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."
He's been discussed to death for his escapades -- and all of 'em have "Coffee & Cat" warnings. It's laughable at best -- and lawsuits aren't valid until you get that supena in the snail mail.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
Was it in regards to actual employment postings or were you just on a fishing expedition ?
Unsolicited email is unsolicted. And depending on how many addresses he sent the resume to it may be justifyiably SPAM.
UPS Sucks
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.
Wonder what his reacaction to being appreciated by the /. community is?
/J
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
Haha, this is hilarious. Every slashdotter that reads this should send our old pal Bernard a nice e-mail. See how he likes SPAM when he's on the recieving end.
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
That's one of the funniest things I've ever read. I know lots of people in IT in chicago, I'll make sure to send them the link. Poor Bernie's going to have to change his name to ever get an IT job again.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
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!
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.
I'm still waiting for a subpoena from back in December 99 from some guy threatening to sue some people on alt.cult-movies.rocky-horror for "slander" (guy claimed to be a software patent lawyer and didn't even know the difference between "slander" and "libel"... it was classic) because we made him lose money on e-bay, as we pointed out that his so called "Super Rare" (which, since then, has become blaspheme on the Rocky Horror newsgroup... but mostly because me and a Frank-N-Furter from Vegas spammed the board one night with a plethora of jokes about "Suck my super-rare schlong" and the like...) Rocky Horror Dolls he was selling on e-bay for $80 were available at your local Spencer's gifts for about $16....
This is just another case of someone threatening with lawsuits when they're really just full of chicken$#!+. Come on. Who here hasn't been threatened with legal action by some moron online?
I still say the coolest part of that whole flame war (which, btw, lasted a good month) was that he kept giving us phone numbers for the Pittsburg department of investigations (being that I'm Canadian, it would've been quite impressive that someone whose jurisdiction I'm not even in the same country as would be investigating me) saying that it was his proof that he was going to see us in court. And then he called us evil viscious [sic] morons.
"Come to think of it, there already are a million monkeys at a million typewriters, and usenet is _NOTHING_ like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton.
Karma: Non-Heinous
Anytime I get a spam, I hit the link that I received when I registered with SpamCop, and paste the email (complete with header) into the provided textbox. SpamCop processes the email, compiles a report of the offending spam, computes the appropriate reporting addresses, and delivers a copy to each one.
It even allows you to add text to the beginning of the report. I always add this: Does that make me a bad person?
--
Tsar's Hypothesis: As the population of the Earth increases, the sum of human intelligence remains constant.
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
Click here and then each link on the page and the advertisers gets charged the amount shown in small print. But for a permanent solution: I want to charge people who send me email. I would obviously pay back all those people who send stuff I wanted to see, and not pay back those who pissed me off. What's the chance of this happening? It would be good.
We should perhaps look more into spammer-baiting! Anyone in Chicago able to get a personal interview with Bernie?
Now he's Slashdot Famous! He'll probably advertise that he's a Slashdot Expert!
Fellowship 9/11
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!
The thing is, this guy didn't JUST spam, he threatened Neil with a lawsuit for the basic act of reporting the spamming. THAT is flatout illegal, as it should be.
Nicotine free Amish .sig.
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...
There's nothing more astonishing and frustrating than when spammers try to attack back. I've been trying to stop some kind of "sex news" newsletter that's followed me from email to email address for the last three years (I suspect they are just spamming Thai-based email in general).
I get angry responses from them each time I report them for spamming. They say that I am engaged in "extortion" against them (?) and complain to my ISP and SpamCop. Nothing's ever come of it, but every 3 or 4 months I can count on a fresh newsletter and another round of invective.
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?
You'll be the first person in history to be blacklisted from the internet all together!!!
After Kevin Mitnick?
What the odds are of this resulting in a suicide...
If he does take this too seriously, as it seems he does. The odds of him getting employed with-out redicule in any tech savvy computer industry are greatly reduced.
All it will take is one slashdot reader/appropriate internet surfer with a decent memory to recall his name and make mention of it.
We've effectively killed his internet persona.
Name change maybe? heh.
Computational Madness in a round package.
But first, he'll do this: The fellow will take your insulting e-mail, find the little address you have attached, and plop it onto as many spam lists as he can find. So, he wakes up in the morning with one insulting letter and the good man gives you 100 messages a day about Free Horny Teens.
After you, sir...
- DaftShadow
Do you suppose that Bernard Shifman is related to John "Doctor of Law" Grubor?
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.
Problem with your "free speech" and spam metaphor is that it does not cost me anything to hear someone.
Spam is push, not pull like software. It clogs bandwidth, which I pay for, it clogs hard drive space on my mail server, and it also is one of the biggest reasons why e-mail viruses are even still around.
Hows aboot where spam must have a "text/spam" mime type (or something), and I get to choose whether or not I download spam?
The best part about free speech is that I have the freedom to also not listen. But with spam I am forced to have to at the very least read the subject to decipher whether it is a real message.
Spam filters can filter out messages from companies that I have given my e-mail for product updates or announcements.
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
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.
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....
> What right to not be bothered? I don't seem to remember that one.
I don't know about the US, but in Denmark property is a right (even if not an absolute one). By spamming _my_ email lists, they make people unsubscribe and/or forcing me to close it, both of which make it less worth.
I guess it's feeding time.
I think the appropriate sound byte is, "your right to swing your fist stops where my nose begins." Spam causes harm to the person who receives it. Granted, it's a tiny amount of harm for a particular individual, but the total harm is actually significant. Absent some redeeming social importance, spam is time wasting garbage.
Although I believe you can't defend spam as free speach, that doesn't mean laws against spam are OK. Any law must cause less damage to free speach than the harm caused by the spam it's stopping for me to support it. Every law I've seen so far fails in both categories: they prevent a lot of free speach, and don't stop a lot of spam. The RBL, ORBS, and SPEWS though better, are still questionable IMO. They are more effective at stopping spam, but cause considerably more damage than they stop.
Knowing him... he prolly will. He came after me for simply commenting on the mail in passing convesation. This dude is so full of it! Seeing as it made it on slashdot... among other sites will surely piss him off even more.
Don't forget your Red Box! Be a shame to pay for that call.
/. readers dusted off their red boxes and gave this guy a ring.
My god. Think of it. If only a handfull of
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
Well . . . . *wipes corners of eyes* - out of sheer morbid curiosity I visited the Shitman(*oops*) link. I can honestly say from down here (in Australia) I've never read such a load of half-assed, kindergarten-grade as what I did from this person. BTW - if business is booming to such an extent that he's going to charge megabucks to other people for infringing on his time, why doesn't he go and get his own web address instead of using a virtual "hole" to host his (*gasp shock horror*) amazingly talented web site??
Or you could send him a post-card.
. co m&server=magic
:)
http://samspade.org/t/whois?a=shifmanconsulting
(not linked to conceal link's origin
Got to love Whois.
My problem with spam is simpler.
When some monkey sends me a comparatively big html-ised email with graphics and even (once shudder) some flash, it's _me_ paying for the bandwidth.
OK, if you're on cable or DSL the b/w is flat rate, but even so, if you consider that it's otherwise wasting a resource for which you've paid, then spam costs you money.
Getting junk through a letter box, you can just ignore, and it cost _them_ to send it. Ditto faxes. Spam doesn't.
You are free to say what you like on your web site. You are not free to send me spam telling me about it.
You are not free to prevent me from listening to my stereo by playing yours so loud, I can't hear my own.
I, too wish him the best in his new career as a Bovine Foodstuffs Periodic Inversion Technician.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
There's an old legal maxim, "your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins."
- 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
I have his resume in my mail archives also.
From bshifman@ameritech.net Tue Dec 18 05:47:40 2001
Its to a personal email address that I never use at all for the past few years.
The above is not worth reading.
Here
The problem with the MIME type solution is that, by the time you get to filter it out, your ISP, and all the unfortunate ones in between, have already been taxed by the load of 100s (or thousands) of identical messages.
Actually... I think spammers are getting dumber. Twice in the last month, I've recieved 50+ identical emails from the same person at the same time.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
...but that's not Spam. The difinition on that site is entirely too loose. The mail including the headers was valid, and Niel decides after recieving one unsolicited message that it's spam. Bullshit, if I send this guy an email by mistake am I spamming him? What if I send him an email and he just isn't interested, is it spam? Just sending large numbers of the same email out IS NOT spam. Note the definition listed does not even have any criteria based on whether or not the mail was solicited so even list hosts that you subscribe to qualify.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
I've had the same thing happen on ebay before.
I found some guy trying to sell a CD with a bunch of GPL'd programs. Clearly visible in the screenshots where The Gimp, Staroffice, and Abiword. He claimed his company, something like
Blah industries, created the programs themselves.
I wrote him an email and let him know that if he didn't change the ad, he would be in violation of the GPL.
HE THREATENED TO SUE ME FOR HARRASMENT!!
He actually had his lawyer email me (yes, it was his lawyer, the email address was from a business and I went to the website and looked).
I wrote the lawyer back, told him what the man was doing, and never got a reply back.
I really wish I would have saved those emails, but I have switched services and computers since.
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
I had a cyberstalker who harassed me mercilessly on usenet. Finally, a private detective came forward after seeing this bozo go after me, and offered to take him down for me, and he wouldn't even charge me for it. Aside from helping me sucessfully prosecute a criminal complaint, the guy made it pretty clear that he also provided services that I would be better off not knowing anything about. I got the distinct impression that he sent one of his P.I. buddies to go beat the shit out of the idiot perp. But what I don't know won't hurt me. And the cyberstalker was silenced forever. If he harasses me again, he'll get deported, and no doubt with an extra beating thrown in for good measure.
Editors and posters, please take care: we're talking about Bernard Shifman (single 'f'), not any of the Bernard Shiffman's (double 'ff') out there.
As Mr Shifman seems to be highly irrascible, it's probably as well to at least get his name correct.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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
Hmm I won't bother to post this on core =) hehe it is mightily funny though ..
Jon - TheSpork
I can feel the mod-downs coming, but I feel this has to be said. I think these anti-spam zealots teamed up on this poor spammer, and the only reason it went as far as it did (and as hilariously as it did) was because Shifman has a large amount of juvenile pride.
. Laura Atkins, who claimed her company received a spam from Bernard, also weighed in on the whole thing. Laura's company, Blighty.com is a privacy consulting firm: people hire her to find out who spammers are. Laura's name shows up in various anti-spam newsgroups also, including the one that Joe Greco & Bill Carton post in. In this thread, you can see this for yourself.
First off, it should be noted that almost all the players in this little cast (except for Shifman) are members of anti-spam Usenet groups. Do a Google Groups search for "Joe Greco", who claimed to receive one of Bernard's emails, and you'll get some not-so-nice reports of Joe's behavior:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=joe+greco&meta=
In fact, it appears that Joe, Bill, Neil, Laura, and her husband Steve are all active posters on news.admin.net-abuse.email
I believe everyone needs a hobby, and these anti-spam people are no exception. I hate spam as much as the next guy, but I think these people see themselves as anti-spam vigilantes. Most of the time, it's okay because they're doing some good (since spam DOES suck). In this case, it appears that while Bernard's emails were sent in bulk, they were not sent to random emails. He seemed to have made an honest attempt to ensure that only HR Departments receieved his mail. In some cases, he messed up and targeted the wrong people. Since he's trying to find jobs with computer companies, it's not uncommon to send HR requests to a non-HR department; after all, many small computer companies don't HAVE an HR department, but just an admin running the whole show.
I receive a lot of spam, but most of it is for breast-enlargement pills or Make-Money-Fast schemes. If I got an email like Bernard's, I would assume:
1) he probably sent this to companys other than mine
2) he probably found my company on the web, by hand, which is why he knew we were a computer company. If we sold sofas, I wouldn't have gotten the mail.
Thus, the emails were bulk and they were unsolicited, but they were sent to addresses posted on the websites of the target companies STRICTLY for the purpose of receiving job requests and resumes.
I think Neil overreacted, and his anti-spam bully friends took over. These guys cover for each other, and pick on the alleged spammers as a team.
Intercarve Networks, LLC
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.
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
I'd never heard of the crime(?) "barraty" before--threatening to sue in order to get a reaction, then not following through. Wouldn't something like this be applicable to the Felton case?
I think these anti-spam zealots teamed up on this poor spammer, and the only reason it went as far as it did (and as hilariously as it did) was because Shifman has a large amount of juvenile pride.
A couple of things:
1. I am the spambag.net guy.
2. In my experience, people who use the term 'anti-spam zealots' are either spambags themselves, of members of the mainsleaze spam lobby, (i.e. Ken Magill of the Direct Marketing Associations, or various random clueless marketdroids who occasionally write for mainstream rags).
3. The reason Shifman was piled on was because he deserved it. Nobody cared about him much until he began calling people up on the phone, yelling at them, or leaving crank messages on the answering machine. The initial version of spambag.net was only a few short paragraphs. Then Shifman began calling my voice mail and screaming into my answering machine.
Here's a free clue to wanna-be grubors and speedbumps. Be very careful before you decide to waive your dick around. Someone might just have a bigger one themselves.
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.
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.
Do you know that spontaneous job applications are common practice ? They are appreciated by many companies and human resources managers who read them and put them in a database even if the company has no job available at the time of reading. Later, if a position needs someone, they usually look first in this database before posting ads or other means of asking for candidates.
I read somewhere that spontaneous job applications account for 50 percent of some hiring.
Of course, the person looking for a job should research the company he is sollicitating and customizing any email he sends. But opt-in only for job sollicitations is not appropriate and even human resources managers would not like it.
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
When you have a publically accessible medium of communication you are implicitly agreeing that anyone may attempt to contact you at least once.
I disagree. How many business companies are there in the world ? If all of them send you an email for advertising, will you take the time to unsuscribe a few million times ? And if they are really nasty, they can even make the unsubscribe process a bit complicated or long.
So the basic question to ask is not who can send you an email but how did they get your email ?. It's a matter of privacy. If you give your email to one company, they should be prevented by law to give or sell your private records except if you authorize it.
Furthermore, you should have the right to see and edit your records for any company that have anything about you. I don't know for the US but, in Belgium, that's the way it works and I am happy with it.
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
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?
ISPs would be held accountable for the damages caused by not enforcing their AUPs.
But sending out the same large numbers of the same email to people who haven't asked for it makes it unsolicited bulk email = UBE = Spam.
And what if I send my resume to companies asking for work ? As I said in a previous post, spontaneous job applications are common practice, appreciated by many human resources managers and should not be prevented.
Obviously, it should not be bulk as you'd better customize your applications but dumb people should also be allowed to search for a job.
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
Whether the first email was technically spam or not is not really relevant (and doesn't provide the humor). The interesting thing here is how our new spam mascot bernie reacted. Always remember kids, what you say in email can easily be posted, despite those silly little "this message is intended only for the recipient" disclaimers.
Finkployd
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've gotten a good five or six.
Spammers tend to get infected with SirCam.
If the governement taxed email, say a penny a piece, legitimate users would harly notice, but spammers would be tanked.
I'm pretty sure that was ment as an insult to Bernard by the authur of spambag.net. They both speak russian and it would make no sence for Bernard to make up an obviously false law firm.
Also... Nowhere in voice mail is there mention of a law firm anyway.
Check this link out. Not that I have any sort of problem with stoners, but maybe the guy has just been high this whole time?
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
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 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!
A quick Google turned up a single solitary link that happened to have those three names in it, but it was just a list of names on some Russian site.
I have a hard time believing that such a high-falutin computer consultant would use lawyers that don't even have an Internet presence. Then again, it's also highly likely that the retard just mispelled their names.
My mom lives outside Chicago. I think next time I go visit her I'll have to pay a visit to his office just so I can tell him that he's a moron.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
There is a lesson to be learned here...
Play nice, the world is now a very small sandbox.
The corollary here is:
Anytime you are about to interview somebody for a job, do a google search on them first.
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
Has anybody thought that maybe he's not really a moron?
Maybe he's a comic genius under the guise of a master troll? Martini
I found the inevitable geneology links, a link to his actual web page (check the phone number), and an old link to a web page that has since removed the email.
If I received the spam, and were just the right level of cluelessness (clueless enough to consider hiring a spammer, clueful enough to do a web search on his name), then I may not find a web page claiming him as a spammer. Either Google has removed some content, or it was never indexed. There's no //petemoss.com/robot.txt, so I have to assume the former.
This may mean the folks that sent him back the link heard about it through the anti-spam newsgroups, or some other channel. That's a little different than doing a web search. I can imagine HR folks doing a web search, but maybe not a usenet search. Of course, if you do do the google usenet search, you find a number of links.
While I'm being fair, I did do a few ARIN whois searches. For those out of the know (I was one of them this time last year), the whois database gives information about the entity that registered a particular domain.
Searching for petemoss.com (Neil Schwartzman's prefered domain and the host of the website) gave nothing. I then pinged petemoss.com, got an IP address (206.117.161.122). The query returns the netblock's identity, as well as an administrator name, email, and (important to Shifman) phone and fax.
It seems a little more damning that Mr. Shifman doesn't know about these tools of the trade for tracking down people on the net. Of course, since I'm being fair, it wasn't until I started setting up my own home network and had to decipher firewall logs that I learned about whois...
Oh, sorry. It's not spam, it's a fucking TROJAN HORSE.
update comments set karma=-1, reason='offtopic' where sid=26315
When Governments start to tax, they don't stop. You say ligitimate users would hardly notice at a penny a piece, but there is no guarentee that the government would keep it at a penny. Better to pay end users to receive email. Better yet, make spam illigal and keep email free. I'd rather spend my time deleting a few unwanted emails then pay out my hard earned money!
Nah, like usual, people just haven't been clicking on the link. Remember, just because someone posts on a Slashdot article doesn't mean they read what it's about. Common fallacy, that. ; )
Seriously, though, the fellow in question never tried to sue; he threatened to sue. There's a bit of a difference.
The thing that bothers me about this is that I don't see anyone saying how many e-mails Mr. Shifman sent out. The original message posted on this site has one name in the "To:" line, and no mention of a "CC:" line. That suggests that it was sent to exactly one person. My question is, did Mr. Schwartzman know that Mr Shifman was sending out multiple e-mails when he made his complaint to Mr. Shifman's ISP. If so, how did he know? (I know that he found out later on when other people got involved, but at the time that he registered his complaint, how did he know?) From the page itself, it looks like Mr. Schwartzman got a single email (one sent to an inappropriate address, true) and got the sender's e-mail account cancelled. Is there more to the story? Because if not, it sounds like Mr. Schwartzman was in the wrong. Sending out one e-mail to the wrong person is annoying, but it's not spam.
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
Most of you, however, will runn in horror,screaming, at the proofs of this
hawk
Other have already found those IPs for you: http://www.declude.com/JunkMail/Support/ip4r.htm.
No replies made to AC posts. Please log in.
Go to all of those "Click here to send somebody you love a card" sites (which are nothing but address harvesters for spam.) Put his email in.
Every time you get a spam, reply to the "Remove" address with his e-mail address.
Give him a taste of his own medicine.
Oh, and Bernie, if you are reading this - you are hearby advised not to email me (even if you are bright enough to figure out how.) If you wish to serve me papers, you may ask for my lawyer's snail mail address.
www.eFax.com are spammers
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 address listed on his domain registration is over four miles from city hall (source: MapQuest.com). Granted I know nothing about Chicago's layout, but I would assume this is not in the high-rise district.
- There are no less than nine schools and nine supermarkets within the immediate vicinity of his location (source: MapQuest.com).
- In his block alone there are 164 housing units of which nearly 50% are single occupant dwellings. In addition, nearly half of the housing in that same block are rentals. (source for both: US Census for 2000)
- Again, his block alone is only about 1/4 of a mile long (source: US Census for 2000).
Now, the "suite" number listed on his domain registration is in the 400's, implying it's on the fourth floor. The fact that there even exists a unit number in the address proves it's a multi-occupant building. Taking into consideration all of the above information along with the type of work he claims to do, it's my opinion (possibly incorrect) the address listed in his domain records is most likely a single-family apartment.I seriously doubt his claims of the greatness of his career. He's probably just some wannabe compulsive liar who screwed up and refuses to bow out gracefully.
BTW, I'm not infallible (wait a minute, yes I am) so I would appreciate others checking my figures. :)
Folks, take a look at this. Mr. Shifman hasn't sued anyone for responding to his spam, and I'll wager he never will. He's made baseless threats, referring to non-existent lawyers. That's common among people who feel backed into a corner and don't understand law.
The site is mirrorred on spamflames.com. As the domain reseller for that domain, I also received a legal threat from Mr. Shifman. I have no intention of responding, and don't feel even slightly threatened by it. When I get court papers, I'll take it seriously.
Tom Geller
The guy got more publicity now then he imagined.
I'll hire him to fight with my girlfriend.
resumes aren't spam!!
And paper isn't junk mail.
According to your logic, I can just attach a resume (not even mine) to a "MAKE $$$ FAST!!!" email, and it's no longer spam, right?
Most people describe spam as Unsolicited Bulk Email.
Hmm, he emailed it, so there's one.
It was unsolicited - in that he not only sent it to people who did not ask for it, but he sent it to PRIVATE INDIVIDUALS. That's two.
It's bulk (he sent it to more than one person). That's three.
Therefore, it IS spam.
[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;
post post script (after after the writing)
hawk
(that ought to spin him up another couple hundred RPM!)
--Rob
Yeah, but what I want to see are some pictures after it's been egged by some militant Chicago anti-spammers. :)
/*drunk.. fix later*/
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
Dude. 1-3 are cool, and not spam as long as you are generating these addresses manually, knowing they are HR department emails who are willing to accept resumes, which I'll assume is the case... except that...
4 is fucking lame. Delivery confirmation is an existant feature of email, which notifies the recipient of the request for confirmation. You vbscript is no better than any other spyware.
And such lameness makes me doubt that my assumption of non-lameness regarding 1-3 is correct. Lamer.
The enemies of Democracy are
His web sites, here and especially here have images that are surely copyrighted.
I wonder if the copyright owner would be interested in a lawsuit?
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
hawk
Harassing phone calls are still recorded at the phone company even if you "disable" caller ID with *67
Two harassing phone calls from the same phone number constitutes telephone harassment.
Moral. Use a pay phone. Use several of them.
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
At least, I think so. I know that at about that time I got a resume, in doc format, from someone in Chicago. I sent him a "Dear Asshole" reply and added a Rule to kmail. Hmmm, wonder if I saved the resume?
Best Slashdot Co
The lawyer who just won the "Ferguson vs. Friendfinder" spam case on appeal accepts spam cases in California. There aren't many lawyers who've handled spam cases yet, but they exist.
Don't you know, Bernie was a founding member of the US Internet Industry Association. What's next, him holding a "WILL SPAM FOR FOOD" sign at Soldier Field?
The degree to which some amateur spammer "interferes" with others is quite disputable. It is certainly quite disputable in this case.
No real "tort" was perpetrated by the "spammer" against the person that went out of his way to seek revenge.
One should not need to worry about being imprisoned for merely raising their voice in public. (or it's logical equivalent)
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Bullocks. The "forced physical response" is meagre to trivial.
One wonders if any of you pansies have ever had to deal with serious REAL threats to your liberty or personal safety. When complaining about the likes of this guy, you all come off like a bunch of spoiled, pampered, sheltered whiners.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Actually, the degree of harm is VERY significant if you intend to go about carelessly supressing the liberties of others. NO ONE's liberties should be suppressed without quite compelling reason. Otherwise you make it far to easy for states and governments everywhere to suppress civil liberties at will and effectively NULLIFY them.
A minor inconvenience is far from compelling.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
From: "Bernard Shifman"
Best Slashdot Co
I read this on the link page:
r on
moron (môrn, mr-) http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=mo
n.
1. A stupid person; a dolt.
2. Psychology. A person of mild mental retardation having a mental age of from 7 to 12 years and generally having communication and social skills enabling some degree of academic or vocational employment. The term belongs to a classification system no longer in use and is now considered offensive.
I love it when ignorant people, such as the parent of this thread think, that anti-spammers tag team alleged spammers and get off on our actions. "oh baby, I got another potential spammer boot from the provider. Was it good for you?". Yeah, uh huh. Whatever. This guy does not deserve a 5.
Be very careful before you decide to waive your dick around
I'd think twice before I even *wave* my dick around. So you can be damn sure I'm gonna be very careful before I *waive* my dick.
This REALLY had me cracking up... You mean YOU, Bernie - an operation of ONE. LOL!
I can picture Popeye, just kind of puffing up his chest and flexing his muscles.
I want to know if MY resume was read by the person I sent it too, and if they shared it with anyone. It's MY resume and I want to know if it's being used.
Oh, well, as long as it's YOUR resume and not someone else's...
Sorry, no dice. Especially now that you've revealed that the vbscript follows the resume around, reporting on what is done with it without alerting those who are viewing it. That is exactly what spyware is. Having a personal interest in the data being spied is no excuse at all.
No different than the data Netscape or IE transmit each time I visit a website "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98), 192.168.1.2".
Except that once you have the html file on your HD, the file doesn't go sending more data back to the web server whenever you copy it or open it again. Unless, of course, it contains a spyware vbscript.
This is far from lame, or spyware. Read reciepts couldn't be phrazed into a logfile like I have.
I agree it's not lame. It's fucking lame. You might not think so, because if you did you wouldn't be doing it. But it sure as hell is spyware, and I can't imagine how you justify to yourself that it isn't. But your justification that read receipts can't be put in logfiles is 1) wrong, as Mozilla is open source so the answer is "Yes the can" and 2) the lamest excuse for infecting other people's machines with spyware I've ever heard. Not being able to get the data you want isn't a justification for the way you're getting it.
Go ahead. Go email all the people your script has identified as reading your email and tell them that the resume they had a hidden vbscript in it. I'd be willing to bet that most of them would agree with -me- that this was double plus uncool. Though I don't suggest you take that bet, since you'd be betting your employability. Or more, if they take your script to be the equivalent of computer intrusion.
The enemies of Democracy are
What we really need is a new mail system that is inherently spam-unfriendly, where the sender bears the burden of storing the message until the recipient chooses to come pick it up. Dan Bernstein is working on such a system, which he calls Internet Mail 2000. Check it out.
Edith Keeler Must Die
I am writing to ask you for your name and address, as I want to sue you. I am suing you for damages to my new 17" flatscreen monitor incurred by you providing a link to the webpage "Bernard Shifman Is A Moron Spammer", which I was compelled to click on, resulting in my aforementioned monitor being destroyed in a spray of Coca-Cola (which I was drinking calmly until being compelled to click on the link) issuing from my nostrils.
The Coca-Cola Company will also be a party to this suit, as the Coke that went through my nostrils has also caused serious damage to my sinuses. I am afraid a telephone discussion with you regarding the suit is therefore out of the question.
My legal team (me and my cat) agree that I have a watertight case.
Thank you.
Ethelred
P.S. First post!
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
220 Welcome ESMTP to carbon.initialized.org sendmail. If you spam us, you agree to allow us administrative access to all of your machines indefinitely; you also agree not to hold us liable for anything we do to the machines.
:)
That is my sendmail MOTD. I enjoy replying to spammers and demanding their root password persuant to my "sendmail agreement."
Do you like German cars?
Mailbox full I wonder why
I'm getting all this spam
It fills up my mailer window
With teen sluts and Sircam
And even if I delete it'll all be back
Hit my head against a wall
And it reminds me
That my life is not so bad, not so bad at all
/Brian
You can't know that 50% will be below the mode either. You're confusing "mode" with "median". The mode, in a list of values, is the value that appears most often.
Junk snail mail makes money
Junk phonecalls make money
The thing is, it costs money to send snailmail and phonecalls. But spamming dosn't cost money. Suppose there are maybe 5,000 people in the world intrested in your product, and you email every single person in the world, you'll hit those 5,000 people. Much cheaper then finding out who those 5k people are really.
And spamming does make money. for every person who gets livid and tries to sue, you'll get a thousand who sigh and delete the message. And maybe one or two people who are actualy intrested.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I think I've already demonstrated how your script differs from web browser identification. Cookies that track your behavior, ala doublclick, are rather unpopular and thus not a good thing to compare yourself to. If what you wanted was only what netscape and apache do, then you'd be using the normal email receipt notification means, and then, yes, you'd be right. But you have only shown that you are more like Doubleclick, a company that, yes, we do give hell. So no, you are not right.
The only thing I see is that you have justified your methods in your own mind, and don't believe you are doing anything wrong. Which is fine, though not uncommon among people doing things wrong. But in your own effort to show me how I am as lame as your fucking lame script, please take me up on my bet and tell everyone whose behavior you tracked that you have done so, as I suggested before. I know you won't, because despite our difference of opinion we are both intelligent enough to realize that this would not be in your best interest. And thus I smugly rest my case.
The enemies of Democracy are
Yeah, like shit^Hfman is going to realise.
A journey of a thousand miles starts with a brutal anal raping at airport security
(not linked to conceal link's origin :)
o m&server=magic
in which case people could have either clicked or cut, pasted, and edited the url. BTW, slash now shows the domain name after the link if you actualy do link, so it's not all that bad.
Yes. Fantastic. Of course, in doing so you also broke the link in half. This is incredibly annoying to anyone who actualy wants to go to the link as not only do they need to cut and paste the URL in they need to edit it and remove the blank spaces. If you wanted to you could have done http://samspade.org/t/whois?a=shifmanconsulting.c
In the future, please do not paste plain text links in slashdot.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
You know that if the remove address dosn't work the email domain might just as well be forged. I mean, you do realize that there's a very good chance you're spaming totaly innocent people, right?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
IQ isn't perfectly normal because there is a lower limit at 0, but no upper limit. But those aren't even one-in-a-million cases.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Glove d'OJ said:
>>Actually, with increasing sample sizes, the mean and median tend to converge. This holds for most standard distributions including normal.
Bluntly, no. This is true for symmetrical distributions. There are plenty of standard distributions which are asymmetric (Poisson - sp? - can be and log normal always is, e.g.), and it is rarely true for an asymmetric distribution.
Lars said:
:-). This cause a far larger skew to the low end than the excess spread to the high end.
>> IQ isn't perfectly normal because there is a lower limit at 0, but no upper limit. But those aren't even one-in-a-million cases.
More to the point, accident, environment and disesase can all decrease IQ, but rarely if ever enhance it (OK, syphillis will enhance IQ, but only temporarily
Visiting /. is a transaction, and everyone already knows and expects transactions to be logged. The visitor is knowingly visiting /., requesting a page from the /. server, and even if not technically aware they would not be shocked to learn that the page has been sent would be logged by the server.
/. server logs and your spyware, and that those people would see that difference as clearly as I (and I think you) do. But you pretend there is no difference, because if there was, since you are not a bad person, you'd feel morally obligated to stop. And then you'd lose the ability to gather the data you want.
Someone reading your resume would not expect that it would be making contact with your server, or that the act of reading somehow is a loggable transaction. They may expect that -receiving- the email may generate such contact (via a read receipt) but not that copies of that email would also do this.
It's the difference between buying a book at a store and the store keeping a copy of the receipt, and the book having a transmitter in the book that tells the store whenever you open the book without you knowing it is there.
It's the difference between recording a transaction that both parties are aware of, and spying on people.
But you know what? I think you already know this. It's significant in its omission that you don't contest my claim that telling the people you are spying on that you have done so would be a very stupid idea. I think you won't contest that, because you know that there is a difference between
The enemies of Democracy are
I'm not doing anything in "secret"
Bull, and you know it.
No one would expect a resume to be reporting to the creator that it has been read. No one would expect it to have an embedded vbscript. Yes, if they somehow noticed the strange connection to your server and looked for the script, it's there, but to say that makes it not in secret is pure semantic manipulation just to make yourself sound like you're not doing anything wrong.
I think that this is a feature of my resume rather then a hinderence.
Of course it's a feature to you. You're getting useful information. The people who want to spy on us always think it's useful, and maybe even think it is useful to those spied on. That doesn't make spying okay.
Not that I want to get into practical issues, because your script is lame for moral reasons... But do you realize that by putting more effort into applications that you have logged as being read, you're discriminating against companies that are smart enough to disable the automatic running of scripts?
The enemies of Democracy are
This is an interesting concept. It does seem kind of backwards but it just might work. I really don't see it getting accepted everywhere.
If this (or an equivalent) system could get implemented into some of the big mail servers (including MS Exchange) and a few of the big backbone providers actually implemented it, it might work, but I just don't see that happening.
Having laws against spam is not bad, they just need to be well thought out and implemented carefully. And they definately need clear and precise definitions.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I assume you're talking about the harm of supressing speach when you say the harm is very significant.
Free speach doesn't mean the right to scream the constitution into someones ear.
Suppessing that aspect of speach and only that aspect would be of far greater benfit than harm. But laws requiring that all people speak in a soft voice do a lot more, they would stop people from yelling when there's a real need, such as a fire in a crowded theater. Likewise laws which prevented spam and only prevented spam would be good. The fact that every law to date would do almost nothing to stop spam, but would do far too much supression of other speach, doesn't change the goodness of the concept.