Slashdot Mirror
When Spammers Try To Sue You
An Anonymous Coward writes: "I was looking for information about what recourse there is against spammers when I came across this site. It appears that Bernard Shifman sent email to several people trying to solcit employment via spam, and when they replied to him, asking him to stop, and reporting the spam to his ISP he threatend them with a lawsuit. It's a very entertaining read."
but why they still spam...does it really work to
spam?
Free tip for Mr.Shiffman, I hear TimeCanada are looking for a new webmaster.
And, I feel that my sig has never been quite so appropriate.
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
No, really I was just replying to someone elses spam, but i guess the reply address was the mailing list. Copy of message follows:
===
Date: 2 Jan 03:34:45 GMT
Subject: Re: Make millions at home!
Why yes, yes I *would* like to MAKE MONEY FAST!
Bernard Shit^Hfman.
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
At least someone should tell him he's being featured on slashdot and will be known to and remembered by a fair amount of people in the IT biz. I really really wanna see the reply to that :)
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
Wish *I* had a posse to bitchslap evil spammers into oblivion like that.
Once in a while, I'll reply to the solicitors. Of course nine times out of ten it's a bogus email address, but once in a while it actually goes through.
I got that Nigerian money laundering email twice a day for a week from the same guy before I cut him an email threatening to take a squad of tanks to his contry and turn it into rubble. To my amazement, he actually replied! He (sarcastically, obviously) invited me to attempt to destroy his country.
I was expecting a DoS flood of Nigerian solicitations (which caused me to learn how to use procmail really fast), but, again, to my amazement, the spams stopped.
The moral: never underestimate the threat of tanks.
Jesus Christ. I just wasted 30 minutes of my life reading through that whole mess. I want those 30 minutes back!
/.????
Do I have such a miserable life that I'm willing to spend that much time on something that affects me in no way whatsoever AND the few minutes it takes to post about it on
Man. I need to get back to work.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Or better, call Friday 'sue Bernard Shiffman day'. How many courts can he appear in at once?
I SUE YOU! I sue you all! I sue the Internet, you bastards!
Bernard Shifman
P.S. (I sue your little dog too. Please tell me what his name is so I can write it on the papers.)
Oh do shut up would you? By silencing them we reduce the number of people (angry and annoyed people) who get spam in this world... thus making it a much happier place for us all. Freedom of speech was not intended to let those f00kers call me once a week (or more) at dinner time to sell me crap I'd never want to buy, nor to fill up my mailboxes with junk. Freedom of speech was mainly created to protect the airing of grievances against the powers that be, not so someone can turn a buck. Shame on you for supporting such an attitude
I ate my sig.
Funniest thing i've read in a long time. Like my new sig?
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
actually, he wouldn't be. at one point in the early 80s(or was it late 70s?) the moderator of rec.funny.humor was banned from the net.
-- free as in swatantryam - not soujanyam.
Congratulations, you're front page news!
(On Slashdot.org, though)
Really? Try these versions out:
-
"I hate crackers as much as the next person, but I've also sent my DDoS client out using a nifty little script I bru'd up to a hundred or so companies."
- "I hate RIAA lawyers as much as the next person, but I've also sent my subpoenas out using a nifty little script I bru'd up to a hundred or so companies."
Remember, if you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the SPAM.I am sure CmdrTaco is going to start getting threating emails from Shifman tomorrow claiming he is going to sue Slashdot for linking to the petemoss webpage. And soon, all who post in this thread will get a email too... (Do you think he can decipher those tough email scrambling schemes /. uses ... better alert my lawyers to be ready :-)
This whole thing just makes me sad that I am from same town as Shifman. And what kind of dumb "computer consultant" can't even use whois info to track down someone's address? It took me a whole 3 minutes to track down Neil Schwartzman's address.
but I guess the poster was to scared of Bernard thinking he/she was going to get sued and posted it anonymously :-)
:-)
What? Someone had to say it
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
Hi. I'm Bernard Shit^Hfman, and I do computer consultancy services. I'm looking for contract work. I specialize in spam and sue services: I offer advice on how to spam, and then sue for damages. So any time you want to make some money, you can use my phone number as a starting point.
P.S If you don't get back to me within a month, you'll be liable for damages resulting from my going out of work. My lawyers will be getting in touch with you and you could be facing upto $1500 a day
P.P.S wanna fuck me?
Where do my rights not to be bothered with this bullshit start
What right to not be bothered? I don't seem to remember that one.
-Tim
I SUE YOU! I sue you all!
Why sue? Not be angry. Kiss!
I kiss you! I kiss you all! And I kiss
your little dog.
- Mahir
Considered harmful.
Too bad Neil didn't give it to him. The email Bernie sent was to an alcor.concordia.ca address.
Concordia is a University.... in Montreal....
I already did this before I started reading comments but his @home address is already down. Try his consulting address instead:
bernard@shifmanconsulting.com
I thanked him for his entertaining read and suggested a more objective course of action... e.g. hide out in the hole you dug your career in to for a while.
--Let's hack root on 127.0.0.1 --panZ
Spammers will sue me....
- A name change. How about Bernard Ctrl-Alt-Delman?
- Move out of Chicago. Better still move out of Illinois. Even better, move out of the industrialised world altogther. I understand that they're looking for IT consultants in Kandahar. Your Russian may come in useful.
- Apologise. Make humor of it. Show some hubris. Everyone makes mistakes. My biggest involved rat poison and some hamsters.
- Find a new career where no-one has access to a web browser. Maybe a prison warder in the state penitentiary?
- Invent an UNDO button for real life. Get Mr Shifman to press it about a zillion times and let him start over.
Any more ideas?Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
I've got some moderator points, but I couldn't find a category of "Anally retentive". So I'm safe to say that it is Shipman who is in Chicago, the guy he's trying to sue is in Canada.
It's interesting to note that Shipman claims he comes from a *family* of lawyers. In other words he gets his legal advice across the dinner table at home at daddy's. Of course, if they sue on his behalf he has the opportunity to ruin his family as well as himself.
Did anyone read the resume the kid was sending out with the spam (it's on the web page)? Shipman was an "I.T Director" for a "consulting division" of a small firm - though experience in that job appeared to involve a lot of laying cables and "finding and removing viruses" (gotta love it). He had such a cushy time of it, when he left (pushed?) he decided to start his own consultancy - though by the resume he hasn't had any clients worth referencing since the turn of the millenium. The resume as it stands is difficult to wade through and omits most of the important information (like qualifications of any sort - did he even graduate from college? Daddy must be most disappointed in him). Shame, looks like he may have done some worthwhile work - some potential there (in admin and technical support). Such a shame, his career had everything to live for, to die so young - oh the humanity! heh heh heh
He's gone totally mad! And I'm reaping all the benefits - The Wedding Singer
Are you kidding? I dunno if you're astroturfing or what, but that page is hilarious! That's probably the only article on Slashdot that I've read beginning to end in years, great great stuff.
:)
The funniest bit is where the spammers asks for the address and telephone number to sue. No doubt if that was followed through they'd end up trying to sue a telephone kiosk
It's now just after 5am, Chicago time. Is anyone else fighting the urge to dial *67,773-391-0595 'till someone picks up, act drunk, and try to order a pizza?
Synergy is your friend
You know you're having a bad day when the site trying to lambaste you gets listed on /.
/. effect!
You know you're having a worse day when the site refuses to crash under the
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
"Hmm. It looks like a beautiful morning. I'd like to share it. Let's just walk to my friend's house and and..."
"BEAUTIFUL WOMEN WANT TO MEET YOU!!!"
   "ARE YOU POOR, BROKE, DEEPLY IN DEBT!?!"
 "INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES AWAIT YOU!"
"...or maybe I'll just stay inside again today, so that I can listen to some Garcia and call them instead..."
     "WOULD YOU BE INTERESTED IN A PREVIEW OF OUR LONG-DISTANCE SERVICES?!"
    "PLEASE DON'T HANG UP, THIS IS NOT A TELEMARKETING MESSAGE!!"
  "HAVE YOU CONSIDERED THE COST OF HEALTH CARE FOR THE UNINSURED?!"
"...or not. And I think my member is a perfectly adequate size, thank you very much. Oh well, at least I can just IM them."
    "DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR IT INFRASTRUCTURE IS!?!"
"I BECAME A MILLIONAIRE AND SO CAN YOU!"
 "YOU CAN BE PART OF THE ACTION AND WIN AT LORDOFTHERINGS.COM TODAY!!"
   "I SEND YOU THIS IM IN ORDER TO HAVE YOUR ADVICE."
"ARE YOU HAPPY WITH YOUR RELATIONSHIP?!"
        "SPEND EVERY YEAR IN THE BAHAMAS WITH THIS AMAZING NEW PROGRAM!"
   "HOT YOUNG TEENS WANT TO BE FRIENDS WITH YOU!"
"HERE IS THE INFORMATION YOU REQUESTED!!"
 
"...maybe I'll just..."
  "rssn wmn hre cll nw"
"damn, forgot to turn off sms. Maybe I'll just complain on slashdot."
 "YOU HAVE JUST 2 MORE CHANCES TO WIN $10,000 BY MODERATING THIS COMMENT UP TO 5 - INSIGHTFUL."
 
*whimper*
 
The ______ Agenda
1) Send an unsolicited resume _everywhere_, not just to places you have researched and have some reason to think you might have a chance at...
2) When they ask you to stop sending resumes, respond with foul language and threats of lawsuit.
And this idiot did it repeatedly!
Really, even McDonald's won't hire you if they are aware of a history like that.
HAHAHHA... I just called him to see what the answering machine would say... The dude actually answered!!! Call it!
I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Nah, you could never ban him. Bernard knows what he's doing. He'll just upload an internet to his mouse mat and store it on a CD RAM for later use.
take a triptonica to subthunk
I like to save the SPAM that I get from the people that want to tell me how to make millions, and then forward it to the SPAMmers that are supposedly representing charities and are asking for money. I figure I should cut out the middle-man and just let these "charities" make the millions for themselves!
I already created the hotmail account for this. Go send him something...
username: shitmanconsulting
passwd: spamsucks
Oh, sorry. It's not spam, it's a fucking TROJAN HORSE.
update comments set karma=-1, reason='offtopic' where sid=26315
This is Bernie. I wanted to let you know that this is the last straw. This post and all the others like it are slander and I'm suing you, slashdot and all of its ussers who read it for making a major big mistake with me.
Attention everyone: you must send the name of your attorney to me by 5 PM today or I will sue you for not letting me sue you and will have a major big law suit on your ass. If you really piss me off I will sue the entire country of Canada which deserves it anyways because it is not as smart as an expert IT guru from Chicago like me.
This post cost me $2 million to write so I'm suing slashdot for my costs.
BERNIE
I am humbled by the mastery demonstrated here. ;+)
And I quote:
YEAH, BUT HOW DO YOU REALLY FEEL?
Matt from The Culprits' Open Letter to Spammers
From: "Matt Hiltner"
To: "'Neil Schwartzman'"
Subject: Open letter to spammers
Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 00:57:00 -0600
Mr. Spammer, you swine. You vulgar little maggot. You worthless bag of filth. As they say in Texas. I'll bet you couldn't pour piss out of a boot with instructions on the heel. You are a canker. A sore that won't go away. I would rather kiss a lawyer than be seen with you.
You're a putrescent mass, a walking vomit. You are a spineless little worm deserving nothing but the profoundest contempt. You are a jerk, a cad, a weasel. Your life is a monument to stupidity. You are a stench, a revulsion, a big suck on a sour lemon.
You are a bleating foal, a curdled staggering mutant dwarf smeared richly with the effluvia and offal accompanying your alleged birth into this world. An insensate, blinking calf, meaningful to nobody, abandoned by the puke-drooling, giggling beasts who sired you and then killed themselves in recognition of what they had done.
I will never get over the embarrassment of belonging to the same species as you. You are a monster, an ogre, a malformity. I barf at the very thought of you. You have all the appeal of a paper cut. Lepers avoid you. You are vile, worthless, less than nothing. You are a weed, a fungus, the dregs of this earth. And did I mention you smell?
Try to edit your responses of unnecessary material before attempting to impress us with your insight. The evidence that you are a nincompoop will still be available to readers, but they will be able to access it more rapidly.
You snail-skulled little rabbit. Would that a hawk pick you up, drive its beak into your brain, and upon finding it rancid set you loose to fly briefly before spattering the ocean rocks with the frothy pink shame of your ignoble blood. May you choke on the queasy, convulsing nausea of your own trite, foolish beliefs.
You are weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. You are grimy, squalid, nasty and profane. You are foul and disgusting. You're a fool, an ignoramus. Monkeys look down on you. Even sheep won't have sex with you. You are unreservedly pathetic, starved for attention, and lost in a land that reality forgot.
And what meaning do you expect your delusionally self-important statements of unknowing, inexperienced opinion to have with us? What fantasy do you hold that you would believe that your tiny-fisted tantrums would have more weight than that of a leprous desert rat, spinning rabidly in a circle, waiting for the bite of the snake? You are a waste of flesh. You have no rhythm. You are ridiculous and obnoxious. You are the moral equivalent of a leech. You are a living emptiness, a meaningless void. You are sour and senile. You are a disease, you puerile one-handed slack-jawed drooling meatslapper.
On a good day you're a half-wit. You remind me of drool. You are deficient in all that lends character. You have the personality of wallpaper. You are dank and filthy. You are asinine and benighted. You are the source of all unpleasantness. You spread misery and sorrow wherever you go.
You smarmy lagerlout git. You bloody woofter sod. Bugger off, pillock. You grotty wanking oik artless base-court apple-john. You clouted boggish foot-licking twit. You dankish clack-dish plonker. You gormless crook-pated tosser. You churlish boil-brained clotpole ponce. You cockered bum-bailey poofter. You craven dewberry pisshead cockup pratting naff. You gob-kissing gleeking flap-mouthed coxcomb. You dread-bolted fobbing beef-witted clapper-clawed flirt-gill.
You are a fiend and a coward, and you have bad breath. You are degenerate, noxious and depraved. I feel debased just for knowing you exist. I despise everything about you, and I wish you would go away. I cannot believe how incredibly stupid you are. I mean rock-hard stupid. Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid. Stupid so stupid that it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension of stupid. You are trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed. Stupid gotten so dense that no intellect can escape. Singularity stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid. You emit more stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. Your writing has to be a troll. Nothing in our universe can really be this stupid. Perhaps this is some primordial fragment from the original big bang of stupid. Some pure essence of a stupid so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the laws of physics that we know. I'm sorry. I can't go on. This is an epiphany of stupid for me. After this, you my not hear from me again for a while. I don't have enough strength left to deride your ignorant questions and half baked comments about unimportant trivia, or any of the rest of this drivel. Duh.
The only thing worse than your logic is your manners. Maybe later in life, after you have learned to read, write, spell, and count, you will have more success. True, these are rudimentary skills that many of us "normal" people take for granted that everyone has an easy time of mastering. But we sometimes forget that there are "challenged" persons in this world who find these things more difficult. If I had known, that this was your case then I would have never read your post. It just wouldn't have been "right". Sort of like parking in a handicap space. I wish you the best of luck in the emotional, and social struggles that seem to be placing such a demand on you.
P.S.
You are hypocritical, greedy, violent, malevolent, vengeful, cowardly, deadly, mendacious, meretricious, loathsome, despicable, belligerent, opportunistic, barratrous, contemptible, criminal, fascistic, bigoted, racist, sexist, avaricious, tasteless, idiotic, brain-damaged, imbecilic, insane, arrogant, deceitful, demented, lame, self-righteous, byzantine,conspiratorial, satanic, fraudulent, libelous, bilious, splenetic, spastic, ignorant, clueless, illegitimate, harmful, destructive, dumb, evasive, double-talking, devious, revisionist, narrow, manipulative, paternalistic, fundamentalist, dogmatic, idolatrous, unethical, cultic, diseased, suppressive, controlling, restrictive, malignant, deceptive, dim, crazy, weird, dystopic, stifling, uncaring, plantigrade, grim, unsympathetic, jargon-spouting, censorious, secretive, aggressive, mind-numbing, arassive, poisonous, flagrant, self-destructive, abusive, socially-retarded, puerile, clueless, and generally Not Good.
In other words, go away.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
The guy got more publicity now then he imagined.
I'll hire him to fight with my girlfriend.
[linuxho@faramir linuxho] $ telnet mail.relay.com 25
Trying 63.192.100.60...
Connected to mail.relay.com (63.192.100.60).
Escape character is '^]'.
220 CheckPoint FireWall-1 secure SMTP server
HELO mail.microsoft.com
250 Hello mail.microsoft.com, pleased to meet you
MAIL FROM: bill.gates@microsoft.com
250 2.1.0 bill.gates@microsoft.com... Sender OK
RCPT TO: bernard@shifmanconsulting.com
250 2.1.5 bernard@shifmanconsulting.com... Recipient OK
DATA
354 Enter mail, end with "." on a line by itself
Hi Bernard,
I suppose having your name posted on Slashdot and having practically everyone in the IT industry know your name must be pretty humiliating given the context it was published in.
I'm sure you've learned a lesson about when it is a good idea to back off and apologize, even when you feel you are in the right. This is probably the most expensive way I have ever seen anyone learn that lesson.
I am offering you a job at Microsoft, mostly out of pity. Please send your resume to HR@microsoft.com with a cover letter indicating your areas of expertise, and attach a copy of this e-mail to it.
Bill Gates
Chief Visionary
Microsoft Corp.
^D
include $sig;
1;
(that ought to spin him up another couple hundred RPM!)
--Rob
Bernie has done all of us slashdotters a great benefit by helping instill a meme that simplifies our lives. Just think of the ways we can save time now by immortalizing his name when we refer to disease of high-esteem, nonexistent competency fools that bark empty threats every time their useless lives are recognized for what they are.
/. poster boy for arrogant incompetence.
/. fame? Hey Bernie, your fifteen minutes are ticking!
For example, someone sent you a totally bogus loser resume?
"Oh geez, get rid of that resume. It's a Bernie Shifman."
Spending the weekend cleaning up a totally fscked up wiring or server job? "Yea, I'm working late on a Bernie Shifman job."
Bernie deserves to be imortalized as the
*scoove*
p.s. Anyone hear if Bernie's learned of his
http://petemoss.com/spamflames/index.html
Hmm... I'm not to familiar with the law surrounding frivolous lawsuits, but nevertheless I've not heard of the "giggle test". Granted, I can certainly see that being a good indication of frivolity ("You sent spam then tried to sue them for complaining about it? Tee hee hee! Well, I giggled. Case dismissed, plaintiff is fined $1000 for Incitation of Judicial Giggling."). But couldn't that be bad if, say, the plaintiff had a legitimate case that happened to be hilarious?
The enemies of Democracy are
Dial "0" to call collect. DON'T save him a buck or two.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
The spammers number is 773.391.0595, if anyone would like to inform him of what has happened on slashdot.org, I would think it would be a hilarious sound recording.