Motorola Sues Over Pager Spam

erroneus writes "There's been a lot of talk about pager spamming. I've got to hand it to the spammers. Their combination of low conscience and creativity makes them the continual annoyances they are today. But many people are charged for each page they recieve. " Update: 07/10 06:22 PM by H : I apologize to the people who were mislead about by the summary - I had assumed that it read one way, and did not. Here's a summary from nategasser: "...when in fact they're sending regular email offering an off-brand pager and calling it a Motorola."

Comments

I've seen SMS spam too

[WeirdKid]

That stinks -- people are also charges 2 cents or so for each incoming SMS message on their phones.

Re:I've seen SMS spam too

[kilgore_47]

I've never heard of sending spam directly to pagers, though I don't doubt that it could happen. The ZD article, however, is about good old fashion email spam that is about a free pager offer. The /. blurb makes it sound like the spam is sent to pagers (But many people are charged for each page they recieve.) but thats not what the story is about! For those too lazy to read the link (ie hemos perhaps?) the lawsuit is regarding "free motorola pagers" that are not actually made by motorola.

___

Re:I've seen SMS spam too

[iso]

Yep, the writeup is completely wrong. Look at it again. The username who submitted it is "erroneus." That's awfully close to the word "erroneous" which of course means: "containing or characterized by error."

I think this story may be a troll, and if it is it's a pretty good one! :)

- j

Re:I've seen SMS spam too

[dubl-u]

I think this story may be a troll, and if it is it's a pretty good one! :)

Not a bad theory. I note that the story is more than a month old, too, which would explain why the troll submission wasn't balanced with better ones.

This is news? How?

[twoflower]

ZD's article is fluff. The story above contains no information. How is this news?

Twoflower


--

Spam in the place where I live...

[kypper]

Spam at home...

Weird Al said it best: Spam is everywhere :op

It's nice to see companies standing up for this, though it's obviously for their own interests.

Screw 3...

Re:Spam in the place where I live...

[CheechBG]

Now face Bill
Think about his direction, wonder why he made Windows at all
Spam in the place where you were
Now face down
Think about your pager, and the asshole that is spamming you
Now spam.......

I'm sorry, complete spur of the moment thing :)
to be sung to REM's Stand

Go MOT!

[cetan]

Good for them. Sue those bastards back to the stone-age.

As for spam, I go and read the ZDNet article and then hit "back" on my browser...what pops up but a FULL page browser window ad. A whole new browser for a single ad served up from ZDNet. How ironic is that?

Re:Go MOT!

[AnonymousComrade]

The Proxomitron will prevent that (and a lot of other ad annoyances as well).

Re:Go MOT!

[ahrenritter]

I use AdSubtract, and I'm very happy with it. They have a free and a "pro" version, and it is good at knocking out popups and banner ads..

International

[MC68040]

It'd be fun to see how motorola (add many other companys to this) would handle this with international cases? - For an example, where I live, in Sweden, many forms of "mass messaging" (e.g. SPAM) recently got allowed because of a new law, making it impossibile to sue many persons over here. I'm not educated in law or anything, but how would a company like motorola handle that? /040

Re:International

[Black Parrot]

> It'd be fun to see how motorola (add many other companys to this) would handle this with international cases?

Exactly half the spam I get is from .tw -- and about half of that is in a language I can't even read.

If I bust a USA spam source with spamcop I generally never hear from them again, but when I bust .tw sources it doesn't slow it down in the least. I assume the upper-level ISPs over there think spam is cool.

At any rate, I'm sure there will be laws passed against it in some countries, but the spammers will just migrate to spam havens and keep on spamming away. (Maybe we'll get a SeaLand-like spam haven with its own domain? Is .sh, "SpamHaven", already taken?)

All that to the side, I really don't understand spammers. Most of them act like they are more interested in annoying you than they are in selling their products. Maybe it's just a special style of trolling?

--

Re:International

[sacherjj]

Maybe we'll get a SeaLand-like spam haven with its own domain? Is .sh, "SpamHaven", already taken?

That would be great. If I could just filter all mail originating from an ".sh" domain, all my problems would be solved... :)

Re:International

[AnalogBoy]

According to spam laws of various states, including California, Colorado, Tennessee, and to some extent Pennsylvania, all spam covered under their jurisdiction must contain the letters "ADV" in the subject line. I've seen quite a few "ADV" tags, and it makes it a lot easier to filter e-mail.


Slashdot something useful.
Management is not a tunable parameter.

Makes sense

[Blue Aardvark House]

Since a lot of people pay per message on their pagers, pager spam is one of the few, if any other ways that spam causes the recipient to incur cost of receiving spam.

Rant at will about "free speech", but this certainly isn't free.

Re:Makes sense

[tomk]

Not true. Many forms of spam pass the cost on to the innocent "spammee". For instance, email spam places a burden on network infrastructure, and increases the required size of email inboxes. The cost for this is then passed on to the consumer via increasing cost for ISPs.

The best way to combat these types of spam is to shift the cost of spamming onto the spammer. For instance, charge people who send the pages, rather than those who receive them (perhaps allow some number of "free" pages per month from each originating phone number). Charge those who send emails, based on the volume of email sent. Again, have a maximum "free" amount of email that can be sent before being charged for it.

In fact, if costs of spamming could all be shifted to the spammers, then the revenue from that could be used to provide "normal" users with the free (gratis) services that they've come to expect from the internet economy, at the expense of having to deal with increased targeted advertising. Think of over-the-air TV, where the advertisers foot the whole bill.. The same thing could be done with email, pages, etc..
-TomK

Re:Makes sense

[gavinhall]

Posted by polar_bear:

Actually, SPAM doesn't fall under the protection of the first amendment. Sure, they have a right to talk about their products or whatever, but they don't have a right to force you to listen - which is what they do when they send unsolicited email.

I am 100% sure that the people who framed the Constitution were not in the least concerned with protecting these pricks. As far as I'm concerned, spammers are just one rung above child molesters and one rung below drunk drivers on the moral ladder. If Dante were alive today he would have added an extra layer to Hell just for spammers...

Re:Makes sense

[Mynn]

The best way to combat these types of spam is to shift the cost of spamming onto the spammer. ... Charge those who send emails, based on the volume of email sent. Again, have a maximum "free" amount of email that can be sent before being charged for it.

The problem is finding those who send the emails. A lot of folks bounce them through open relays, using web-based mail systems that are never necessarily seen by an ISP. Who charges them... the ISP who magically "sees" email going out via a web-based service? Or do they simply sit at the recieving ISP or hosting company until the bill has been paid?



-Mynn the Museless

Re:Makes sense

[BlowCat]

Sure, they have a right to talk about their products.

They are talking not about their products. They are talking about Motorola products. And they are lying. That's why Motorola sues them.

Next time please read the article more carefully. General reasoning about spam doesn't apply well to this situation.

Re:Makes sense

[anothy]

that's not quite acurate. first of all, remember that loads of people still have per-minute charges on net connections, either through their provider, like AOL, or via telephone charges. that's a direct cost. also, keep in mind that this method is the only real option in many parts of the world outside the U.S. - again, a very real, direct cost. another direct cost - although a much smaller one - is the storage of that email on my system. this is generally neglegable and recoverable, but i've worked in environments where everything is backed up permenantly to WORM media. that's a direct, tangible cost in terms of a used-up resource.
also, in cases where the cost of spam isn't directly on my shoulders - such as when my ISP bears it by way of providing the bandwidth or storage, don't think for a second they're not passing that cost on to the end user.
for even less direct costs, there's the issue of my time.

so no, i'm afraid pager spam isn't the only spam with direct end-user costs; it's just more easialy aparent.

Re:Makes sense

[mmol_6453]

He wasn't talking about the article specifically...He was speaking in a broader sense describing spam in general.

But there's still a flaw. In my experience (of having read some of the spam I receive) spammers don't actually make (or even sell) products. They just advertise. I often see multiple products (or types of products (or manufacturers)) in a single message.

That suggests that someone's advertising "CHEAP Advertising! Reach over One MILLION POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS each DAY!" ... I've seen taglines like that at the end of some spam messages.

Re:Makes sense

[Rudeboy777]

A much more obvious place to identify a user's "cost of spam" is fax spam that costs you or your company paper and ink.

I work at a small software dev office and our fax machine receives 6-8 pieces per day (this is in Markham, Ontario - I don't know if there's more stringent fax-spam laws in the U.S. or abroad).

Re:Makes sense

[connorbd]

The US has junk fax laws. I was under the vague impression that spam comes under those, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

/Brian

Make Money Faster Than God

[LaNMaN2000]

SUE THE SPAMMERS! Then, send $1 to each of the last 6 people who did the same, append your name to the bottom of the list, and send away.

Re:Make Money Faster Than God

[withak53]

Better yet, Spammers the Spammers. We don't have to roll over and take their abuse. If you can find a valid email address for a Spammer (easier said then done) setup a cron job to email that person their own ads. Over time the individuals influence would lessen, due to filtering, but if we all stand up (and maybe spoof a bit) then we can make an impact. Who says vigilante justice is out of style?

Re:Make Money Faster Than God

[withak53]

Everyone who sends email has email.
Granted, their's appears to be
LLIIQQQUUIIIDDD VVVIIIAAGGGRRRAAA@hotmail.com
But if they direct you to a website, which is
often the case, then that web site has an email.

Send it to the basic addresses.
webmaster@blank.com, and so on.

Just filter out the bounce backs.
Heck you could send an email to every word/name combination until you got one through.

Some people might call that excessive though.

Spamming is not the main problem here

[b1t r0t]

The problem is that the spammers claimed to be offering Motorola pagers when they weren't. The main problem in this case seems to be misuse of trademarks and (not surprisingly for spammers) fradulent misrepresentation of what they were offering. But I do hope Moto puts the hammer down nice and hard on these cockroaches of the internet.

Hmmm...

[zpengo]

How exactly can Motorola sue because of it?

If unsolicited SMS messages are illegal, does that mean we have to call someone to ask their permission to send them a text message?

Re:Hmmm...

[Amokscience]

You might try *reading the article link*. Slashdot editors and submitter comments are *NOT* to be trusted.

You would see that the primary reason is that they say they are offering T-10 pagers but are, in fact, not. Also this apparently has been ongoing since before February. Additionally the company is ignoring opt-out requests.

Re:Hmmm...

[mmol_6453]

This makes me wonder:

If we make unsolicited email illegal, why not make unsolicited SMS messages illegal?
If we make unsolicited SMS messeges illegal, why not make unsolicited pages illegal?
Why not advance on to unsolicited voice mail?
How about unsolicited phone calls?
Unsolicited mail?

OK... now we've covered nearly all forms of communication. Let's head back the other way.

It is against the law to withhold a persons mail. (In the US.) Including unsolicited mail.

By that token, should it be unlawful to withhold a person's phone calls?
What about voicemail?
Pages?
SMS messages?
...email?

If the US courts behave liked their theory implies (act on precedent), we have a couple of results:

A) It will be illegal to withhold a person's sent mail because it would be withholding some other person's email.
B) (This one's chancy) It will be illegal to ban the sending of any email, because to ban the creation of an email message which would have been created had it not been banned is the same as withholding the receiver's email because the email would have been received otherwise.

Folks, I don't think this can be Justly(C 1789 US of A) resolved.
And it certainly can't be resolved while there are political borders. What's banned in one country isn't necessarily banned in another.

Re:Hmmm...

[GreyPoopon]

It is against the law to withhold a persons mail. (In the US.) Including unsolicited mail.

By that token, should it be unlawful to withhold a person's phone calls?
What about voicemail?
Pages?
SMS messages?
...email?

If the US courts behave liked their theory implies (act on precedent), we have a couple of results:

A) It will be illegal to withhold a person's sent mail because it would be withholding some other person's email.
B) (This one's chancy) It will be illegal to ban the sending of any email, because to ban the creation of an email message which would have been created had it not been banned is the same as withholding the receiver's email because the email would have been received otherwise.

Bear in mind that this law you are stating applies only to mail through the US Postal Service, which is a branch of the federal government. Interfering with the USPS is a federal offense. The same is not true with email. Email is distributed by private companies, government agencies and universities. It is not illegal, nor is is likely to become illegal, to ban sending of any email or to withhold email.

GreyPoopon
--

This is about email spam

[StormCrow]

I didn't read anything in the linked article about people spamming pagers. The article seems to be about Motorla suing a company that was email spamming people claiming to give away Motorola pager, when they were really giving away a different (inferior) brand. It appears the lawsuit is more about false advertizing and trademark dillution than the actual spam.

Re:This is about email spam

[why-is-it]

What? You mean people posted on /. without reading the article?

There is a first time for everything, I suppose.

Ummm...

[Chris Parrinello]

You realize that the article is about a company spamming people (via EMAIL) to get them to BUY their service and get a free Motorola pager.

This has nothing to do with spam sent via pager or SMS.

I won't even go into the fact that the article is a month old.

Pricing model.

[Matt2000]

Am I the only one that thinks perhaps the problem is not with the spammers, but with the pricing model that allows them to flourish?

When I call someone long distance, I pay for the call, so that's why I don't call people I don't know. Otherwise I could pick some dude in Taiwan and bankrupt him in a matter of days.

Why doesn't Motorola stop talking to their lawyers and sort out some pricing that makes sense.

Re:Pricing model.

[kfg]

Redundant? This post is both unique, and thus, by definition NOT redundant, and, more to the point, hits the nail on the head.

The gentleman is insightful.

KFG

Re:Pricing model.

[kfg]

On the contrary I read the article. I always read the article before I post.

I still maintain the original poster was NOT redundant. Redundancy implies *duplication.* The post in question was, as I stated, unique and thus, by definition, not redundant.

Perhaps you might consider him offtopic. Had he been modded as such I might not have responded.

Redundant OR offtopic he was STILL insightful. It is a pricing structure that makes the receiver pay for calls that allows the spamer to operate at a profit. This applies to the current issue even though it is not the spaming itself that the outfit in question is being sued for, and thus I personally do not believe it was offtopic either.

P.S. My bretheren and I do not typically get marked redundant or flamebait, ( although I don't know what relevance flamebait has to redundency), which you would know if you had " read the article."

Or a dictionary.

KFG

KFG

Bogus headline, bogus writeup

[dillon_rinker]

This would be better titled "Motorola sues over trademark violation." The fact that the ad was sent via pager is totally irrelevant. The fact that the ad said they were offering a Motorola T-10 pager, when in fact they were not, is the reason Motorola was suing.

Re:Bogus headline, bogus writeup

[_xeno_]

Actually, the ad was sent via e-mail, which means that this is in the right topic, at least...

According to the article, people tried to opt-out of the e-mail list, and (surprise surprise) weren't, and then started e-mailing Motorola to complain.

Motorla is also apparently trying to sue the Florida-based spammers via "unsolicited e-mail statutes" as well as trademark infringement.

So yeah, the article and headline are completely misleading, although in the strictest sense "Pager Spam" is accurate, as it was spam regarding pagers...

--

Re:Bogus headline, bogus writeup

[AtariDatacenter]

"Pager SCAM" would have been more accurate.

Sweet Jesus

[sllort]

"The Glenayre pagers, some of which were actually sent to those who responded to the e-mail, have some similarities to the Motorola T-10. They are both two-way pagers, and the Glenayre pager uses some Motorola software."

This is the longest running problem with spam. It actually works! How do you explain that?

"Hey, check out my new pager, I bought it from a spammer".

Who are these people?

Get the article synopsis right, will ya?

[seigniory]

It would be nice if the article was about people spamming pagers, but it's NOT - IT'S ABOUT PEOPLE SENDING SPAM OFFERING FREE MOTOROLA PAGERS

Can I sue /. for my wasted time because article descriptions don't match up the the articles they link to? It gets really frustrating.

Re:Get the article synopsis right, will ya?

[don_carnage]

Wouldn't it be great if this article was about how to hack a toaster so that it could spam text pagers on a certain frequency? That would be a good read. Aside from the FCC violations that is.

--

Re:Get the article synopsis right, will ya?

[Smallest]

RTFA

the atricle does not say "Motorola sues because spam is bad". it says "Motorola Sues Over Pager Spam". this is accurate - they are because the spam is misleading.

no more coffee for you

-c

Come on people

[Zaknafein500]

I've heard complaints about the editorial staff getting lazy...this proves it. The article (which I remember reading on News.com when it was first posted more than a month ago) is about a company falsely advertising a Motorola pager. Do the editors even look at the articles to make sure that they pertain to what they person was talking about?

Re:Come on people

[Erasmus Darwin]

Do the editors even look at the articles to make sure that they pertain to what they person was talking about?

Let's not forget the submitter's culpability in all this. Slashdot editors have a multitude of stories to deal with. This submitter had only one submission to worry about, but managed to still completely fuck it up. The only thing I can think of is that the submitter was desperately watching news sites for Slashdot-themed news, and didn't want to miss out on the chance of being first submitter by wasting the time necessary to actually read the article.

Re:Come on people

[cruelworld]

Your full time job involves posting 20 stories per day and you're telling me you're too busy to verify them?

I'm assuming you work for a union?

Re:Come on people

[enneff]

"Slashdot editors have a multitude of stories to deal with."

Yeah, well they're not exactly editors if they don't edit anything, are they?

Re:Come on people

[Erasmus Darwin]

Your full time job involves posting 20 stories per day and you're telling me you're too busy to verify them?

Let's not forget the time they spend doing important stuff, like deciding whether or not CowboyNeal should be an answer in the latest poll.

Seriously, I seem to recall CmdrTaco mentioning that he spends something like half of each day just responding to all the email he gets. While he probably gets the most, being the most prominent figure on the site, it does seem that there's more to being a Slashdot editor than just posting front-page stories. There's also the stories on the other pages, the numerous rejected submissions (how many times have we seen a story posted with the comment that it's being posted primarily to stop the flood of submissions?), finding people for interviews, and deciding when and which stories to run (which requires coordination between different people, resulting in some overhead). Short of a "day in the life of a Slashdot editor" series, I'd be hard-pressed to come up with what else they do, but I don't think they sit around at the office all day getting drunk. Then again, maybe they do, and they've discovered a really sweet gig where they put in a minimal amount of effort and get paid for it.

But overall, I'm not denying that they had a hand in the matter. It's kind of like when you see a troll post moderated up to +5. It's the fault of both the poster and the moderators. But under these circumstances, I've never seen anyone complain about the submitters' incompetence.

New SPAM!!

[ageitgey]

Recently seen on website banner:

"Punch the moving slashdot editor and win $20*"

*There is no slashdot editor

Re:New SPAM!!

[AtariDatacenter]

Well, the write-up "But many people are charged for each page they recieve." Makes sense if people received the pager scam spam on their pager, but it still doesn't explain the "combination of low conscience and creativity".

But this kind of really forces the issue. Is someone drunk behind the wheel of Slashdot?

Re:New SPAM!!

[ethereal]

Here's why: everything in italic type, like this, was written by the original submitter. Everything in normal type was written by a /. editor. For this story, there was no editorial comment.

/.'s editing has some problems, but you can't lay this one at their doorstep :)

Old news, kind of

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I can't say too many details. But, it involved 3 people 5 years ago and and toneloc. (A DOS based wardialer).

Accept, they where not using this to spam ads to people, but more to get them to call enemys. These people where able to keep the local pizza huts phones busy all day long. Making it impossiable for customers to order. In time, they where forced to close down.

This went on for many many months. Many bussiness where forced to shutdown, MANY people simply disconnected there phones perminatly (even to this day! :)

This people also thought about advertising some of there website, but feared a connection. So, they started spamming porn sites for some very nasty things.

Also, remeber, back then alpha numeric pagers where much more expensive then today. $200 for the pager, ~$60/month. Most pagers didn't have 800 numbers for operator dispatch, they used a computer and a "special program" to connect to it. It is as easy as connecting with 1200 bps and sending some simple strings.

Today, its much easier ... becuase you can use websites to send the pages :)

Look how easy spam is to stop everywhere but here!

[Crewd]

Let's take a look at some of the more recent articles on spam, and the editors commentary.

Web-Based Emailers That Allow an Access List?
Here Cliff writes :
"It seems like this would be a fairly easy thing to implement, I mean, how difficult would it be to stick a web interface in front of procmail? Does your e-mail web-based service do this? Maybe it's time to start sending some polite emails encouraging them to do so, if they aren't."

Maybe we should send some polite emails to the slashdot staff asking for filters?


Senator Says Spammers Have First-Amendment Rights
Commentary by CmdrTaco:
"...Spammers take away my property and happiness. Isn't that a right too? And opt-out is a joke. I've opted out of countless things, but I still get a hundred+ spams a day. Thank god for mail filters."

Wouldn't it be nice to have slashdot filters?


When Spammers Use YOUR E-Mail Address?
Cliff again:
"SPAM is one thing, but cowardly spammers who have to use someone else's address for their crap advertisements is something else. What can one do in this situation?"

Sounds sorta like what happens around here. Cowardly spammers posting to a public forum. What can one do in this situation? Add filters!


Buried in email?
CmdrTaco again:
"Filtering my mail is the only thing that makes reading my email possible."

Boy, he sure loves those filters. We'd like to use them here also!


To sum things up, how about some filters? I sure would like to ditch anything I personally find offensive.

Pager forwarding

[mr100percent]

The pager spam adds up, especially if you have AOL Mail controls set to forward your AOL mail to you. I do the same with outlook express, and a filter of if each message is 1k.

However, I still get "Check out Britney Spears and Natalie Portman making out XXX!" in my pager sometimes. Very annoying, as well as pushes me over the char limit sometimes.

Re:Pager forwarding

[lizrd]

This is easy enough to fix. Just set your rules to only forward messages "Sent directly to me" which is Microsoft speak for has my e-mail address on the To: line. This eliminates the vast majority of non-important mail (spam, list-servs, customer courtesy messages and so forth) from being forwarded to your pager or SMS phone.

In other news: Why is it though to be user friendly to use euphamisms? It it really easier for people to understand "Sent directly to me" than "has my address on the To: line"? Can anyone tell me what system resources are? I have a vauge idea that it has something to do with free RAM but the documentation for MS Resource Monitor never specifies exactly what it is...

________________________

Re:Pager forwarding

[Tackhead]

> I still get "Check out Britney Spears and Natalie Portman making out XXX!" in my pager sometimes.

"How they got into my pager, I'll never know."
- With apologies to Groucho Marx.

Re:Pager forwarding

[shyster]

Can anyone tell me what system resources are? I have a vauge idea that it has something to do with free RAM but the documentation for MS Resource Monitor never specifies exactly what it is...

Actually, it has nothing to do with free RAM. It's a combination of the GDI and User heaps, and System Resources is just the lower of the 2 (the Resource Monitor will show values of all 3, the Performance tab of the System Control Applet shows the lowest value of GDI and User as System Resources % free).

So, what's GDI and User resources, you ask? Here's a brief rundown.

The GDI (graphical device interface) heap is basically a space in memory to be used for graphic elements (cursors, bitmaps, icons, etc). The User heap is for window placement, keybd and mouse interactions, etc. Check references for more info, especially the Technet article here (it's about Win 3.x, but applies equally, except for the space limitations).

The GDI and User heaps are left overs for backward compatibility with Win 3.x, which is why the NT line doesn't have to deal with this crap. Win9x, however, did increase the sizes of the heaps to 32-bits, as opposed to 16-bit, and also increased the number of heaps. So, Win9x has 1 16-bit (64K) User heap and 1 64K GDI heap, and 2 32-bit (2MB) User heaps and 1 32-bit GDI heap. Win 3.0 had 2 16-bit heaps, Win 3.1 had 4 16-bit heaps, 3 User and 1 GDI).

And, of course, they also upped the limits on a few other things as well.

Just FYI, more RAM does not increase system resources. Only another OS (including NT/2000) will be able to do away with those limitations (or open-source code).

References: PCForrest, Adobe TechDoc, and there's a Technet article explaining it all as well, but I'll be damned if I can find it. You can try if you like.

Slashdot readers sue over bogus bullshit "news"

[duffbeer703]

Story at 11

Did you notice

[pokrefke]

that the topic of the Slashdot story was the same as the title of the cnet story? The /. editors didn't screw this one up, they just copied and pasted another person's mistake

Re:Did you notice

[Hieronymus Howard]

No, I disagree. The /. editors screwed up by not reading the fscking article that they were posting. Even someone as clueless as a /. editor should have noticed that it's about email spam not pager spam.

I've given up submitting stories to /. They ignore lots of good stories and then post something as stupid as this.

HH

Basis for a Law Suit...

[NetCurl]

The story just posted here on Slashdot yesterday about a guy running RC-5 and getting sued for bandwidth usage may apply to Spammers. What if ISPs sued spammers for the cost of the bandwidth wasted on the frivelous email crap sent to millions of their users. I hope the guy in Georgia doesn't get punished, but if it goes through it could be applicable to anything people don't want on their network...like Spam.

Just delete yourself

[employee No.466351]

Congratulations AC, you are the first moron to bring up the same pro-spam arguments (just hit delete, spam is free speech) that have been debated and debunked in every single spam discusion.

if users pay spam won't last

[__aavonx8281]

One reason junk faxing was outlawed was that it cost the end users money to recieve the junk faxes. I'm sure laws of this nature will set a precedent for spam over pagers or wireless messenging.

Re:if users pay spam won't last

[B.D.Mills]

Sending advertising to mobile phones, pagers and other similar devices is already illegal. It's included in the same law that prohibits junk faxes. If you receive one, ka-ching! you can sue for $500.
--

Hemos, do you think you could read the articles?

[trcooper]

Would it be too much for a slashdot edit^h^h^h^h babysitter, to actually read the submitted articles and see if they make sense. For the uninformed, the article is about an email sent out to people offering a free pager which is billed as a Motorola (but is not), not messages sent out to people over pagers.

Beyond that, how could anyone believe Motorola would sue someone for using their pagers? They're equipment manufacturers, not service providers. Duh.

I can hear slashdot getting stupider...

Re:Hemos, do you think you could read the articles

[SpinyNorman]

Would I pay for "content" like this? No.

Re:Just hit delete

[TomRitchford]

Works for me. Plus, here in the US, spam is protected speech. If we stop spam, it will just be the start of banning all speech. We should not stand by and watch Motorola wipe out our rights. Plus, how are people going to know what new products are available to them with out ads? The economy is having a hard enough time with out regulating how companies can advertise and generate new revenue streams.

That was probably a troll but...

commercial speech is NOT protected in the US. you have a right to free speech, not to advertise your products. There are many laws which reflect this fact, eg, the anti-junk-fax laws.

If they really need to have us hear about their new product, they can pay to mail us stuff, they can pay to advertise on a TV program or newspaper or website, but they have no right to send us postage-due advertising for free like junk email, junk faxes or junk pages.

Submitter's name says it all

[archaism]

Folks, how can you expect an on-topic writeup when the story is submitted by somebody whose chosen nick is a misspelling of a word meaning "wrong". The very universe would break if that blurb had been factual.

Don't forget to indict authors of bulkmailer SW.

[Anonymous Coward]

If gun makers can get sued and lose for what people do with their "designed to kill" product, then authors of bulk mailer software are as guilty as the spammers themselves, yes? Rootkits, bulkmailers, I see no difference here.

Re:fry em all...

[TomRitchford]

now if i can only do something about first financial bank calling me every night to offer me a credit card that i don't want, even after repeated requests by me to put me on their do not call list.

in the US, you can sue them in small claims court for a few hundred bucks per call if you keep believable records.

before that law, I used to insist upon talking to the manager, and them tell him that the next time I got calls from them I'd sue for criminal harrassment and put his name in the complaint. worked like a charm every time.

opt-out doesn't work???

[whizzard]

Consumers worldwide received the mailings even after they attempted to opt out by replying with the word "remove" in the subject line of the e-mail, according to the lawsuit.

This can't be! We all know that opt-out works perfectly, and that those nice, friendly spammers always honor remove requests.

Re:opt-out doesn't work???

[AtariDatacenter]

And they NEVER record the lists of people who request to opt-out as people who read their email and, are therefore, good people to send spam to.

Re:opt-out doesn't work???

[shogun]

The return address is always faked anyway, so the remove-reply offer at the bottom is somewhat pointless..

Re:Seems rather strange

[spectecjr]

Instead you should be angry about the fact that the government has beaten down your wages by giving your job to a foreiger with a HB12 Visa

Actually, it's an H1-B Visa, and I'm really happy to have one - AND be earning a SHITLOAD more than you thankyouverymuch.

Simon

no really...

[jlb]

but what about FREE SPEECH? :)

--

Not sued over spam!

[www.sorehands.com]

The linked article is about trademark violation. If the spammer was sending out Motorola pagers, Motorola would have no case. In addition, Motorola has no standing to sue for spam sent to others ( unless it goes through their system or is represented as comming from them). Its legal, and proper, to use a trademark to identify a product or a service. Just like suck sites, XXsucks.com is proper use of XX because they are the ones who suck.

Spamcop

[Scorchmon]

Spamcop.net is your friend.

And now for something relevant...

[Bocaj]

I don't like getting pages that arn't important, be it spam, wrong numbers, anoying friends. I did see a pager services a while back that you didn't have to pay for. I gave you a 900 number, and the caller had to pay something like $.25us to page you. Now that I like. If your serious about getting in touch with me right now, you'll pay. Any seen this service latly?

-Jacob

Re:Look how easy spam is to stop everywhere but he

[fliplap]

Hrm ok. First off you can filter out articles on topics you don't like. Second you can filter articles by score. Not that many people actually spam on slashdot, and the ones that do get modded lower than a limbo stick at carnival time (quote hermes conrad). I really don't think slashdot needs filters, and unlike email or pager spamming, no one is pushing thier opinions or ads into your personal mailbox, you have the option of not reading slashdot anymore if you don't like the opinions of people here.

Please hire a proofreader.

[AtariDatacenter]

If there is just *one* thing that I would ask of Slashdot (and yes, maybe even pay a "subscription" for) is a proofreader.

Just a single person. Their entire job is to simply run a posting through a spell-checker/grammar-checker, and look for glaring problems. The proofreader would also read the linked-to article and make sure that the story jives with it.

This is a simple low-pay position that I'm sure VA Linux can afford, and would help protect the reputation of their Slashdot property. Minimum wage. Maybe someone with a degree in English. Probably dozens of those lying around your local bookstore.

There may be precedent now

[Ratteau]

Maybe guns are not the right analogy...

Bulk email software : spam :: Napster : piracy ?

Could bulk email software manuracturers be liable? Should they have to program in checks to make sure its not being used to spam? (at least once some of this pending legislation passes, hopefully). Its something that should be able to be done. If spamcop can determine spoofed IPs, why cant these programs do it beforehand?
--------

Re:There may be precedent now

[Mynn]

Could bulk email software manuracturers be liable? Should they have to program in checks to make sure its not being used to spam? (at least once some of this pending legislation passes, hopefully). Its something that should be able to be done. If spamcop can determine spoofed IPs, why cant these programs do it beforehand?

The problem is, you can write scripts and auto responders and "email programs" that spam with a little bit of effort, mostly just by scanning a few script sites, or so it seems. I've been looking for a way to implement web-based email for my self and family members for our family site, it doesn't look that hard to implement some freeware and then add in stuff to spoof IP addresses and bounce it off of open relays.



-Mynn the Museless

Re:There may be precedent now

[xXgeneric nicknameXx]

or wjat about mp3 encoding programs? or scanners? cd burners? there are legitimate uses for bulk email programs you know...just like ther are for the above examples, though people tend to use them for illegal means.

Re:There may be precedent now

[cyberconte]

actually, there is a tax in germany because cdr/cdrw's are piracy tools for music and programs (according to them, obviously).

Re:There may be precedent now

[Zleeper]

I hope that the tax would also be on pencils and paper, because I am sure many a crook has used them to accomplish their deeds. It is all stupid. All routers should block any and all packets with requests for lives less than 10-15ms. That would put a kink in the hackers and Denial of service whacks.

the really funny thing

[mahtaaaain]

is that the poster is 'erroneus'
ba-doom ching

You want slashdot filters?

[flimflam]

Go to here and filter away!

Continuation

[kypper]

Spam on my pc at work...
E-mail crap
Think about the lovebug virus,
Wonder if they sent it again
Spam on my pager as well,
It sucks ass
Think about erections,
Cause porn is all that you'll ever see.

If you're feeling pissed,
Get out Quake 3
Use a Bill Gates Skin
...and go on a spree
The railgun is there to peg off his head
The spam is there even after he's dead

Oh spam...
Spam
It sucks ass...
Spam
Spam

Shameless second Rip-Off

Screw 3...

Empty, all is null.

[Anonymous Coward]

Who post this article got a chance to read the story?

And who wrote the article knows anything about journalism?

If you go to the website, you will see it is not about spam via pager. Motorola is (mainly) suing a company because this company offered a Motorola hardware (the pager) that were not made by Motorola.

Okay, now on to the article:

Here are some quotes:

"He (Motorol's Vice President) also asked anyone receiving the e-mails to file complaints with their state's attorney general."

Why would anyone do this? If you are read the article from to beginning to this phrase, you will see the only thing mentioned about lawsuit was the brand protection.

Not about spam. Motorola and the article are asking for people to join Motorola to make a bigger trial army. That's bias number one.

Other quote:

"The Glenayre pagers(who really made the advertised pager), some of which were actually sent to those who responded to the e-mail, have some similarities to the Motorola T-10".

Under what conditions were the pagers sent? The article writer doesn't clarify why some people received and why some have not. That's a major hole on it. Those who have not received, why didn't have they? If the writer didn't want to know, he is playing on the Motorola side. He just wrote 'some actually sent'. This phrase leaves an open interpretation to 'some people have not received', and no proof is given. That's bias number two.

Another quote:

"But the T-10 has a 70,000-character memory, while the Glenayre pager has 50,000 characters of memory. The T-10 has an automatic garbled message correction and the ability to save a new message when the pager is out of reach, while the Glenayre device does not."

Who the hell cares about the differences, and MOST important, in what the T-10 is superior? That's a lame advertisiment, or a writer's capability to make compliments to Motorola. Nothing about lawsuit, it's a totally off-topic (or off-article) statament. That's the whole point of this article anyway. To say Motorola is right. This quote becomes my bias number three.

Quote about people who could not get removed from the mailing list (Obs: Who said this owns a email marketig company):

"It made me so angry that we have to work so hard to follow the rules, but these guys didn't--and didn't even after people started complaining," the man said."

Realize that it's a executive telling his experience with the company being sued. Yet, he says "WE HAVE TO WORK TO FOLLOW THE RULES". That's not about his 'work' (duh, click) to get removed, but about his own company practices. He said that HIS company works hard and there are people on the market that don't follow 'rules' (BTW has spam, or email marketing for the matter, 'rules'? I guess not).

So, the journalist put a introductory text and misplaced a executive quote to reinforce his point. He was not talking about the spam issue, but about market practices. Yet, the article makes you think that he was. That is my bias number four.

To summarize, I have some complains to make:

1) The article is old,

2) Only part of Slashdot's news that is correct is the link. That's sad and deceptive, or maybe we can assume the person who put made a huge mistake, what's even worse.

3) ZDNET's article is NOT journalism. Not even close to tell a story properly. As you can see, it's VERY biased, it is to set reader's to a position while you are reading.

Of course I am against Spam. I am saying that the spammers should not be sued.

But, what kind of news is the one that I just read? My 3 summary points goes against everything that you can pull out from the 'news' definition.

Time for quality control, maybe? :-)

Think "attention economy"

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the network infrastructure and email inbox size is not an important cost.

The important cost is the human attention cost for the recipient. I've got this facility that I need to pay attention to in order to do my job, and yet every asshole spammer in the world can also yank on the same chain (I never give out my work e-mail address for non-work purposes, but still, the address leaks out).

I'd really like to have a more limited e-mail address -- an address that I can give to foo.com which will accept mail only from an authenticated foo.com mail server.

Re:This is news? How?

[twoflower]

No, it's exactly this kind of stale, factually incorrect story writeup with no redeeming content which will kill the community.

Death of Slashdot imminent, film at 11.

Twoflower


--

Re:OT: The Coward Asks...

[humanasset]

See if the AIX box has procmail installed. You can use procmail to filter spam, among other things.

• Procmail.org
• Getting started with Procmail at spambouncer.org

Whose responsibility are spam charges?

[ez76]

If you forward your home phone number to your summer home in the south of France, and a telemarketer calls you, you are still responsible for the long distance charges. It is always, in some sense, your choice to pick up the handset and receive the call (especially with the advent of Caller ID and Privacy Manager-type features).

By the same token, why should spammers be responsible for charges associated with junk e-mail that gets forwarded to a pager alias? Presumably there's nothing stopping the user from filtering the pages (either with their own software or with their paging service provider's software).

At first glance, the issue seems to be that no "postage" is being paid for this junk pager mail, but perhaps the real (or more readily addressable) problem is that paging service providers' filter software/access control/etc. is not up to snuff?

--

"Shayna, Shayna, Shayna. They bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into -- I say, let 'em crash!"

Re:Whose responsibility are spam charges?

[gorilla]

On the other hand, most pagers are now getting email addresses. I know my cellphone/pager has one, I get several work related messages a week that are emailed.

Hopefully not .sh

[why-is-it]

"(Maybe we'll get a SeaLand-like spam haven with its own domain? Is .sh, "SpamHaven", already taken?)" If we did that, would all my shell scripts be considered SPAM?

Re:Hopefully not .sh

[SilverWeed]

No, because a file extension is not a country code.

Re:Hopefully not .sh

[Old Wolf]

Who registered COMMAND.COM ;)

You know you've been had when...

[kindbud]

...the article linked to in a Slashdot "news piece" is already purple, or whatever your "visited link" color is set to.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

My Motorola Pager spams...

[sdo1]

Since late April, I've received 18 spams with the words "Motorola Pager" in the subject. Obviously, as with most spams, remove doesn't work and only lets them know that your email address is indeed valid. All of those spams contained one of two 800 numbers:

1(800)443-0596
1(800)761-0511

I offer those numbers as a service to the slashdot community since I know you all might be interested in getting yourself one of these "free" pagers.

Now, I just love spammers as much as the next guy... so I would recommend making sure that as many people as possible see this message (hint, mod me up to +5). Then if everyone calls to inquire about the pagers, think of all the business these spammers will get! Don't call too many times because as you know, each call to an 800 number costs the owners of that number MONEY. We don't want their phone bill to be too high, now do we?

And don't call unless you're actually interested. We wouldn't want to waste THEIR resources to take care of our pointless calls, would we?

-S

Re:My Motorola Pager spams...

[PW2]

Great idea; just don't do this at home or work; it would be easy for them to use caller-id and add your phone number to their database that they like selling;

calling them at from an airport on 10 different phones may be more entertaining;

Re:My Motorola Pager spams...

[Leebert]

And your proof that you are not merely inciting slashdotters to call some legitimate company against whom you have some beef?...

Re:My Motorola Pager spams...

[mojorisin67_71]

Use *67 to prevent their caller-id from getting your phone number.

Re:My Motorola Pager spams...

[weave]

*67 will NOT prevent calls to toll free numbers from getting your phone number.

Toll free numbers get "ANI" delivered to them, not Caller ID. ANI can not be blocked. The theory is, they are paying for the call, they have the right to know who is calling them. (Ironic, in the case of spammers, eh?!)

Re:My Motorola Pager spams...

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite right. But don't use a payphone to call them. That adds an extra cost to the owner of the 800 number.

Re:My Motorola Pager spams...

[sdo1]

I received several of this version (HTML stripped out) to several different email addresses that I'm responsible for...

Brand New FREE MOTOROLA PAGER

Limited Time FREE Offer.

Call 1(800)761-0511 to be Guaranteed Your FREE MOTOROLA Pager Today

With this FREE MOTOROLA Pager you will receive the following

FREE activation. Very small and lightweight. Stay in touch with friends/family. Guaranteed to never miss a page. Brand New FLEX MOTOROLA Pager technology.

1) This MOTOROLA Pager is small and light weight. 2) A unique never out of range feature. 3) 50,000 character memory & automatic garbled message correction. 4) You can also receive weather, news and sports.

Call 1(800)761-0511 to get your FREE MOTOROLA Pager TODAY! While SUPPLY Lasts

To be taken off reply to here

And a few more that were exactly the same but with another phone number (the other one listed in my first comment).

And I received several that looked like this (again, no HTML)...

PRIORITY EXPRESS MAIL

Absolutely FREE Motorola Talkabout T10 Pager

You have been selected to receive a FREE MOTOROLA Pager! This side viewable display pager is incredibly small and lightweight. This incredible MOTOROLA PAGER has a unique, never out of range feature so you will never miss a page.

Call 1(800)761-0511 and Order Your FREE Motorola Pager Today!

This strictly limited-time offer will enable you to stay in touch with family and friends.

There is no mistake. Your FREE MOTOROLA Pager is waiting for you-but you must respond soon. If I do not hear from you within 7 days this offer will go to someone else. Please do not allow that to happen!

When you call you will receive a BRAND NEW PAGER in your choice of color and already programmed with a local telephone number in just a few days!

P.S. This may be your final notice regarding the FREE MOTOROLA Pager.

* GET OFF THE LIST HERE

OK? And I don't have a "beef" with this company (I assume it's only one since I got emails that looked exactly the same except for the phone number). I really want this to generate lots of interest in these products. And I'm sure they won't mind if we call to find out more.

-S

How is this model profitable for spammers?

[clustermonkey]

If EVERYONE is annoyed by spam then you would think that the spammers would get no return on their spamming efforts. They'd simply stop because it would be a waste of their time. Where is this hidden group of morons who keep buying things advertised to them via spam? Who is making it worthwhile for them?

Here's a story...

[mmol_6453]

about a man named $random$

I get two messages a day from "$random$"@(...)

I thought I recalled seeing someone in here relate spammers with creativity. But then, I always thought creativity was linked to intelligence.

Re:This is news? How?

[Whizard]

I think you mean "has killed the community."

Spam getting worse

[JohnG]

I'd say it's only the beginning. A couple of months ago I recieved two seperate pieces of spam from the same company, the problem? They had 180-250k JPEG's attached to them! It is completely unacceptable for me to have to download that over a dialup connection, and I thought it was bad when HTML spams started loading images from a remote server! The worst of it is they were a chinese company selling phones. Why in the HELL would I buy a phone from overseas over the internet when I can go to the local Radio Shack, Wal-Mart, what have you and get one that day?
But most of these guys just don't think about target audience, or care about making spam effective, how many of you have gotten spam form letters that read "Hello, my name is fsdk and I live in alkdfjd, and have a great way for you to get rich quickly!". This people are to lazy to type their own names for goodness sake!
And the more widespread pagers become, the more they will subjected to unsolicited advertising. At this point, at least in my house, the phone and email are almost useless due to the signal to noise ratio, any new form of mass communcition can only be destined to the same fate unless laws are passed that prevent it.
Postal mail doesn't bother me so bad, because if I am expected an important letter, and get junk, oh well, I had to get the mail that morning anyhow. Email and Phone (and pager) are different because they can arrive at any time during the day and of course multiple times during the day.
But if telemarketers haven't learned in a few decades that nobody sits around in the dark waiting for them to call and sell some lightbulbs, what are the chances that junk advertisers of future communications are going to learn anything from it?

Good thought, but...

[CoachS]

e-mail and paging isn't the same as over-the-air TV because the average person doesn't broadcast over-the-air TV.

Putting the burden on broadcasters there clearly limits the costs to those seeking the commercial benefit.

Charging spammers who send e-mail and pages is one thing, how do we differentiate between spammers sending mail and average folks sending mail? In fact, there are a lot more average folks than spammers so unless that could be figured out charging for e-mail sent would seem to punish the average user even more than the spammer and cost more than the current system does.

I like being able to dash off a quick e-mail message to my grandmother without having to worry about how many fractions of a cent it might cost me.

-Coach-

Re:fry em all...

[sqlrob]

Nope, it's 10 years

My solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

When I recieve spam from Asia, this is what I do.

# whois 202.101.98.58@whois.apnic.net |grep ^inetnum

> inetnum: 202.101.97.128 - 202.101.128.143

# ipchains -I input -s 202.101.97.128/19 --dport 25 -j DENY

This ensures I only receive spam from them ONCE.

It sure is nice to run your own mail server :o)

Serious breach of reliability on Slashdot's part

[nategasser]

This is not the first time someone has written a synopsis on the front page of Slashdot without reading the article. This seriously detracts from Slashdot's otherwise strong credibility for honest reporting.

Slow down a little guys, and take the time to read your articles.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

spam costs

[josepha48]

I've said that before.. and in some countries you pay to access the internet and wainting for junk email to download costs money. Why should I pay to recieve stuff i don't want?

But this is the 'trend' today. Always an 'opt out' options, but hardly ever an opt in option. ... opt out of letting financial institutions from selling your personal info, opt out of recieving telemarketing calls, opt out of spam..

Where are my rights not be disturbed with crap I don't want?

I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!

What Swedes should do

[B.D.Mills]

Do your politicians have e-mail addresses? Spam them until their e-mail boxes bounce mail. Or better still, just forward all your spam to them.
--

Re:What Swedes should do

[MC68040]

Some people actually did that, ending up getting yelled at for "Threttening a state official" - I dont see whats bad with sending "It's stupided to allow spam" x 10k times to a politican, if he's the one that decided to allow the spam? - I guess we're just too close to russia to have decent laws. ;)

Spam is *NOT* protected speech.

[jcr]

> Plus, here in the US, spam is protected speech.

For the last motherfucking time, spamming isn't an exercise of the spammer's free speech rights, its a VIOLATION by the spammer of my PROPERTY rights.

If you have no regard for property rights, then fine: I'll come to your office, and take the computer that you're using to send out the spam.

-jcr

if you think pager spam is bad...

[xXgeneric nicknameXx]

...the BBC is reporting that the US is planning to arm child soldiers in Sierra Leone and Angola with light arms. quoted from the article: "US Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton said 'firearms [are] used for traditional and cultural reasons'"

this is obviously an attempt to bolster gun sales abroad when domestic light arms sales are falling, putting the pinch on the bottom lines of more than a few US gun manufacturers.

Re:if you think pager spam is bad...

[xXgeneric nicknameXx]

im certainly not trying to impose my laws on you...its just that to see the US actively arming underage combatants outside their own country is quite obscene. if you americans want to supply guns to 12 year olds in your own country then fine...go ahead and do it. i draw the line at your border...tell me what right you have to arm child soldiers that have been forced into combat?

Its all in the email...

[MTNhike]

The article is about EMAIL being sent t users for a different product than what is advertised (bait and switch?). It sounds like the company probably used a spam-mail person to send out the junk mail and don't know how to make it stop. I'm sure some spammers don't know how to stop since they never seem to slow down (and nobody stops them) -- they just keep on sending out MORE spam. Its gonna kill the net, I say! Too bad spam isn't illegal. Or they don't prosecute for spam alone.

per email payment

[debrain]

Now, if I were paying a set fee per email, could I sue spammers, or my ISP (or whoever is providing the email service) sue the spammers, since they are effectively costing me money. Anyone have any idea how well this would hold up???

Re:per email payment

[q-soe]

This is an interesting thought ? can you do this ?

I suspect the problem would come in in getting hold of the actual spammer and their having any assetts - a lot of the spammers for hire are nothing more than kids who have no money or assetts so you would not get much one suspects

But then again we wont know until someon tries it.

But there is!

[kimihia]

Here's how to filter the content on the Slashdot front page ...

• Get an account. Login.
• Go to the Customise Homepage tab of your account.
• In the section called 'Exclude Stories from Homepage' select all the items you wish to exclude. I'd recommend ticking 'JonKatz' in the authors column. If you dislike spam, you can find that in the 'topics' column.
• At the bottom of the page click 'Save Home'

And presto! Just like that you've filtered the content on the front page. There aren't any advanced filters, eg, filtering out spurious stories, repeats, or April Troll's day messages. But those require quite a bit of computing power.

The other alternative is to shut up and stop reading Slashdot! Comment on the story, don't comment on the comments on the comments, or the commentary on the story, or the comments on the commentary on the story.

P.S. Thank you Motorola. You do a great job. I'd also like to applaud Motorola's web team. When I sent a complaint regarding javascript dependance I was cc'd in a bit of inter-staff communication on the topic as they worked to resolve it. Props to ya guys! :-)

The most disturbing thing is

[q-soe]

Here in Australia we have only just started to see SMS and Pager spam, but the depressing thing about it is that we are seeing supposedly reputabel companies including telco's and even coca cola enagaging in unsolicited messaging.

This is something i have noted in email spam for a long time - companies that should know better paying spammers for their work.

The other thing which is increasing again is the Fax spam - unsolicited faxes, i have a contact who works as a telecoms consultant who uses this method and claims it works - which makes sense as its almost impossible to block phone numbers - but easy to block emails or even entire domains.

Anyone else seeing this ? thoughts ?

Hemos, you homos

[jchristopher]

Hemos, you dummy did you even read the article? Motorola is suing the company distributing the spam because they mention Motorola, not because they are actually spamming pagers with the message.

No wonder my articles never get posted, you don't even read the submissions!

Charged to RECEIVE?

[gaemon]

interesting. here in Korea we are charged for every page we SEND. so basically we are almost page spam free.

we once had spam page too, when every portals and their mama had free ``paging on internet'' service. eventually wireless service providers prohibited paging through web (subscriber service), and the spam notably diminished.

Yesterday this post was : 0 (OffTopic)...

[da5idnetlimit.com]

And today this is 5 : Funny

Well, moderators...
some constitency ! It's bad taste from the start !
And still is 8(

SMSwines

[CaptainZapp]

My girlfriend received and SMS, which was essentially stating:

CALL ME

0900-555 55 55

($3.95 a minute)

The whole spacing was intentionally, of course. And I very much suspect, that those scumbags just fired blindly into a random spectrum of phone numbers (i.e: 079 350 00 00 - 079 359 99 99).

Now, my sweetie is certainly not dumb, but she's generally not interested in the finer aspects of technology.

If I wouldn't have been around, she'd interpreted the message (CALL ME) literally and would have been out of a couple 'bucks.

Now this is not spam, in my book. This is outright fraud...

The Enigma of Spamming

[jandersen]

Isn't it just very, very strange that there is any such thing as adverts carried by e-mail/SMS/etc? I mean, who would, after receiving yet another stupid email about some bogus product, want to actually buy the thing? Can anybody remember ever receiving a spam mail that produced any positive interest in the product offered?

You forgot to mention...

[CaptainZapp]

that you should not use a public payphone to dial 1(800)443-0596 or 1(800)761-0511 if you're interested into the fine offerings of this company.

First, if you use a pay phone, this is anonymous and as we all know, who read USAtoday and Time, anonymity is used by terr0rists, kiddie pr0nographers and sm0kers of the wicked weed. Now, you surely wouldn't smoke this stuff, right? So why be anonymous ?

Also, when you call from a pay phone, those fine and ethical sound business people incurr higher costs. Now, you don't want them to pay through the nose when you dial 1(800)443-0596 or (800)761-0511 . Right ?

Oooh, oooh; Me Me Me!

[Dr_Cheeks]

I'm looking for a job and this sounds just dandy. Let me get this straight - the other editors do what they're already doing, then I check that they can spell and that they're actually halfway informed about the article by reading it myself. No problem. I've even got my own dictionary! And screw needing an English degree - I am English. And my karma's up at 50, so I must be a useful member of the community.

Of course, seeing as I'm so over qualified, I'd like £20,000 p/a, but I'm sure you could spare this.

Hey, chuck in a new PC and I'll even read all the way through Jon Katz's articles!

Oh, and I'd like my official job title to be Meta-Moderator

filtering

[SeltsamTintenfisch]

the majority of the ones i get have subject lines ending with a dash & a bunch of random-looking characters . . . i just look for the ones with a half-inch of empty space in the subject line

Off topic response...

[sik puppy]

Have you ever been to Angola? Those 12 year olds probably need the weapons. I saw a child beaten to death with a rifle butt for the incredible crime of picking up a handfull of spilt grain on the dock. The biggest dangers there are 1 - landmines 15 million mines for 10 million people, and 2 - armed robbery/murder, commited by the police. The situation is far more complex, but this is enough of an ot tirade...

Personally I hate to see any form of aid go to that toilet. Of the 75+ countries I've been to, Angola is far and away the worst.

Now, if we just used those armed kids to hunt down spammers...

Re:fry em all...

[Perrin-GoldenEyes]

Nor did they report a thing about the millions of times last year that violent crimes were prevented because the intended victims had guns. They just report the times crimes are committed with guns, and try to advance their "liberal" socialist agenda of so-called "gun-control". As for liber-biased mainstream newspapers, have you ever read the Washington Post? I don't know if I would even dignify the Baltimore Sun by calling it mainstream, but it may even be worse than the post.

Cheers,
Perrin.