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.
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.
YMMV
XML causes global warming.
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.
I write in my journal
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 write in my journal