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RC Car Craze: The Spam Connection

Posted by timothy on from the spam-from-ix dept.

Rick Zeman writes "The Washington Post is reporting that the latest toy craze, miniature radio-controlled cars, is actually fueled by spam, and that spammers are actually helping brick and mortar retailers. Dunno about you guys, but I get a couple of those a day...and I've resisted the 'temptation.'" The Washington Post wants to know your age, ZIP code and sex, and even provides you with hints on the first two. ...or read the same story on MSNBC.

3 of 302 comments (clear)

  1. why not boycott spam products? by SHEENmaster · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's a lot easier than boycotting 3rd world child labor or commercial software. To bad grandmothers and perverts are the true targets of spam; not us.

    --
    You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
  2. Voting With My Dollars by Myuu · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ya, I thought those were pretty cool, and I was just about to buy one until I start get those SPAM messages. I was so sick of deleting and sifting through them I said fsck them and bought something else.

    --

    forget it.
  3. Re:Mr. Hi-Speed Mailer Loves This Article by LostCluster · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The key change I would like to see is a model in which the SMTP server is replaced with one that must hold the "payload" content of the message, and instead send a token message that contains the IP address at which the full message resides, other header data, and a reduced hash of the message contents so that the message cannot be tampered with once its been "sent" without being rejected.

    Once an server is identified as having sent spam, the owner of the server can nuke the payload message, therefore making the tokens a pointer to nowhere, so client software ignores the message. Or, if the server owner is not cooperative, a blackhole can be applied to the server, causing client software to discard tokens sent by this server (even for not-yet-read messages that were sent before the alert was issued) so that the message content is never delivered to the user.

    Of course, the few users who actually want spam can continue to get it so long as the sender can find bandwidth willing to allow it, and the users decide to ignore any blacklisting. Nobody's first amendment rights are being denied, just every step in the process gets a chance to opt out.