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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."
When Neil Schwartzman, the person who received the spam, forwarded it to the appropriate places why did he include the spammer on the email?
I hate spammers as much as the next guy. I report them (without copying them on the email) and move on. Although the spam receiver is, of course, blamess in this, I think he could have avoided this whole silly mess.
But, the title is misleading, it would seem as though he did not try to file suit, but just threatened. From what I can read, if an attorney did file the attorney would be personally sanctioned under FRCP 11 making a friviolous filing where it could not pass the giggle test.
Fight Spammers!
Your a troll but not a good one :)
... I think in any given day I recieve between 15 and 25 spams either via email or messenger, this is between quite a few accounts (10 email accounts, maybe 6 messenger accounts). Where do my rights not to be bothered with this bullshit start, and "free speech" begin ... Im sure I spend (just) 5 mins a day deleting spams or closing AOL/ICQ spam windows ... Thats 12 seconds per spam if I recieve 25 a day. Do the math, thats 30 *hours* a year dealing with spam.
The problem isn't of course any individual spammer but the problem as a whole
Im sure you'll have lots of trollish responses, but one had best not be "then don't use email."
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
Spam is not really an issue of free speech. It's a matter of freedom to listen. When a spammer sends me email, then it costs my ISP (and hence me) money. If the net were truely a free resource then we still have issue that spam wastes my time. Not being immortal, I only have a limited amount of time available, and I don't want to use it reading spam.
Hence the point: Although I strongly believe in freedom of speech, I believe more strongly in the right to control what I listen to. I have no right to force people listen to what I have to say, and I expect the same in return.
Colin Scott If you build it, they will be dumb...
Your troll would be so much more convincing if you didn't hide your email adress.
Think: In which world is speach most free:
1) A world where you can send single personal messages to anyone, but can't send multiple copies of the same message to people who haven't authorized you spending their ressources that way.
2) A world where you only can send messages to people who have explicitly authorized you to do so.
If we win the fight against spammers, we get world 1. If we lose, we get world 2.
Some people believe free speach, and thus world 1, is worth fighting for. Some feel the battle is already lost. Personally, my email filtering is now based on a whitelist, i.e. I have already joined world 2. Just like you have, by hiding your email adress.
French Slashdotters may have heard about David Hirschmann. In short (if you don't like Fish) David Hirschmann was supposed to have some misconception of the corporate world which he shared with one of his female co-workers an inapropriate way. She then would have forwarded it around the Internet and at the end DH may have comitted suicide.
This got covered quite a lot by the French Press but finally appeared to be a hoax as no one of these protagonists actualy existed.
Now in this case I'd also tend to think that it may not be real...
I don't know people as stupid as this b.shifman that would have an internet connection.
There's something extreme here. it smells like comedy...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Unfortunately, many, many people buy things because of spam. It's actually one of the more effective ways to mass-market all kinds of crap. As long as there's good money in it, we'll have to deal with spam, regardless of what laws are passed (think offshore servers, etc.).
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
I have lots of different interests. I have a life. Really, even if it doesn't feel that way now and then. ;-)
There are hundreds of organizations and corporations that I have some interest in, that I may buy products from, and who may entitled to assume if they are not doing further checks, that I'll be interested in hearing from.
If only those who have something I might be interested in e-mailed me a couple of times a year, there would be thousands of messages a year. There would be tens of messages every day, that would demand my attention.
Most of the time, I'm not interested, and my attention is the most precious thing I have. They can't just come in here and take it. If I would have to devote attention to tens of messages from companies that I might have an interest in a day, I would stop using e-mail (nowadays, well, I get tens of spams every day, but they are deleted without giving them much attention. I deeply despise spammers nevertheless for the resources they steal). That's why the only way is opt-in. If I am interested, I can go and search for the information. I'm pretty good at that.
This spammer obviously did no research at all when he spammed people. If he even looked at Steve's website, I think he would go away.
Instead of spamming lots of people, those who are interested in giving someone employment would search a database of resumes. It's much more effective for everyone.
It was definitly spamming that was going on.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
I know there are a lot of you that think spam is no big deal, but for those of us that are dealing with a lot of domains and a lot of email addresses, it is getting unbearable. Yes, I can filter 99% of it, but geez, it is REALLY becoming a waste of my bandwidth even if I throw out my time wasted. Bandwidth = Money.
Missouri's new anti-spam legislation should go into effect with the next couple of weeks but it's not going to be effective without more states getting involved.
For those of you that care, write or email your local representatives and ask what anti-spam measures are in place and what can be done to get more if yours aren't effective. Tell them about the Washington law and it's effectiveness.
At a bare minimum, another thing I would like to see is a federal law that allowed every domain to have some email address (maybe postmaster) that it would be illegal to send spam to. This address would be strictly used for individuals needing to contact the administrator of a machine or domain. Imagine that...
Do any of you know how to trace down these 800 number companies that are sending spam off servers from overseas? Server admin's overseas either can't read my english requests or don't give a crap about spam coming from their servers. I've actually started calling the 800 numbers leaving valid contact information in hopes that they'll call me and I can rip someone's head off for two seconds. Amazingly enough, I haven't even gotten any responses!!!
I think I even got a fraudulent spam the other day. This "company" was claiming to be a non-profit child abuse organization. I'm almost sure they weren't and they were simply suckering money out of people. I tried to report it to both the real company and the FCC but I don't know if I got to the right people or not.
Are there any groups that are actively standing out against spam and lobbying the politicians? If so, I'm ready to join, if not, I need to start one.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
From the read it seems readily appearant that their only "provocative" actions were to forward a complaint to the postmaster addresses of whatever ISP Bernie was using at the time. From there this little shithead goes ballistic, threatens legal action, calls people names and generally harasses them. The guy is a moron and deserves every bit of it. Okay, so they don't let up when it becomes obvious that Bernie's full of shit, but big deal..
;-)
I personally think the only appropriate response left is just to have him whacked and be done with it (hey, I know some people in Chicago, you know?)...
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Has anybody gone through his resume and attempted to contact his (supposed) former employers to hear what they have to say about him, if anything? Did he really work for who he said he did? Is he committing fraud?
I believe everyone needs a hobby, and these anti-spam people are no exception
For many it's no hobby. Some are sysadmins, network admins, abuse staff. This is their job, and their systems are being abused by thieves. By organizing against spammers they are doing a service to the entire Internet community and they should be commended, not called 'vigilantes.'
When you describe any group (anti-spam, linux users, bow hunters) as 'these people' it tends to set them off too.
He seemed to have made an honest attempt to ensure that only HR Departments receieved his mail.
Still spam. After he made his 'honest' attempt to target his spam, he made another 'honest' attempt to harass people who reported him to his ISP. What are you saying they did wrong? Should they have not reported him?
Hey, at least you didn't say "just hit delete" anywhere in your post..
I recall an online altercation that I had a few years back. A post appeared in one of the UK ISP groups advertising a "too good to be true" service. This was at the time when narrowband access was going nuts in the UK, with companies taking a year's money off of people, then going bust the next day.
As a warning to the terminally gullible, I posted the whois info for the domain, and noted that it didn't match the trading address on the website.
A few hours later I received a vicious email from the poster threatening legal action because I had posted his home address on the group, when he was only the admin for the site, and threatening to post my home details all over the place.
Well, fuck me sideways, I thought, and let loose with a tirade about how anyone could possibly call themselves an admin when they didn't even understand that whois records are public - which mine were, and so I couldn't give a damn about what he did with them.
Two minutes after I sent it, I thought... wait a minute. There's a real human being receiving this.
And so I hammered out an apology, a genuine and heartfelt and sincere apology. Oh, I didn't mean a word of it, of course. The guy had screwed up, and was too stubborn to admit it. But I screw up every day, and don't like having it pointed out, and it was simply cruel to heap any further misery on this poster.
So I apologised for posting his address, and he replied in a calmer manner, and we had a chat, and he turned out to be a decent (if slightly clueless) bloke. He declined my offer to post a public apology on the group. I would have had no qualms about doing so, because knowing that I was absolutely in the right meant that I really didn't have anything to prove, and that my priority was to reduce the amount of human suffering in the world (in a small way, but every little helps, right?).
It's a shame that Bill didn't take the opportunity to defuse this situation. It's so obvious that Shifman is in the wrong that it really doesn't need to be laboured. He's clearly not very bright, and so it's rather cruel (funny, yes, but cruel) to taunt him so. I'm sure that Bill could just send a without-prejudice apology and walk away from this, and we'd understand that he's doing it from kindness and generosity, to dig Shifman out of the hole that he's dug for himself.
The fact that Bill doesn't do this, and that he's taking care to avoid actionable statements even though he claims that Shifman has no case rather implies that Bill isn't entirely confident that he's in the right here. And that's a shame, because he could end this with one brave and courteous gesture, for pity's sake, and out of strength, not weakness.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I have to admit that we didn't make things all that easy for the subscribers - we only sent out mailings every few months, so it was easy for people to forget they'd subscribed, and the business people were always changing the names of the lists, and merging the lists, and splitting the lists, so it was easy for people to get confused about what exactly they were receiving. Still, it was an eye-opener to be on the other side of the fence.
SpamCop isn't the problem itself - the idea is good - but let's face it: Internet users are largely the same users who call their monitor the computer and their computer the hard drive, or think you can get the Internet on CDROM, or click on any attachment they get. Do you really think they're going to be capable of using a tool like SpamCop properly?
So, a couple tips (which I wish I could send to the Internet population as a whole, since the /. types need it less than others):
-Read the whole message. If you don't recognize it, make sure it didn't just change its name or merge with another list or something.
-Check to see if it has unsubscribe instructions. Yes, I know, every spam these days says "mail jessica12345@hotmail.com to unsubscribe!", but if you get a message from "newsletter@example.com" that says "You are receiving this message because you subscribed to the Foo Newsletter at http://www.example.com/subscribe; to unsubscribe, simply forward this message to unsubscribe@example.com; if you have a question or a problem, please contact us at newsletter@example.com" - then it's probably real and MAYBE YOU SHOULD TRY ACTUALLY FOLLOWING THE INSTRUCTIONS. (Instead of just picking an email address at random from the mailing and demanding to be unsubscribed!)
-Don't start swearing at people and making threats right off the bat. If the sender is legit, there will be a real human reading your mail, and pissing him off is probably not a good way to get stuff done. If you've already tried to unsubscribe and it hasn't worked, consider the possibility that there was a technical glitch, and maybe the sender isn't just trying to piss you off. (I was amused to notice a certain correlation between the number of swear words the angry recipient used and his (claimed) rank in his organization. If the email began "Fuck you, you cocksucking spammers...", it was a pretty good bet it would end "...Joe Johnson, CEO, MegaSite.Com")