NZ Spammer Shutdown Makes Big Difference 654
lump writes "A notorious spammer, based in New Zealand, who had his name and other personal info released first in a national newspaper, and then on the web, has shut down his operation, citing harassment. What interests me about this case is that, in the 5 or 6 days since he has supposedly stopped operating, I personally have had one (1) spam email, to an address which had previously averaged around fifty per day. Colleagues report a similar reduction in spam. All I can say is 'excellent.' Hate to say it, but in this case, vigilante type action seems to have had the desired result. This needs to be publicised, as anything which slows down spam can only be a good thing."
Spam's off the menu (Score:3, Funny)
Well, (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Spam's off the menu (Score:4, Funny)
Would you like them on a boat?
Would you like them on a goat?
Would you eat them on a plane?
Would you eat them on a train?
Would you read them a whole lot?
Would you read them off slashdot?
But the virii are still out there! (Score:2, Insightful)
Unsolicited e-mail, spam or virus, all the same to me.
Re:But the virii are still out there! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Virii is not the word to use (Score:3, Funny)
Re:But the virii are still out there! (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not unreasonable to think that the two problems are related. This is, of course, based on the simple assumption that most people I converse with via e-mail on my particularly spammed account, do not use e-mail clients capable of propagating viruses. So obviously, the first sentence is true in at least 98% of the viruses I receive. I don't receive viruses from people I know. (that is a fact, may be different for different people)
Consider: most spammers
Re:Unsupported allegation. (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason is simple: I believe the "entry level" spammers (the AOLusers who dimly think "hey, if they can MAKE MONEY FA$T, so can I!") who have gotten into the spam business have done so with stupid Visual BASIC scripts. And on a Windows box when you want to send email from within a program (especially one
Re:Ugh, "virii" (Score:4, Informative)
No, actually it's not. There is no such word in either Latin or English. In Latin, "virus" is a collective noun, like 'butter.'
if we want it to be virii then its virii
Why don't you substitute a word in Klingon? You'll still sound just as goofy, but at least you won't be flat-out incorrect.
Virii is a perfectly cromulent word! (Score:5, Interesting)
Because the authors of virii call them virii, and not some Klingon word. The word "viruses" refers to biological organisms, and the distinction is valid and desirable.
Do you insist on calling eight-bit quantities "bites" since there was no English word "byte" before computer programmers decided to make one?
Re:Virii is a perfectly cromulent word! (Score:5, Informative)
We here on earth call that "slang." Every industry, culture, and sub-culture has it. All well and good. Sometimes a slang term gets to be so prevalent it will enter a dictionary and be noted as such (usually with sl.) If the term can really hang on, and/or enter into a mainstream culture beyond it's industry (as "byte" has) it may receive "official, formal" language status. The English language "benchmark" (to borrow the technologist's phrase for a moment) is the OED. I'm sure the folks who edit that are monitoring "virii" very closely *cough*
The word "viruses" refers to biological organisms, and the distinction is valid and desirable.
What, are you making this up as you go along? I give you credit for thinking on your feet. The OED cites several colloquial and figurative uses of "virus" as a rapidly spreading "poisonous influence." It's from this sub-text that computers are said to have viruses. No distinction between non- and biological use exists. Good one, though.
Now back on topic: The previous poster contended that "virii" was a Latin term. It's not. The plural of "virus" in Latin (if one fancies oneself as a dead Roman) is "virus." (I don't know what the plural is in Klingon.) Currently, "virii" is a *slang* term spottily popular among youthful script kiddies for the plural of virus. It is akin to "boxen," only several tiers more dorky as many of its users actually think it has some etymological legitimacy, and is not merely a made-up "play-on-words" word.
Happy to help. Glad you stopped by. First one's free.
A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man! (Score:3, Insightful)
No. I've posted this before, mosly because I think Tom Christiansen's being annoying pedantic about it (Tom's a Perl ghod, but that doesn't make him an authority on "natural" languages.)
Thanks, but it's not deserved. :)
I'm not English (alt
Re:Virii is a perfectly cromulent word! (Score:3, Interesting)
The use of 'en' as a plural form actually is English usage, derived from the Germanic input into Old English, although its use is highly archaic now and survives only in a few words -- 'oxen', 'children', 'brethren' (which is mostly supplanted by 'brothers'), and 'kine' (plural of 'cow'). Formerly, hanging on into early modern English, you might also see eyen, shoon, hosen, and treen. The N suffix, had it survived in all the words it applied to in Old English
Re:But the virii are still out there! (Score:3, Interesting)
"The worm searches the local hard drive for files with the extensions TXT, HTML, EML, HTM, WAB and DBX. The files are used to extract a list of recipient email addresses that will be used by the worm to send infected emails."
(From Sophos.com)
So if someone who visited a page that you had posted in and had the HTML from Slashdot in their cache you could get the emails. Nobody need to have sent you spam or have that email on a list for you to get those messages,
Me too (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Me too (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember years ago when I responded to the footer "Click here to unsubscribe". Little did I know that was a way spammers varified email addresses. It must have taken me off the $20 for 1 million email addresses, and placed me on the $250 premium list.
Kinda like the footer that spammers had which cliamed their email complied with some HR#1342 blah blah blah. That is when I became suspicious, because I knew something that passed in the house alone was not law.
Re:Me too (Score:5, Insightful)
Scum of the earth.
I really believe that contrary to popular opinion, a tough federal spam law would make all the difference in the world.
When police catch drug runners, they seize the drug runners possesions (house and car). Why couldn't it be the same for spammy??
Think about it -- if they would lose their computers, they would have a difficult time spamming. Couple that with some pound-me-in-the-butt federal prison time, they might get the freakin' message the they are not liked
All you would need to do is catch a handful and make an example of them.
Sure, the remaining spammies might move to another country, but at least they would be on the run.
Re:Me too (Score:4, Interesting)
But I'm willing to put up NZ$1000 [clueby4.com] of my very own money to get this guy in front of the courts and the reporter that turned him in will make sure it stays news.
This guy has costs Kiwi businesses millions of dollars in bandwidth costs. He sells illegal drugs. He advertises adult items to children. There ought to be something to bust him on.
He claims he has reformed but if he had, he would be naming his associates.
Re:Me too (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a terrible law for drug runners, it would be even worse for people who are just sending email.
Honestly, even after they have acquitted someone, often times they still cannot get back their property. I don't want a police state, and I bet that you don't either.
Re:Me too (Score:3, Insightful)
Having the tools of your crime confiscated seems to make sense. If I rob a store with a gun, should I get to keep the gun? If you use the computer primarily for an unlawful purpose, you should have it taken away.
But, I think spam is a *very* serious crime. Nothing speeds the decay of a society faster than abuse of the commons or being encouraged to sell out your neighbors for a quick bu
Re:Me too (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Me too (Score:3, Interesting)
If the spammers get as much virus-bounces as I do (about 1000 over last 24 hours), they figure out that it doesn't make sense to send any spam at the moment. It will simply get lost among the other trash.
I set up bogofilter to mark Bogosity in two categories -- viruses and spam. Then I color the index in my mutt accordingly and I get nice overview. The virus to spam ratio is about 25 : 1. The spam to legal mail ratio is about 3 : 1.
Re:Me too (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm let's see - an anonymous coward uses a subject line of "Me too" to provide a brief anecdote about noticing an unspecified decrease in spam received during an approximated timeframe, then speculates on attributing this to an untested hypothesis, and gets moderated "+4, Informative".
Come on - you know you wanna blockquote me now, and get a +5, Funny for saying "You're new here, aren't you"...
Re:Me too (Score:3, Funny)
You've been here for some time, haven't you...
Re:Me too (Score:4, Funny)
Today was the first day in over 5 years I've actually recieved more real e-mail than spam, and I have my fellow countrymen and geeks to thank for it.
So, to paraphrase Homer Simpson: "To New Zealand; the cause of, and solution to, most of the net's spam".
Hm, similar reductions here. (Score:3, Insightful)
Are we sure? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have noticed a sharp drop in spam the past few day, too. I attributed that to the recent SoBig.F craze sweeping the nation (and beyond). Is there any definative evidence?
While I am skeptical, I am also hopeful. If he has indeed been the cause of so much of the spam I have seen recently, then this ought to serve as a wake up call to anyone looking to fill his shoes.
Re:Are we sure? (Score:2)
Microsoft Windows, is setting up computers to become spam generators."
Re:Are we sure? (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, with various mail servers being swamped with SoBig mail, I don't think much spam can get through.
Re:Are we sure? (Score:5, Interesting)
The different governments ESPECIALLY the US federal government feels that spam isn't their problem. The only recourse are semi-vigalante operations such as blacklists. God bless 'em.
(P.S. Don't say 'well, how did we know?' You learn when your clients can't get their mail or whatever. You then switch hosting co's to a less scummy operation. Vote with dollars people.)
Re:Are we sure? (Score:5, Interesting)
In the past week, I've had some messages start bouncing. A lookup at http://openrbl.org/ shows 0 positives on my IP, yet for some reason I'm getting bounces claiming both SPEWS and Osirusoft are rejecting me. It would be nice to find out what's going on, but both of their websites are unaccessible. The only reference I could locate to others in my
So is my ISP being lax in their anti-spam policy? I could only find 1 report of a known spammer operating from my ISP's address block in the past year, and that one appeared to have been picked up from their purchase of another provider. Sounds to me like they are doing their job.
And don't give me any of this BS about 'well the ISP had their chance to shut down the troublemakers before they were blacklisted.' Where the hell was *MY* chance to do something before *I* got blacklisted?
I've been using ordb and spamhaus to filter incoming mail for the past severl months, but had never really read any of the mailing lists to see what was going on. Quite frankly I'm amazed at the attitudes. The scenario that comes to mind is this... On the block where I live, someone who I have never met gets a DUI while driving (someone spams). The court orders them to attend classes about drunk driving (send a message to ISP to get rid of the problem). The person never attends those classes, so the city takes away the driver's license of EVERYONE on the block (blacklisted). Of course, nobody on my block has any idea what was going on, and if we had, we may have been able to put some pressure on the individual to make changes, but no, the city doesn't care about that.
In my case (with the discovered open proxy), it's a little more incredible... A neighbor lends his car to someone else, and even though that person drove safetly and there were no reported incidents, our whole block has restricted anyway.
I'm going to keep using RBL's on my mail server, but I'm going to do a little more research into who I'm using. It's a great concept, but I've seen too many people on huge power trips now to explicitly trust what they are telling me should be restricted.
Re:Are we sure? (Score:3, Informative)
Well, you could always RTFM [google.com]. Post your question on NANAE or NANAB and the group will tell you exactly why you're in SPEWS.
Re:Are we sure? (Score:3, Informative)
The only thing more inaccurate than SPEWS is URBL. (And yes, that is a subtle joke.)
Re:The SPEWS attitude (I use, I approve) (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about it. You are shifting the burden of pressuring an ISP into killing a spammer onto that ISP's non-spamming customers, and you're doing it without advance warning.
Those who blithely talk about "switching hosts" have never had to do it. It just ain't that simple, and it sure as hell isn't free. It means being off the net completely for days--not just e-mail down, but all your services, unless you've got the money for a complete duplicate set of servers.
I have no problem with blacklisting spammers, but I have a major problem with blacklisters who think collateral damage is a good thing or at least nothing to worry about.
Re:Are we sure? (Score:4, Interesting)
On the other hand, we have a myriad of compromised Windows boxes sending out new copies of SoBig.F, and poorly configured corporate mail scanners bouncing them back to their faked addresses. All this adds up to a massive strain on ISP's mail gateways, some of which are going to be used to send spam. I suspect the spam is just being slowed to a crawl by the sheer volume of SoBig.F and normal spam inconvenience levels will be restored soon. My money's on September 10th...
sounds like... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:sounds like... (Score:5, Interesting)
Another strategy might be to bait psychopaths with spam mails "look what this guy sent your momma" then direct them to the spammer's residence.
No wonder... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No wonder... (Score:3, Informative)
The rea
Re:No wonder... (Score:4, Funny)
::::dumb look:::: Wait. Ohhhhhhh. I know what you mean. Somebody's gotta pay the people who stand in line to step up onto the porch where the guy is standing there with his lever to let people fall through the trapdoor when the customer lady conspicuously mouths but does not audibly utter, "No!" with shoulder gesticulations after 200 focus groups have worked on tuning the ad content toward the demographic of people who are in the market to choose their first ISP. You mean like that? :-)
Re:No wonder... (Score:3, Funny)
interesting. I have had a huge decrease in my hotmail account. You must be on a different list.
We just need to find your spammy and cap his butt.
Gott supply your own knobs (Score:5, Funny)
Moron Church (Score:2, Offtopic)
"Hello we're from the Moron church, and we'd like to talk to you about God"
"erm...I'm, ah, not here?"
"Okely dokely, we'll try again later"
"Bloody Morons"
Anything? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hardly. Without violating godwin's law, I can think of lots of ways to stop spam that would be a bad thing. Be careful, this is a slippery slope.
Re:Anything? (Score:5, Insightful)
So it wasn't AOL's spam filter (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not sure about my results (Score:5, Funny)
Related to SoBig perhaps? (Score:5, Insightful)
many people are getting flooded with the crap and where they may just get a few spams and be able to read them, now they are inundated and are trigger happy with the delete key.
Many peoples inboxes are filled and can't accept any e-mail
It also may be that your particular address just happened to be 0wn3d by that particular spammer but not any/many others. There are plenty of other people that are on many other spammers lists.
Re:Related to SoBig perhaps? (Score:5, Interesting)
the "concerned father" (Score:5, Insightful)
Shane Atkinson - whose business is known as spamming - said the barrage of abuse made him worry about the safety of his children.
Given that Mr. Atkinson is a man who sent out a hundred million spam messages a day, for penis enlargement and similarly raunchy BS, I too am worried about the safety of his children... with an amoral sleazebag like him for a father, who knows how his unfortunate progeny might turn out?
I doubt if Mr. Atkinson ever lost sleep over the millions of children whose email inboxes were polluted with his X-rated crap on a daily basis. And yet he tries to pull the "good father" routine. What a joke.
Re:the "concerned father" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:the "concerned father" (Score:2)
Doesn't mean that they should have to suffer further for his inadequacies.
i.e. "My schlong is soooooo huge I tell other people how to make my pindick bigger...I mean theirs, really I'm huge. Really. *sob*"
Just suppose.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Oops. we do that already I think...
Realistically though, is this something the US would want to adopt as a deterent? it seems to me way too open for abuse.
But let's suppose we could do that officially. Who is qualified to offically identify a spammer? How easy is it to detect a specific spammer (in terms of the skills required to get to right) and how easy is it to get the skills you'd need to do that? Not that Congress is going to authorize the establishment of an anti-spam unit...are they?
for what it's worth... (Score:2)
National Newspaper?? (Score:2)
National New Zealand Newspaper?? That's commonly known as a flyer.
Just kidding. I actually know a lot of Kiwis and they're all pretty passionate about whatever they're doing. I'm not surprised at the result.
Re:National Newspaper?? (Score:5, Informative)
I live in NZ and read the original article. + the followups.
The original article was in the national paper The Herald, around two weeks ago. The original article was only a moderatly sized peice at the back of the paper (IT section). The author had simply had enough of the spam and was also worried for his daughters exposure to things such as viagra. So he went about tracking the spammer down. He eventually found him, rang him and organised an interview. Thus the spammers name appeared within the paper and thus harassemnt began.
So then the spammer become worried for his family .
Hate to say it ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why do you hate to say this ? If governments fail to do anything about spammers, possibly because they don't know how, the only option is vigilantism.
If the only way to stop these guys is to put their names in the paper or mention them on television shows, so be it.
Personally I wouldn't mind seeing them being dragged down the street to be tarred and feathered.
Re:Hate to say it ? (Score:3, Insightful)
A number of causes (Score:5, Insightful)
NOT a dupe (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, just after he quit Blaster and SoBig hit the net, so it's more likely that the drop in spam is linked to them, e.g.
NEEDING YOUR IMMEDIATE ATTN PLEASE (Score:5, Funny)
MY NAME IS MOHAMMED YASSIN NGABE CURRENTLY PROVIDING INTERNET SERVICE TO SEVERAL WELL KNOWN SPAMMERS. I KNOW THIS LETTER MIGHT SURPRISE YOU BECAUSE WE HAVE HAD NO PREVIOUS COMMUNICATIONS OR BUSINESS DEALINGS BEFORE NOW.
DUE TO A RECENT UNFORTUNATE INCIDENT INVOLVING A GARDEN WEASEL AND MY LARGE BOWEL, I CAN NO LONGER PROVIDE ACCESS TO THESE UPSTANDING ENTREPENEURS. AS A RESULT I MUST REGRETFULLY DISPOSE MYSELF OF THE SPAMHOSTING BUSINESS AND GIVE THE ADDRESSES AND NAMES OF SEVENTY-TWO (72) SERIAL SPAMMERS TO A WORTHY REPLACEMENT HOST.
DUE TO THE SENSITIVE NATURE OF THESE ADDRESSES, AND THE SENSITIVE NATURE OF THE GROSSLY ENLARGED PENISES OF THE SPAMMERS THEMSELVES, I MUST EXCERCISE THE UTMOST DISCRETION IN GIVING AWAY THESE ADDRESSES.
TO ESTABLISH YOUR GOOD FAITH IN THIS TRANSACTION, YOU MUST FIRST SEND ME YOUR NAME, EMAIL ADDRESS(ES), SHAMPOO BRAND PREFERENCE, AND PENIS SIZE.
KINDLY TREAT THIS REQUEST AS VERY IMPORTANT AND STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. I HONESTLY ASSURE YOU THAT THIS TRANSACTION IS 100% LEGAL AND RISK-FREE.
MOHAMMED YASSIN NGABE, ESQ.
LAGOS, NIGERIA
What we can look forward to now... (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the last week of automated spam from the most popular viruses out there, I'd say we can expect computers to outspam the best spammers. Spammers will write many viruses that send ads to enlarge our penises, and stop popup ads, and then they don't even have to take responsibility.
The smart thing for them to do, since they will be outlaws anyway, is to have OTHER PEOPLE send spam for them.
Enough people are sending "empty" virus messages right now. Just think of the marketing potential if those virus messages contained a payload to send the spammer's material!
Scary.
Might be another reason (Score:5, Insightful)
"correlation does not imply causation"
Just because spam levels went down when this guy said he was getting out of the game does not mean that his departure was the cause.
Hey, I do get fewer. (Score:5, Informative)
Previous week: 210 spams
Previous week: 277 spams
My spam dropped by 35%. Though I can't discount the possibility that it's just the increased virus traffic slowing the rate at which spammers can send their emails.
Don't be so simplistic (Score:3, Insightful)
s/spam/terrorism/
Still agree with this statement?
YRO (Score:5, Funny)
An idea... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have said this before, we have a problem of ethics. Nobody wants to be responsible for what they do. A spammer is more concerned about making money than the inconvenience he causes to millions of people.
My solution is we will have to remove aninimity from the web. Everyone will have to become accountable for what they do.
Re:An idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Be interesting to get geographic map of effects (Score:3, Interesting)
Since the NZ guy got shut down, he's had about 1 spam a day (in Australia, close to NZ). I've been using Mailwasher to bounce all his spam, figuring eventually his email would show up in the spam lists as being dead, and hopefully being removed (other than those lists that don't care who they spam).
So it would be interesting to see if we can get a sense of the list this guy used, based on geographic proximity to NZ. I figured that maybe he was getting his names from closer to home, but I could be wrong.
The spam had so many different email addresses as the reply to field that I wouldn't have thought it all came from one guy!
Quizo69
Re:Be interesting to get geographic map of effects (Score:5, Informative)
Please stop. Bouncing spam after the delivery phase is not only naive and stupid, but it makes the life of innocent third parties harder. The From: line is nearly 100% guaranteed to have absolutely nothing to do with the persons responsible for the spam. In most cases it's a random third party, this is called a "joe job." When it happens to you, you receive thousands and thousands of these idiotic bounces (in addition to thousands of angry replies and "please remove" messages) from clueless mail software and cluless users. All you are doing is adding to the problem by "bouncing" spam. You are not bouncing it, you are just forwarding it to someone else's inbox. The only legitimate bounce that you can do with spam is during the mail delivery phase, before the connection has closed. As soon as the message has been delivered, that's it: either delete it or possibly submit it to a spam corpus, but for heaven's sake don't try sending it back to either the envelope-sender or the From: line, as both of these are spoofed and invalid.
"Bouncing" just adds to the spam problem. Stop.
Ugly but true.... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a pity that there is, as yet, no elegant, widely-known mechanism for finding the people who are the source of spam. God, one of *them* unable to use email without having to learn to use complex filters to get his messages.
I would *pay* to see that.
Spammer agreed to Interview. (Score:4, Informative)
I read the original article and all the followups. The important part here is the spammer in question agreed to being interviewed...
anything - really? (Score:4, Insightful)
So you're saying it'd be OK to murder the spammer too?
Re:anything - really? (Score:4, Interesting)
Let say this spammer sends out a 6 million messages a day, causeing a million people to spend ten seconds deleting the message. That's 416 hours of lost time per day - do that for a year, and it's as if 10 people lost all the time in their natural born lives.
It's it right that he can do this? Ten lives were lost, just spread out over many people.
He'll be back - guaranteed. (Score:3, Insightful)
One guarantee... If there's a profit to be made, people will do anything for a buck..
Hardly vigilantism... (Score:3, Funny)
This is hardly vigilantism - people called to complain (aside from a few kooks who made death threats) about his actions and how it affected them. The spammer realized the error of his ways.
Now, getting a dozen geeks with baseball bats together and beating a few spammers, while fun, would be vigilantism.
Watch the hyperbole (Score:5, Insightful)
Things which would slow down spam, but which most of us would not consider to be "good things.":
Come on, people. Aren't techies, of all people, smart enough to see that "the ends justify the means" is *not* a valid rationale?
Cheers
-b
One down.. about 180 to go.. (Score:5, Informative)
The Register of Known Spam Operations [spamhaus.org] lists nearly two hundred more hard-core spammers, along with everything the anti-spam people have been able to find out about them. Check the list, see if any are in your area, and take whatever action you feel is 'appropriate'.
Maybe not.. (Score:3, Funny)
Shit -- spam is going to get BAD (Score:4, Interesting)
OK this is great news. One weapon that works wonders against spammers is by making them known. The closer you can get to making a spammer walk around his/her neighborhood with the word "SPAMMER" on their foreheads, the better the results.
Eventually, all of these individuals will stop after they meet the fed up people who will threaten bodily harm or worse because of spam.
The world becomes spam free. Being a spammer is just too dangerous. That is, too dangerous for anyone but the mob.
Then we'll be up shit creek.
Spam content dropoff? (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps too much of a bit of wishful thinking there?
No change here (Score:3, Informative)
No dropoff here - how to find perpetrators.. (Score:4, Interesting)
I've done lots of detective forays and unsubscriptions but the spam just keeps coming.
I'm thinking it would be useful if I could forward say a hundred spams to an address which would analyze them with other people's spam and figure out the top targets for detective work. Then when anybody gets enough energy/anger to do some calling around everybody benefits.. a kind of spammer scalping engine.
Wasn't there a story about some guy in Argentina recently? Go for it!
No change here. (Score:4, Informative)
Funnily enough, SpamAssassin is also flagging the Win32/SoBig worm as spam. It's in the DCC (distributed checksum clearinghouse) and has a number of other 'spammy' features, such as obviously forged From: address and malformed datestamps. Not that it'd run on Linux anyway
no change (Score:5, Insightful)
Mail stats in the last 24 hours:
Rejected mail: 5,629
Accepted mail: 2,082
Because of our conservative blacklisting, the RBLs are probably only about 80% effective at best, we still hovered around our usual 28% legitimate mail traffic, verses 72% spam. (This also doesn't include worm messages which wouldn't have been relay-blacklisted so it's likely even worst.) Nothing seems to have changed, or it's not enough to be noticeable.
Everything they say about spam clogging the Internet is true. Based on my own stats, for a server that is generally below the radar running very legitimate web and e-commerce operations and a few select POP3 mailboxes, a vast majority of the bandwidth we use is undesireable crap. Imagine the improved performance of the net if we could actually make a dent in stopping the spamming sleazebags from clogging our pipes!
Finally, a spammer receives customer complaints (Score:4, Interesting)
This got me to thinking. The thing I hate most about spam is that there is no way to contact the seller to let them know you're not interested--ever. When you annoy people and give them no power to respond, they'll eventually come after you and your kids. I'm always amazed to find that spammers don't know that people are angry about their behavior, but I figure they've never heard from someone who they sent a message to.
Maybe they just think their "customers" are the people who give them money ... then what do you even call the people who receive the spam?
I guess I'm also amazed to think that nobody can come up with good legislation. Yes, we should be able to send messages anonymously--including business people--but the limit should be when that correspondence becomes harassment.
It's like if you put a sign in someone's yard--anonymously, without asking--and they tore it down, very few people would compain (at least not vehemently.) If you put ten signs in their yard every day for years, they'd probably kill you if they caught you. Is the answer to make a law banning putting a sign in someone's yard?
So THAT explains it (Score:3, Funny)
Im so used to seeing them flood in, when i DONT get anything
drop off in spam (Score:5, Informative)
Are we saying, beyond the featured shutdown, that SoBig, etc. have actually taken the *spammers* out of commission for awhile -- not only by clogging mail servers, but by infecting and disabling their boxes?
My Spam Stats (Score:5, Informative)
Jul 01, 2003 102
Jul 02, 2003 84
Jul 03, 2003 83
Jul 04, 2003 87
Jul 05, 2003 64
Jul 06, 2003 62
Jul 07, 2003 81
Jul 08, 2003 95
Jul 09, 2003 73
Jul 10, 2003 90
Jul 11, 2003 88
Jul 12, 2003 84
Jul 13, 2003 77
Jul 14, 2003 110
Jul 15, 2003 122
Jul 16, 2003 112
Jul 17, 2003 84
Jul 18, 2003 112
Jul 19, 2003 103
Jul 20, 2003 83
Jul 21, 2003 92
Jul 22, 2003 89
Jul 23, 2003 103
Jul 24, 2003 86
Jul 25, 2003 91
Jul 26, 2003 90
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There's no getting around it -- the quantity of spam that has decreased in the past couple of weeks.
Note that the corpus is my UCE folder for my primary e-mail address. I do not use any RBLs to block, but I do use SpamAssassin to filter, and then I hand-review my UCE folder daily, weeding out viruses and the occasional legitimate message.
-Waldo Jaquith
In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. In order for Slashdot's garbage filter to let this post through, I need this really long line to bring up the average line length. Sorry about that.
the only way to regulate spam (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure spammer can move, but the companies that have the bandwidth to allow people to send out that kind of data are few.
Re:What about ME!!! (Score:2, Funny)
Come to think of it, give me the real email address of a spammer.
You are missing one small thing... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:back to the basics (Score:5, Insightful)
2) Menu's do not contain sexually explicit or illegal scam material.
3) Reading the menu doesn't cause me to be the permanent target of 100 other restaurants.
4) Menu's may even be usefull.
In concept, they are certainly similar, though junk mail is far less annoying. Here in Australia, you can even put a "No Junk Mail" sign on your letterbox - something you cant do for spam.
Re:back to the basics (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anyone protest when the menu guys flood your doorstep? No... What about when Target or some other megaconglomerate sends bs in the mail that you didn't ask for? doubtable. Spam is no different.
No, I don't protest when the menu guys flood my doorstep... but I might if I got 50 - 150 menus/day.
Or I might protest if the junk mail wasn't just menus and credit card solicitations, but porno, confidence scams and penis enlargers.
Or I might protest if sending junk mail was actually illegal, as spam is.
Or I might protest if I had a sign on the mailbox marked "ABSOLUTELY NO JUNK MAIL" and the mailman or flyer guy went ahead and ignored it.
And I'd be especially ticked off if I couldn't protest: if I couldn't trace problematic junk mail back to an actual business or legal entity that could be held somehow accountable.
The list just goes on and on. The differences between spam and junk mail are obvious and have already been discussed extensively in this forum.
Re:back to the basics (Score:3, Insightful)
There are two *huge* differences when it comes to spam:
1) Your local pizza place actually has to spend money on each and every one of those menus they dump on your doorstep, which means that it is in their best interest not to dump 10 copies every day there, unlike some spammers do.
2) And something that is often overlooked in these kind of analogies: There are at best a few hundred businesses within driving distance to your house to which it could make
Re:back to the basics (Score:4, Interesting)
Wrong assertion, businesses aren't alike whatever pro-capitalist people are going to pretend. Selling flowers to the public, for example, doesn't, usually , nurture hate, anger and whatever the spam fashion is brewing these days.
be realistic for a minute here
I'm as realistic as anyone else and personally can't see any facts in your post. Perhaps i should read between the lines or something... ( hmmm wonder what's your day job. )
Does anyone protest when the menu guys flood your doorstep? No...
Wrong again. See that sign on my door. It says NO FSCKIN FLYERS! Better not ask for any reading lessons, i have strong tendency to act violently towards illiterate dumb fscks.
What about when Target or some other megaconglomerate sends bs in the mail that you didn't ask for?
They don't do that anymore. Not in my country. In what country do you live in ? Texas ?
Spam is no different.
Sheesh, this is getting pathetic. Did you ever get 1000+ flyers on your doorstep or in your mail box? I doubt it. It couldn't simply fit or it would be a great risk of fire. Imagine a couple kids passing in front of your house.
Now, if i would be running a business everyone hates and i would be told not to run it anymore by a huge majority of society... I would quit. DUH! So what's your point ? Well, i ain't high tonight and i can say i didn't understand what's the point you are trying to make. Anyways.. It was sure fun to reply.
Re:Leave the spammers alone (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Leave the spammers alone (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, your freedom of expression ends where my property starts. Come to my house and start trying to tell me about my penis, and i'll give you about 10 seconds to get the fudge off my property, and after that you'd better hope i'm a bad shot.
Sounds like somebody's a spammer.
Re:Is Spamming a Spammer Vigilantism? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:he thought his children where in danger?!?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
how dare he endanger his family by doing such
rotten things? Having a family is not a magic
get-out-of-trouble card.