
        a. A false publication, as in writing, print, signs, or pictures, that damages a person's reputation.
        b. The act of presenting such material to the public.

        • And in the UK (where the company is located), the standard of proof for libel is far more lenient than in the US (IIRC, you only need to demonstrate intent to defame, regardless of whether it's true or not).

    • Re:It was going ok. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Eric Green ( 627 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @08:28AM (#6489955) Homepage
      You're right, that was a bit over the top, and I'll take it out once I get the site back up (it's currently somewhat slashdotted -- GeekCode isn't exactly the fastest blogging software out there!).

      • Re:It was going ok. (Score:5, Funny)

        by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @08:45AM (#6490061) Homepage
        Heck, if you're going to do that, just put up some pictures of your cats or something. It's Slashdot, it's not as though anyone's going to actually read the article before spouting off, we'll just skim it for mentions of Microsoft, Lunix and DMCA, then roll out the standard flames.
      • This is a crazy ongoing story.

        I have seen things like the product was reviewed by Leo of techtv and given 5 stars yet it also looks like a worthless product. I am surprised that Leo would give a product like this such a high rating.

        Or does the product work well (I mean how hard is it to write a product that erases everything completely?) but their ethics just suck?

        • Their product (Score:5, Informative)

          by Eric Green ( 627 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @11:37AM (#6491261) Homepage
          I've seen their product reviewed by someone in the security community who I respect. He reports that it's a bit slow and bloated (being Visual BASIC), but does appear to erase files (doh! Like you said, it don't take a genuis!). The only real complaint he had was that the user interface was somewhat non-intuitive -- it was easy to set up the program so it'd erase critical system files and make your system unbootable, for example.

          As for their ethics, yes, their ethics suck. Their advertising says you'll go to jail if you don't use their product, they have popup scare ads that display your hard drive (if you're using Windows) and says that they're looking at your hard drive and you better buy their software or all those porn gifs will get you thrown in jail (it's a simple btw, with C:\ as the source -- i.e., it's just displaying your hard drive to yourself), and then of course there is the virus that their affiliates are sending around to hijack people's web browsers and point it back to the Evidence Eliminator site, and ... well. I think you're getting the picture now. These are not Nice Folks. And if we can trace that virus back to their offices, they will be wearing stripes soon.

    • He has done one good thing.

      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.

  • With great power comes... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xThinkx ( 680615 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @07:53AM (#6489773) Homepage

    ... You know the rest of it. Just as comic book characters have such a code, it would appear that computer geeks need one too.

    It's obvious that the folks at evidence eliminator know a good bit about tech, and not enough about morality. A lot of other fine folks who run legit/non-shady companies have the same knowledge but don't use it to trick consumers into using their products (probably because they actually make something useful). Just because you have the power to do something doesn't mean you should use it. Imagine if the loyal slashdot crowd were to use our collective resources to advertise any one issue or cause.....

    • Errr, Like Linux? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Myriad ( 89793 ) <myriad&thebsod,com> on Monday July 21, 2003 @08:16AM (#6489902) Homepage
      Imagine if the loyal slashdot crowd were to use our collective resources to advertise any one issue or cause.....

      Erm, you mean like Microsoft Bad, Linux Good?

      Blockwars [blockwars.com]: multiplayer and it's free!

    • Sales and Marketting (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Sabalon ( 1684 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @09:34AM (#6490340)
      I got a call from some sales guy from some company once. I was busy, so I told him to send me some literature. Got it, looked at it, wasn't interested, so pitched it.

      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.

  • Good spammers? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You can find them with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

    Damn, the trolls are busy this morning.

  • The irony wasn't lost on me (Score:3, Funny)

    by footnmouth ( 665025 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @07:54AM (#6489776) Homepage
    That this page generated a pop-up ad for Window Washer.

  • Lies! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Baloo Ursidae ( 29355 ) <dead@address.com> on Monday July 21, 2003 @07:55AM (#6489783) Journal
    When good spammers go bad? Isn't that kind of pretentious thinking there are good spammers?

  • My own list of spammers... (Score:5, Informative)

    by vandan ( 151516 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @07:59AM (#6489813) Homepage
    I've got a file with ip addresses of spammers who've pissed me off enough to blacklist them. It's available at http://enthalpy.homelinux.org/spammers.txt [homelinux.org].

    I use the following script:

    for I in `cat /etc/firewall/spammers.txt`
    do
    echo Blacklisting Spammer: $I/23
    iptables -A INPUT -s $I/23 -j REJECT
    done

    to blacklist them.

    I personally guanantee that all the addresses in this list have spammed me. If you don't believe / trust me, fine - don't use it. I use it on a production server and have never had any complaints...

    By the way, the /23 in the iptables might be too 'clumsy' for some. You can use /24 which blocks a smaller group of computers around the ip address in the list. /23 works fine for us.

    The list is 98% asian dsl accounts.

    Also, for an alternative solution, try this:

    smbclient -L $IP_ADDRESS

    where $IP_ADDRESS is the address of the computer that spammed you.

    If you're in luck, you'll find yourself connecting to a Windows computer. It'll ask you for a password. Hit enter. If you're still in luck, it will list the available shares, and a list of server names. Pick a server name. If there are more than one, try each one ;)

    Now, download and compile 'smbdie'. Search for it on google. Run:

    smbdie -i $IP_ADDRESS -p 139 -t $SERVER_NAME

    where $SERVER_NAME is the server name you just picked from smbclient's output ( above ). If you are still in luck, you will have rebooted the spammer's computer ( it blue-screens ), and maybe even caused some data loss.

    Really don't like them? Add the smbdie command to a cron job. I've found most spammers have fixed ip addresses, and they become available to reboot again withing approximately 2-3 minutes.

    Enjoy!

    • Re:My own list of spammers... (Score:5, Informative)

      by alienw ( 585907 ) <alienw@slashdot.gmail@com> on Monday July 21, 2003 @08:09AM (#6489862)
      You do realize that this is illegal and you can be prosecuted?
      • They can bite me.
        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:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 21, 2003 @08:29AM (#6489960)
          Except they may not be the spammers but users whose systems were abused by spammers or users who inherited the IP address of a spammer. There is absolutely no excuse for striking back against computers on the other side of the world. You can ignore them, no questions asked, but if you have to cause them harm, do it through their upstream provider. They know the situation and can deal with the problem in a civilized manner. Most ISPs will warn YOU and then terminate YOUR account if they become aware of your vigilante "justice".

          • Re:My own list of spammers... (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward
            Asian ISPs don't give a shit what their customers do-- why do you think so much spam comes from there, fool?

            Vigilante justice is the way to go with them.

          • Re:My own list of spammers... (Score:4, Interesting)

            by vandan ( 151516 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @08:58AM (#6490108) Homepage
            Not really.
            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 ... yeah that can happen. It doesn't really concern me. If people use the ip list I provided, then they do so with the knowledge that this is not a science, but an art - just like the rest of fighting spam. People using it also know ( as has been pointed out by me and several others now ) that nothing of worth comes out of Korean / Taiwanese / Chinese computers. It's quite common practice for people to blacklist the Asia / Pacific completely to rid themselves of Asian script kiddies, spammers, and other arse-wipes.

            As for there being 'absolutely no excuse for striking back against computers on the other side of the world' ... yeah I agree with you, apart from if they started it :)
          • I prefer to think of it as "opt-out" . If they negletected to mention an optout link (or it doesnt work) you reboot there computer untill the mailing list is corrupted and your e-mail address is removed .

      • Wrong! (Score:4, Funny)

        by lysium ( 644252 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @09:03AM (#6490127)
        "Words do not a guilty man make."
        --NJ state court judge, on acquitting Allen Ginsburg of smoking pot in a newspaper quote.

        On that note, I shot five people last night. Sorry to everyone affected.

        ---------

      • Re:My own list of spammers... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by theLOUDroom ( 556455 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @10:36AM (#6490768)
        You do realize that this is illegal and you can be prosecuted?

        First off: It is possibly illegal.

        Are you familiar with the computer crime laws in most Asian countries? Do they exist? Do you know if they protect computers with no passwords? Many computer crime laws offer very little protection for computers on public networks, if the owner doesn't bother to protect them himself.

        Second: Most spam is blatantly fraudulent. Let say I'm getting 419 scam emails from somewhere actually inside the US. The second they file a complaint against me, I can go after them for fraud. Put simply: Spammers don't want you to know who they are. They can't file a complaint, our you could go after them for fraud.

        Third: How is someone in Singapore going to prosecute him? Is the US going to extradite him for crashing a computer that was sending fraudulent email to the US? Or are they going to say: "Hey why don't you come set foot on US soil and then we'll talk about it?"

        Fourth: Let's say this computer does belong to an "innocent" (read negligent) bystander. Crashing his computer might actually get him to fix the problem/alert him that someone else is controlling it.


        This isn't something I'd be likely to do myself, but I'm not going to start yelling "Hey, that's illegal!" without thinking about it. Morally, I don't see very much wrong with what he's doing. Legally, he's on shaky ground, but he could, possibly be in the clear.
    • Please bear in mind, the server you are killing is not "the spammers" computer, it's a computer that spammer has compromised.

      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.

      • >You are actually rebooting some poor schmuck who used to have a "slow" computer, and now has one that doesn' work right.

        It didn't "work right" before. You're now making Joe Shmuch aware of that. Also, did you read the point about most of these being fixed IPs on asian ISP blocks?

        >Check to see what netblock the dsl line is in and let the provider know instead.

        See above. Pissing up the wind.

      • Or it's someone running "AnalogX", an open proxy program that is popular in Brazil (among other places).

        Who cares if their computer reboots/dies? If we're lucky, it will happen several times a day, and the user will go seek help to have AnalogX or whatever removed.

      • Re:My own list of spammers... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jmorris42 ( 1458 ) * <jmorris@[ ]u.org ['bea' in gap]> on Monday July 21, 2003 @10:14AM (#6490603)
        > Check to see what netblock the dsl line is in and let the provider
        > know instead.

        Report a SPAM incident to an asian ISP? Are you new here? They just don't give a shit.
    • You aren't actually crashing the "spammer's" box. You're crashing the box of some poor sucker who doesn't know enough to that he should have a firewall (software or hardware), between his computer and his cable/dsl modem. Meanwhile, the spammer just moves on to another of his pool of tens of thousands of broadband IP's which have computers attached to them EXACTLY THE SAME WAY.

      So congratualtions, you have successfully made some poor guy's day miserable because his box keeps rebooting and he hasn't an fscki

    • Better iptables use... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ErikTheRed ( 162431 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @10:21AM (#6490653) Homepage
      Great idea, however, if you really want to fuck with them (at least in a legal way), use -j DROP rather than -j REJECT. This should make their system wait for a timeout and thus tie up their spamming engine a bit (well, at least one thread of it)... See this article [greenend.org.uk] for more information.
    • Ohhh, I get it, if it's a ./'er doing it to a spammer, it's not just OK, it's great and laudable and perfectly ethical, but if it's the RIAA doing it to a ./'er it's the worst action since the Holocaust and a huge breah of all we hold moral and proper. You people scare me sometimes.

  • The law is an ass (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jardel ( 682142 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @08:02AM (#6489821) Homepage
    That can work for either party, there's nothing new about people filing law suits in order to prevent someone from doing the right thing. It is important to remember however when dealing with such assholes that a letter from a lawyer is not as intimidating and many people think. Lawyers write letters which have little or not legal value all the time, I've received some myself when my old landlord and his wife got divorced and were fighting over who was the landowner. The letter itself wasn't worth the paper it was printed on, but it did have an official legal letterhead. Always make sure you know your legal rights and never trust the other guy's lawyer to tell them to you.

    • Re:The law is an ass (Score:2, Insightful)

      by 49152 ( 690909 )
      Very true.

      However they might take you to court even if they have a weak case and it might cost you a lot of money to win the case. Perhaps money you dont have.

      There is lot of examples of ordinary people folding very quickly when getting a cease or desist letter from an corporate lawyer just because defending yourself in a court of law can be very expensive even if you win.

  • When what now? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jonsey ( 593310 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @08:04AM (#6489836) Journal
    When good Spammers go bad?

    Logically, the only good spammer, is a dead spammer.

    Therefore, all good spammers are past their experation date already.

    So logically, all good spammers must be bad. :: Jonsey's Head Explodes ::
  • The only good spammer is a dead spammer. Are we talking zombies here?
    • when good spammers go bad. that's the moment decay starts on their abandoned bodies, swinging gently in the wind on their gallows.
    • no, then it would be "The only good spammer is an undead spammer"

      Of course, they prefer to be called "Undead Americans". The Zombie lobby lost some power since Strom Thurmond stepped down (The Watcher's Council was onto him, just needed an excuse to push him into direct sunlight)

  • Kind of on topic (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 0x7F ( 158643 ) * <`gro.epopt' `ta' `todhsals'> on Monday July 21, 2003 @08:06AM (#6489848) Homepage
    I got this little gem in the mail this morning.

    Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2003 04:59:32 +0000 (GMT)

    Subject: Pussy-Hunter.net was hacked

    I know they probably logged my IP, but I dont care, because I think it is wrong of them to steal my email address and send me porn adds, I recommend that you cancel any subscriptions with them immediately. The reason you are receiving this message is because im using Pussy-Hunter.net's own tool that they use to send emails to thousands and thousands of people. They have lists of stolen and random generated email addresses. If you dont beleive me just goto www.pussy-hunter.net/cgi-bin/ and look through the files.
    • They seem to have a script which offers to spamH^H^H^H^H send a newsletter to their mailing list. It requires a password, which appears to be given in http://pussy-hunter.net/cgi-bin/mail/password.txt

      No, I haven't tested it, but I'm guessing that most of the addresses (like 'you-ve.been@slashdotted.punk') are fake...

    • me too (Score:2, Funny)

      by Maimun ( 631984 )
      So, did go to their site. Thousands of times. Not with my browser, of course, but with

      while [ 1 ]
      do
      wget --user-agent='SpammerFucker' -O - "$1" > /dev/null 2>& 1
      done

      with the spammer's URL as paramater.

  • from the whip-lash-from-slashdot dept.
    vaderhelmet writes "According to this server error on BadTux by the webserver, the constant loading of pages has a price. You get a 425 error- or more correctly, you cannot connect to the host. 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 slashdotted in other locations."
  • the constant harrassment of spammers has a price

    Huh? Who's harrassing spammers?

    You get a Cease and Desist letter- or more correctly, your ISP gets a C/D letter

    Who gets a letter? The person harassing the spammer? I'm still confused.

    But, if you're a hard core geek you just might get your site more notice as it gets mirrored out onto sympathetic hosts.

    You'll get your site mirrored? Is that some sort or reward for harrassing the spammers? And what does being a "hard core geek" have to do with anyth

  • Wouldn't it be nice... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dark Lord Seth ( 584963 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @08:17AM (#6489904) Journal

    ... if someone wrote a nice piece of mass mailing software that would be free, look great, run fast, spam people like there's no tomorrow and available under a "free but get your paws of my source code" license? I mean, we don't want the spammers to be able to realize that their latest toy doesn't actually send anything and has more backdoors then a Win95 alpha version, now do we? And it automagically has to hook up to a webcam if available, so we can have a laugh as a spammer realizes all his computers are now hosting illegal crap like Britney/Nsync/Linkin Park MP3s, various bad Disney animations as MPGs and files like "SCO_Unixware_kernel.tar.gz" while a RIAA/MPAA APC drives his/her front window!

    Bonus points if said program makes a AYB quote the moment the spammer is sued into the nine hells themselves!

  • K5 (Score:5, Informative)

    by Malc ( 1751 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @08:20AM (#6489920)
    How funny! I just discovered and read a story on Kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org] about this, written by Mr. Green himself.
    • Well, has anyone actually read the comments on K5? I admit it left my eyes open in a bewildered gaze to see that nearly all of them were actually bashing Mr. Green for what he has done. Are K5 users even more nuts that your average /. Troll? Can't they stand a statement like "windows losers" anymore?
  • Slashdotted!

    Not available at the moment due to the Slashdot Effect. Will be back shortly as a (much faster) static page. Thank you for your patience.

    • Re:At least they take their Slashdotting in style. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Eric Green ( 627 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @09:46AM (#6490411) Homepage
      Well, it wasn't as if I was planning for my *blog* to get slashdotted. But once I realized what was happening (i.e., why my web server's hard drive light was on solid!), it wasn't a big deal. After all, I already knew that GeekCode was slow as a slug, the only reason I used it was because it was the easiest of the PHP-based weblogs for me to modify, and my blog has never gotten more than a few thousand hits a day so the speed didn't matter. But if everybody's coming there for one article... (shrug) serve it to them statically. My web server (which is running FreeBSD, BTW, not Linux) is now quite happy.

  • new error page (Score:5, Funny)

    by rutledjw ( 447990 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @08:35AM (#6490000) Homepage
    The page officially says:

    "Slashdotted!

    Not available at the moment due to the Slashdot Effect. Will be back shortly as a (much faster) static page. Thank you for your patience."

    So should this be a new error message? I'm thinking 501 - Slashdot...

    • Heh! Will have to do that if I ever get Slashdotted again :-).

    • already taken (Score:5, Funny)

      by cliveholloway ( 132299 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @11:18AM (#6491136) Homepage Journal
      a geek who doesn't know his http response codes. Tch Tch

      500 Internal Server Error
      501 Not Implemented
      502 Bad Gateway
      503 Service Unavailable
      504 Gateway Timeout
      505 HTTP Version not supported

      You'd have to start at at least 506 - but then that might be used by later http implementations

      better to just add a new block of response codes:

      600 Server Slashdotted
      601 Databaser fried
      602 Redirect to Google Cache
      603 Redirect to Goatse.cx
      604 Random error from 4xx/5xx code
      605 Cowboy Neal

      Or just use the HTTP response that I seem to get a lot when viewing slashdot:

      417 Expectation Failed

      .02

      cLive ;-)

  • When good Spammers go bad? (Score:4, Funny)

    by st0rmshad0w ( 412661 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @08:36AM (#6490017)
    ...Birth?

  • This is disappointing (Score:3, Funny)

    by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @09:43AM (#6490389)
    Imagine my dissappointment when I went to the site and there was no video! It was all text. I at least expected grainy video of a street brawl between two nerds: glasses and calculators flying.
  • In the blue corner we have a web site that appears to sell something of use only to crooks and pedophiles. "Evidence Eliminator" sounds about as decent as "Sperm Washer" or "Easy Hotwire".
    In the red corner we have a shrill and somewhat incoherent geek with time to waste (and apparently more interested in getting even than getting a job).
    Both parties tend to long self-justified rants. We feel sympathy for the red corner because he seems to be motivated by morals rather than money. But wait... he just wants his reputation restored, does not care whether people are ripped off by the product.
    The blue corner are obviously the Bad Boys, the tag team of hate. They like shouting at the crowd more than actually getting down to business. We don't know quite what they're shouting about, but frankly, we can't wait for Red Boy to jump into the ring and smash their stupid heads against the ropes.
    Only Red Boy seems to lying unconscious on the floor... it's a Knock Out!!! The Slashdot crowd - all ten million of them - have jumped into the ring and are smashing the ref, the Tag Team of Hate, and Red Boy with anything they can get hold of: chairs, empty drink cans,...
    Later, order returns to the scene. The ref announces a draw, and everyone asks "what the heck was that about?" No-one seems to know, but one of the bikini-clad girls holding the score signs thinks that whatever it was, it wasn't worth breaking a nail over. She looks at her hand glumly.
    I mean... Jesus!!
    • If I had time to waste, the rant wouldn't be semi-incoherent :-). Alas, when I have no time to edit, things do get somewhat disheveled. I promise I'll try to make it funnier and tighter, okay?

      But not now. Sorry, gotta get back to job hunting, have a couple of people to hit with resumes (thanks to tips from the Conspiracy). Who sez that getting even and getting a job are incompatible? :-).

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Sick MS on them (Score:3)

    by giminy ( 94188 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @10:22AM (#6490654) Homepage Journal
    Look at their website [evidence-eliminator.com]. Their logo is two lowercase e's, entirely too similiar to the Internet Explorer logo. I wonder what microsoft legal would say?
  • 1) sell your copyright of the picture to someone in the UK
    2) person sues for copyright violation
    3) ?
    4) profit?
  • Is it just me, or does the EE "dis-information" page remind anyone of the same kind of tactics Scientology uses when writing about its critics?
  • Here's [evidence-eliminator.com] all you have to see to know what type of people these folks are, if they're still allowing links from slashdot. I could hit this page from my grandmother's PC and it would present me with the same sort of rhetoric. If they're rejecting links from slashdot, open a new browser window and go to http://www.evidence-eliminator.com/go.shtml to see the scare tactics these guys use to drum up business.

  • It's more of a UK problem (Score:4, Informative)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @11:47AM (#6491371) Homepage
    The UK doesn't have a First Amendment. Libel laws override freedom of expression. Thus, UK-based criticism sites are vulnerable to libel claims. In the UK, you can be required to prove the truth of any negative statement you make about a person or company. This has come up in some famous consumerism cases, most notably one involving McDonalds, the fast food operation.

    US law is much less restrictive. The First Amendment is held to encourage "robust debate", even if some the statements aren't entirely correct.

    • The McDonalds case / UK defamation law (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Brave Guy ( 457657 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @12:06PM (#6491584)
      This has come up in some famous consumerism cases, most notably one involving McDonalds, the fast food operation.

      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?

  • I have seen a few pages on the net where they try to alter your default search page in Exlorer(that bar to the left too)(crtl-f i think). So after visiting that page, your explorer would now do it's surfing with a nice "evidence eliminator" logo at the top.

  • VioPac on Bank Balance Eliminator (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Eric Green ( 627 ) on Monday July 21, 2003 @03:57PM (#6493987) Homepage
    Ivan and Randu are probably going to fuss at me for Slashdotting their server, but they have a funny take on the situation at the Violent Pacification Corporation [viopac.com]:

    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:

    • Iron Maiden doesn't send nastygrams to ISPs who host critical websites, as do Evidence Eliminator. They certainly wouldn't threaten those ISPs with lawsuits in foreign countries because they know they have no case in the US.
    • Iron Maiden has Eddie as a mascot. I don't give a good god-damn who Evidence Eliminator has, but Eddie can kick his ass.
    • Iron Maiden doesn't spam the internet far and wide.
    • Iron Maiden doesn't lie to people -- even when they could. Just look at the back cover of Maiden Japan.
    • If Iron Maiden ever met Eric Lee Green, the creator of Evidence-Eliminator-Sucks.com, they would probably get along famously. If however they met the people involved in Bank Balance Eliminator, Steve Harris would no doubt smash his guitar over their heads and use their pulped remains as props in their next tour.
    • When Iron Maiden re-releases their entire back catalog every 15 and half seconds, people welcome it, for the most part. When Windows Registry Eliminator pops up dialog boxes every 15 and a half seconds, there is no one who doesn't want to beat them senseless.

    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 :-).

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