Re: The Roadie's Manifesto

Roadie, with all respect, I have to say that you did not read or understand half of my post and got the tome all wrong. I have no evidence to back up certain claims you asked proof for. I have been on the internet since 1997 doing bueinsess and as a sufer. I can tell you that when you coax a spammer, they can get really nasty. I am a member of about 40 or 50 different forums/BBs. I have seen many a spammer get invited to argue their spam posts and ended up that they just bombarded the forum even more. I saw in one instance where it was concluded that the SPAMmer was responsible for hacking into the site where he was ridiculed. Spammers are essentially crininals that hide behind a computer. Since it is easy for them to hide, they tend to get nasty with you if you get nasty with them. But you do not have to believe me. You're not the only one here with experience on the net. I have been there, done that. I know the ins and outs.

Also you say that junk mail is not like SPAM as the junk mailer must invest money in order to send junk mail. Just because you do not get junk mail for a pizza parlor in Siberia it does not mean that junk mail is not like SPAM. Furthermore, SPAMers DO, in fact, invest money in sending out junk emails (SPAM). They must invest money in servers and other technologies in order to actually be successful at SPAMming. You cannot send SPAM for very long if you are using someone else's server as you will get shut down in minutes if not a ferw hours. If SPAMming cost no money then there would be much more SPAM than there is not, if you can believe that.

I loosly eluded to it before and I will try again. the fact taht SPAM and junk mail STILL exist is really no fault of anyone but the average consumer who actually spends their money on products advertised through SPAM emails.

As far as pointing out the SPAM is TMed. Thanks, but that is highly irrelevent.
i don;t care if it's copyrighted. Get Hormel's legal department to hunt me dwn ans send me a C&D letter if it bothers you that horribly.

BTW, I am not defending spammers. I hate SPAM and the people who send it. But it is time to look at it more realistically. Commercial SPAM is not murder.
Commercial SPAM is not burglary. Commercial SPAM is not rape. You are comparing apples to oranges. SPAM is abig problem, but let's face it, email is cheap if not free. You get what you pay for.

> Nonsense. Unless you're in bed with spammers, you have no data on this
> claim. And it's inconsistent with your next claim that they use automated
> posting software. Which is it?

As far as you asking about 'which is it?" when reading my post. It is both. SPAMmers DO submit in bulk so they never see that one forum chose to ridicule his posting. BUT when soemone like you comes along and brings it to their attention then they do find out and this can cause way more serious a problem then the SPAM itself ever would have cause had it simply been deleted.

I do admire your willingness to get the bad guy as well as ducating folks on SPAM but the fact is, I've been there done that too. I used to post tutorials on how to tell a spoof email from a real one. I used to psot it to all the posts I saw where someone was aking if the email was a spoof or not. Needless to say, no one really wanted to learn how to protect themselves. All they wanted to do was keep posting the same question over and over and gettin gthe same response. I admit, learning how to spot a spoof email has a little bit of a lerning curve for folks who know nothing about domains and hosting, but I cannot babysit these folks anymore. You help them and they do not want help. htey jsut want the answers and they want to task tthe same question over and over. they want you to go through their email box and thell them what is a spoof and what is not a spoof. They care not to learn how to spot it themsleves. Oh well. Who has time for that?! You simpl;y cannot baby sit folks all the time. Sometimes you have to learn things for yourself. All I can do is provide the info. It is up to the individual to learn from that info.

Good luck.

> All it takes for evil to prevail is for good people to stand by and do
> nothing.

> Neither are other forms of crime. Want to ignore them, too? Is that good
> advice on how to live one's life?

> This is just plain wrong. Bulk postal mail way be unwanted, but its entire
> cost of production and delivery is paid for by the sender. About all you
> can say costs the recipient is the cost of disposal, but the postal
> service has effective ways to prevent its delivery if you fill out the
> right form.

> The economics of bulk postal mail make sure that pizza parlors in Peoria
> don't send you snail-mail in Sacramento, for instance.

> Perhaps not. Burglary, for instance, is still with us. But we can make
> life uncomfortable for a few spammers, drive the marginal ones out of
> business because they lose money, and then the professionals can be
> prosecuted with the few legal tools out there.

> Good news recently: http://wcco.com/topstories/local_story_140164414.html

> True. Stupid people continue to breed.

> If I owned a company I would fire anyone caught using corporate computers
> to buy anything advertised in spam.

> You keep confusing spam with junk mail. Why? (And SPAM [all CAPS] is a
> registered trademark of the Hormel corp. Please don't use the word spelled
> that way to describe unsolicited commercial email.)

> OK. Maamaw uses one way to protect against spam, and that's to
> aggressively defend her property rights by increasing the spammer's cost
> of hitting this board. That's to cost the spammer their web site or ISP
> connection used to post the spam ad here. I'm her volunteer tool to
> accomplish that purpose.

> Are you trying to dictate the way we choose to fight spam?

> The "forum" doesn't waste time. It's a community of individuals.
> My hobby, and sometimes it pays off, is to track, embarass, and sanction
> spammers.

> Your mileage may vary. A lot of messages get deleted and never get seen.
> Others bounce off Maamaw's filters and don't even make it to the board.
> What shows up is only the tip of the iceberg. Unless you own a board or
> are spamming them, I'm not sure you understand the magnitude of the
> threat.

> My credentials include ten years tracking spammers, taking to a hundred or
> more of them on the phone, costing them thousands of sites and email
> accounts, and lurking on some of their little spammer message forums.

> Thank you for telling me they do it for the thrill of annoying us and not
> for beer money.

> They do, eh? Who's "they". Names, please. Robert Alan Soloway is
> the only one who comes to mind. And he just lost over $7M in a judgement
> that went Microsoft's way. What a loser.

> Oh, you're just guessing now.

> So would we, but I think we're not just going to roll over and admit
> defeat in the face of the spammer threat. If they understand it's
> dangerous to spam this forum, they can tell their friends and stay the
> heck away.

> Evidence, please?

> So how do we express our displeasure except by costing them their web
> sites? That's a message they can't ignore. :-)

> Maamaw will read your vote, I'm sure.

> Speak for yourself. I have a budgeted amount of time and money I can spend
> on the spammer problem. Until I run out, I go where the spammers are and
> track 'em. If Maamaw wants me to leave her flock unguarded and take her
> chances with the wolves, she'll tell me. If I'm changing the nature and
> focus of the forum in ways she decides are distracting, I can go
> elsewhere.