Another Millionaire Spammer Story

An anonymous reader writes "Here's another story about a millionaire spammer who thinks he is doing nothing wrong and can't wait to get his hands on the next generation of spamming software." See also the last installment.

Comments

file trading okay, spam not okay

[Twirlip of the Mists]

It always cracks me up when I read Slashdot articles about spam. The exchange of music, movies, and copyrighted software is universally-- well, almost; there are a few dissenters, but we're a minority-- upheld as just fine and dandy, and those who try to put a stop to it are accused of being totalitarian dinosaurs who are rapidly getting left behind by the Internet age.

Spammers, on the other hand, are the lowest form of scum.

This dichotomy amuses me. If you guys want to be free to trade music and movies and whatnot, then it's pretty hard to argue that spammers shouldn't also be free to email out their billions of pieces of junk mail.

Re:file trading okay, spam not okay

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Hmm, according to your *ahum* logic, blackhat hackers are FREE to own your machine.

How do you figure? The law in many jurisdictions makes unauthorized access to a computer a crime of property. United States law (specifically, Title 18 section 2701) makes unauthorized access to any facility to which electronic communications access is provided a crime punishable by up to one year in prison in the first offense.

But that's not what we're talking about here. What we're talking about is the fact that many Slashdotters oppose one form of electronic communication which is, at present, entirely legal, but support another which is, at present, entirely illegal. Their reasons for supporting file trading make it essentially impossible to argue for banning spam, while their reasons for banning spam make it impossible to argue for allowing file trading.

This is funny to me.

Let me give you a little advice: skip comparing apples and pears, it makes you look stupid.

Let me give you some advice in return: don't assert that two things are as different as apples and pears when, in fact, they are essentially the same thing.

*Sigh* some people need a lot of explaining.

They sure do.

Re:file trading okay, spam not okay

[Twirlip of the Mists]

This is part troll, but this question has been raised before.

Oh, of course it's not part troll, unless you define "troll" as being "unpopular opinion."

Piracy for the most part doesn't really hurt anyone....

That's obviously false. Piracy does cause financial harm to copyright holders. The amount of harm caused may not be significant-- as you say, people still go to movies-- but if only one person downloads a pirated CD instead of buying it, the copyright holder has been harmed. That doesn't necessarily mean much, but it does invalidate your point that piracy doesn't harm anybody.

Spam, on the other hand, causes no financial harm at all. It's annoying, but it doesn't deprive any person or company of revenue. You could say that spam causes harm through denial of service, but the exact same thing can be said of file trading, so that point is moot.

Do you see now what I meant when I posted my original comment? The arguments for allowing file trading while banning spam just don't hold water. I just can't find a way to reconcile the ideas that file trading is okay-- even, as some Slashdotters inexplicably argue-- beneficial, while spam should be criminalized.

I know everyone hates spam, but...

[MikeyLove]

C'mon people...is it really THAT big of a deal? I don't have any problems hitting delete when I receive spam. And geez...the reason it still exists is because it is proven to work. I'd be willing to bet that a good percentage of people who get pissed off after reading stories like this aren't mad about spam, they're mad because they didn't think to get in on it first.

Give him a call

[scourfish]

Ralsky, Alan M 5016 Patrick Rd West Bloomfield, MI 48322 248-661-5166 Leave a message on his answering machine stating that you do not want any unsolicited mail... Or, one could give him a taste of his own medicine and make unsolicited sales calls to his house... or even better: put large ads up on his front lawn.

suck it

[Skazamboi]

suck it

Re:love the snl reference

[scotch]

SNL is about as funny as a heart attack. Been that way for at least 15 years. Will Farrel is a 1 or 2 trick horse. The rest of the cast has had so little talent over the years. The show is still riding on the coattails of the 70's cast, IMO. I don't watch it much, but everytime I do tune it or see the syndicated episodes on comedy centrol, it's always the same, rehashed, dragged-through-the-mud, beat-on-a-dead-horse, run-with-something-that-was-funny-once-until-every one-wants-to die skits. There's a show that needs to be fucking cancelled. If Saturday Night wasn't such a horrible time slot, it would have been dead years ago.

YMMV

Re:All spammers

[ergo98]

You do realize that he was jokingly referring to condoms, right?