Slashdot Mirror
SEC Lifts Ax For Minnesota Stock-Price Spammer
thejuggler writes "A call to Samuel Meltzer's St. Paul home is greeted with the message that he doesn't want to be bothered by solicitations. But, this story in a Minneapolis newspaper tells how the Feds and SEC claim he is a huge spammer. They claim he sends out spam spreading false and misleading information about various penny stocks. So far he has made at least $159,600 in stock and cash from 1998-2001 for spreading this false information. In a brief interview Tuesday, Meltzer (The evil spammer), 37, said he hadn't seen the complaint. "This is a surprise," he added."
So a spammer doesn't want to be bothered by solicitations. You won't need to take your iron supplements today, folks! There's irony a-plenty here.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
We could rid ourselves of all these spammers if we just brought back the Spanish Inquisition.... although it seems as if the feds and SEC might already be getting their help....
The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they are when you kill them.
Think we can do to him what we did to the last spammer that caught media attention?
Snail spam to the rescue.
Just wait until he tries to take a shower in prison.
Besides sending the unsolicited e-mails, the SEC said Meltzer created numerous Web sites to spread misinformation given to him by stock promoters. To conceal his identity -- and avoid the detection of Web hosts seeking to stop Internet spam -- Meltzer operated under at least 30 different assumed Internet identities, the SEC said. Some alias' are as follows: MELTzURISGOD, H4X0Rd00d, MNGUY2000, CWBYNL, ...
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
This guy may well be mistaken identity, but if the allegations are true, he is surely in for a surprise. I don't know his state's laws, but let's hope they get in on the works.
I have given up communicating on stock boards mainly because of the nature of these kinds of posts - hype. But then again, I'm not sure what I was looking for in reading those boards anyway.
but if he only made that much money in the time said, that's not much better than a decently paid programmer. Is this guy really the big fish? how much money do the penis enlargers and 2 week MBA guys make?
I seem to remember a TV show about a 16 year old that made a lot of money this way, i.e. buy a lot of cheap stock in some company, send out thousands of email tipping people off: "Watch this stock, it'll really roof in a week". Thousands of other buy the stock and the price on it goes up.
I think he got to keep 500k or something, the rest was taken away (by who I don't remember).
who faxes me all this crap about great stocks! each one has a different number to call to be removed from the various lists, so you can never effectively opt out. this is why we need a national opt in database! and, now he has a name... and an address... and a telephone number... i do wonder what lists his name will be entered on!
Shouldn't that be the alleged evil spammer? Come on, even spammers are innocent until proven guilty.
He's probably just like us... too busy deleting spam from his inbox...
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
Alleged evil spammer
Let's not commit libel here. He may be innocent.
Of course if he IS a Spammer, I'd saw we draw and quarter him.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Perhaps the lower and lower profit margains on this type of activity will eventually put an end to sonafabitches like this.
'He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.' - Douglas Adams
(1) You (and I) get too much spam.
(2) Your e-mail system administrator (and mine) need to keep beefing up the servers because the sheer volume of e-mail is growing so quickly.
To a first approximations, filters solve (1) but not (2), and black hole lists solve (2).
whirlycott summarizes the problem with (2) in two words: "collateral damage." How much of the e-mail network do we need to destroy in order to save it?
We need to move past first approximations. We need systems that work at the server level, but that somehow address the problems of collateral damage and false positives.
This is only the tip of the iceberg. Any network messaging medium is vulnerable to abuse by spammers. The problem started with Netnews, it continued with e-mail, it's happening now with instant messaging. We need at least high level solution that helps solve the problem regardless of prototcol.
I wish I had one.
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
people actually read && believe this crap?? (the spam, not this story)
evolution + filters = : )
We're like rats, in some experiment! -- George Costanza
I mean, who is stupid enough to make serious investment decisions based on unsolicited email? Is there something I'm missing here? Somebody explain this to me!
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
being spanish i can finally claim my very own cultural activity! hey the irish have their parades and drinking...! i want an inquisition, and i want it now!
Though the complaint says the touts had no basis, the stock price rose more than 12 percent to $2.50 a share between December 1999 and January 2000 after Meltzer's first spam.
As evil as spam is, you've gotta admit that creating a 12% jump in the price of a stock just by sending email is pretty cool.
Now, is the SEC gonna come and get me? What if I'm selling short?
--sex
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
Just because he used email instead of cold calling little old ladies in a rest home, this makes it "news for nerds?"
Did he at least use Linux to send out the spam? Come on, give us some reason to care about this article.
In a brief forum Wednsday, Slashdot (The home of geeks), 5, readers said they hadn't seen the complaint. "He should go to jail," they added."
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Something hit me after reading this: Are the tricks and games played in the "old internet days" when everything was hype still working? There are new people logging in, true, but with the endless popup/pr0n/commercial aspect of the net these days, who doesn't get wise quickly?
I'm simply amazed that the internet is now a global "idiot born every day" domain where any old trick still works like a charm. Yawn. When will this simply be as much news as someone buying "land in arizona" sight unseen?
While it's nice to see the "don't bug us, we're woefully underpaid and overworked" SEC finally going after one of these parasites, it's too bad they have to get geeked out about the whole spam bit to do so. That's only the tip of the iceberg on these pink sheet company abuses.
I got taken by a pink sheet bulletin board stock deal in the mid-90s. We put a good company and $15 million of local investor capital into what's called a dormant shell - a publically trading company that perhaps didn't make it in a former life, got kicked off of NASDAQ (or never made it), is probably late on SEC filings, and is operationally dormant. You can buy these things for a quarter million or so in Nevada, apparently.
The whole pitch is "you can go public for much less than an IPO, and get a publically trading stock which is much more liquid for your investors and allows you to get more investing money for less equity." The reality is that the shell's broker gets a credible asset in the shell to use for pump & dump.
The only problem is that every single one of them I've come across has had a controlling parasite "broker" in the middle - as was the one we encountered. The broker broke all the merger terms by refusing to hand over control of the company. He illegally siezed the company and the millions invested and looted it all. Ficticious board resolutions were used to change who could sign on the company bank accounts, etc. Offshore Bermuda accounts were used to funnel things to Swiss accounts - sounds hollywood, but it was very effective.
By the time the courts caught up with it all, the company was absent any cash or assets. The SEC's response? "Sorry - We have too many people doing this to be able to help you. Call your congressperson and ask them to increase our funding." Seriously.
Two years ago, I thought I found a company that had this background that wasn't a scam. WaveRider, a manufacturer of near-line of sight 900 MHz proprietary fixed wireless gear. Then I found the parasite, the Bermuda angle and the Swiss angle. It has since gone from $1/share to around $0.12. Like the best of these deals, the parasite retains competent management that really truly believes it has a chance. But they never do - not when legal control of the company is closely held by the parasite.
So... before you invest in a bulletin board stock, look for the parasite. Late on SEC filings? Run. See a Bermuda/Swiss connection? Run. Nevada corporation? Be very nervous. Read that 10K and 10Qs very, very closely.
Oh, and what ever happened to our parasite? He's still pushing his stocks and has avoided SEC and IRS enforcement for years. He's grown rather confident that he's untouchable and is probably right...
*scoove*
If you bring any moral charges against him, it will be like talking to a brick wall. He's already rationalized it all away in his own mind. Even though he will often bring the very same moral charges against other people, he will defend (or deny) his own actions down to the last detail.
It's called "hypocrisy". We all do it. However, when this guy does it, it's just a little more annoying.
...just my 2 gil.
They claim he sends out spam spreading false and misleading information about various penny stocks.
You mean to tell me that somebody's sending out spam with false and misleading information? Oh, come on now! Surely you're not serious! Next you'll be telling me that people are sending out spam with faked return addresses.
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
Only in court are you innocent until proven guilty. In the media, your innocence or guilt is determined by whatever sounds best. Sure, the media often tosses in "alleged" in every-other sentence as insurance against lawsuits, but everyone knows that when the media uses the word, "alleged," they mean "guilty but not yet convicted in court."
I've seen only a few of these penny stock pump-and-dump scams in my mail, most of the daily deluge is pecker enhancement, offshore pharmacy, mortgage cons and pr0n.
As of yet I'm still trying to find a way to post on USENET with a bogus email account in the header, since my ISP doesn't seem to favor anonymous postings (hence I'm on CD's, probably more than AOL puts out, traded among spammers.)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Slashdot looks to join the crowd
is this posted in the wrong thread, or are you trying to hint that fair use protects people from securities fraud? I hope it's not the latter, because that would be one of the single dumbest things I have ever heard in my life.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
Here is the record of nanae discussions involving him. Here he is on ROKSO, the spamhaus.org register of known spam operations. The long-running pump-n-dump spammer. He finally got nailed, eh? Good! And we've already done Ralsky. Now for the diploma guy...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
I've started using disposable email addresses (e.g. http://www.sneakemail.com), which works like a charm for already clean email inboxes. And for my email address that aldready gets spam, I'm just walking away from it.
There have been cases that go beyond the bounds of what I say above
Like posting misleading stock information with any hint of "inside information" or authority.
Spamming opinions is one thing, but securities are advertised based on real numbers. Even these are to be sent out with numerous disclaimers. Give it up dude.
Here's another one that's going on at this moment, CMKM . In one fell swoop, without any public notice, they went from having 352 million shares outstanding to over 7 billion, effectively wiping out existing stockholders in the blink of an eye. They have a horrible website too.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
They might also want to take a look at Britney_caught_xXx_HOTHOTHOT@hotmail.com as well. This young woman has cunningly persuaded me ( weilding the lure of false information and promises) to spend at least $8,550 on internnet "entertainment" between 1999 and the present. I demand that action be taken.
The point isn't that he's a spammer, the point is that he's in violation of the SEC "pump & dump" laws as well as wire fraud.
This guy has a lot more at stake to lose than the average spammer.
let me guess.. he didn't hear from his customers because when they replied to the emails it was to an unknown domain name.... or.. he put Cowboy Neals email address in the reply to button.. hummm... Cowboy Neal?
Obama = Socialism.
A good movie where and investment firm pushed sales of stock in a fake company that they made up. Here it seems the guy picked crappy companies at random and tried to push their stock, so he could sell his own shares.
If you haven't seen Boiler Room, I highly recommend it. It has Vin Diesel, Giavanni Ribisi, and Ben Affleck, but still manages to be a great movie.
But does it work? Does it really mightier my penis?
Check out Postini: http://www.postini.com/
I work for an ISP, and we've implemented this as our anti-spam and anti-virus solution for our subscribers. It could not have worked out better -- we make money, our customers get less spam (almost none, really, and very few false positives), and our platform is much more healthy because the crap is blocked before it gets to our network.
The only downside is that it must be implemented by the mail provider -- individuals can't sign up for the service directly. Other than that, it's win-win.
If you complain about Spam on an airliner, will you get reported to the Homeland Security types?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
yes, "He's manipulating people by telling them bum stock tips..." BY SENDING OUT MILLIONS OF SPAM EMAILS. moron.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
The best spam control isn't new laws about who can send mail or newer and fancier statistical analysis filters, it's vigorous and severe punishment for the fraudulent schemes/products pushed through email.
Even if you passed a law that said "No spamming" the people running spam servers or doing bulk emailing would still be nearly impossible to catch since they can be hijacking open relays or using false-name disposable mail servers.
But ALL of the spam ultimately has a 'reachable' person there to collect the money, and that provides the perfect means to catch the PEOPLE invovled.
If the fraud merchants behind these schemes began to get indicted and convicted with a visible public frequency, it might start to have a real impact on spam. It wouldn't be a 100% perfect solution, but it would stave off needless government regulation of email which 'spam' laws would need to be effective and it might scare off a big chunk of the amateurs and part-timers trying to run their own solo operations.
I'd love to see that spam bitch from Florida that was on Slashdot a few months ago lose that house, the SUV and all the other goodies she has as she tries to ward off a federal wire fraud investigation. I know she was just acting as an advertising service, but isn't aiding and abetting illegal too?
if someone were to link to documents that have his address in them.
r Re lief.pdf
http://www.wa.gov/ago/pubs/ChippynetComplaintfo
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
I mean... $159,600... wow, no wonder the U.S. economy is down the tubes. It's great that SEC has plenty of time to fry these gnats and beat the war drums, showing they're doing their jobs, so they don't have to go after the multi-billion dollar scam people like Enron, WorldCom, and all the others that have covered their tracks by now.
Spam bugs me as much a next person, but if this is biggest fish they're going to catch that way, I'm sure all those investors and pension plan holders would rather the guns were turned on some more worthy target.
It's amazing how well the war hysteria has worked at smoothing over the corporate scandals. And now spam too...
A fool and his money were lucky to get together in the first place.
In a world where there are actually people who make investment decisions based on newspaper astrology columns and mortgage their homes to buy lottery tickets ( so that they're sure to win) nothing surprises me very much.
The fact of the matter is that most people aren't very bright. Get used to it. The world is populated by most people.
KFG
Short answer, Me. Let me explain. This could influence the price of a stock. I can predict the directionof the near term stock price. Check the server stats. If it's new, check the history of the stock price. If the price hasn't jumped up yet, jump on board knowing that it's a scam. If the price has already jumped up, you are too late to ride it up. Don't buy to ride it back down. Plan on not holding but bail right after the price goes up. In other words, take advantage of the spammers work.
The truth shall set you free!
$159K over 4 years or so doesn't sound like all that much money to me.
obviously nice on top of a regular salary, but in terms of a scam - I would think you would stive for more cash and in less time. do it fast and then it is over with and you have your cash to live off and be done with.
over the counter stocks (penny stocks) are pretty much all scams of some sort - to "invest" in them ever is just kind of retarded - it is more the realm of day traders since it is easy to see large percentage moves daily.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
http://www.wa.gov/ago/pubs/ChippynetComplaintforRe lief.pdf
Hey, you think your house is cool?
Are less forgiving about someone messing around with somthing as important as the economy. If they were less forgiving, guys like this could run about destroying companies left and right with rumors and accusations in order to make a quick buck or two.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Sure, the SEC can send you to federal pound-you-in-the-ass prison and take your profits, but don't forget all the investors who lost money can launch a multimillion dollar class action against you, and since the SEC already took your profits, they're coming after the money you earned legitimately, or at least on scams nobody caught on to yet.
MHO. YMMV. Any resemblance between this post and real persons, or reality in general, was accidental.
Oh hush now. Last time I checked it was 2.4 at least, and rising steadily!
-Mark
Sir Bedevere: Tell me. What do you do with spammers? ...because they're... Videogames?
... A spammer!
Peasant 1: quarter them!
Sir Bedevere: And what do you quarter, apart from spammers?
Peasant 1: More spammers!
Peasant 2: Videogames!
Sir Bedevere: Correct. Now, why do spammers quarter?
Peasant 3:
Sir Bedevere: Good. So how do you tell whether he is a Videogame?
Peasant 1: Dominate Japan with him!
Sir Bedevere: But don't we also dominate Japan with excessively cute rodentia iconography?
Peasant 1: Oh yeah.
Sir Bedevere: Now, do videogames withstand a slashdotting?
Peasant 1: No, no... Throw him to the Trolls!
Sir Bedevere: No, no. What else does not withstand a slashdotting?
Peasant 1: Apples!
Peasant 2: IIS!
Peasant 3: Very small rocks!
Peasant 2: Debian! KDE Mirrors for minor upgrades!
Peasant 1: Mindstorms Segway Scooters!
Peasant 2: Beers cooled by Jet Engine exhaust!
Peasant 3: Matrix Movies!
Peasant 2: The RIAA!
Peasant 3: Churches! Churches!
King Taco: Atari 800s!
All Peasants: Ooooooooo....
Sir Bedevere: Exactly! So logically...
Peasant 1: If... he... computes as fast as... an Atari 800... he's a videogame.
Sir Bedevere: And therefore?
Peasant 1:
Peasant 2: A Spammer!
crowd: A Spammer! A Spammer!
Bedevere: Who are you who are so wise in the ways of mob logic?
King Taco: I am CmdrTaco, King of the Geekins.
Bedevere: My liege!
The ______ Agenda
I've been on the more pleasant side (if there is one) of SEC investigations, and one thing they do which is kind of cool is investigate everyone around the person first - particularly in insider trading.....then when they've compiled the data, they contact the potential guilty party - for example, I work in Mergers & Acquisitions and we represented a public company in a sale. SEC investigated some trades right around the announcement - and first asked for a list of people at my company that knew about the deal...they then sent us lists of people - ie, do you know any of these people...without any other info.
So maybe this guy will still get it. These guys piss me off - primarily because they are capitalizing on ignornace - it's no different then a cheap con.
That there are mail servers bouncing mail from *.cn and *.br is a start, but think of it, what if the 'net at large just said that these people don't exist? It's true that it blocks the innocent users as well, but think of the domino effect: innocent users on foobar.com.br can't read google, bitches at sysadmin, threatens attrition (or just simply votes with his feet and moves to foobaz.com.br). Management sees bottom line, asks why, sysadmins say people are moving off because they can't talk to the 'net through them. Management *theoretically* investigates why and determines the reason they are no longer on the 'net is because they let a spammer sign a pink contract with them and people gave him the Internet Death Penalty.
So yeah, it's a nasty way to go, but it closes another door and tells the rogue admins that we ain't gonna take it no more.
This sig no verb.
And how, pray tell, do you distinguish between people who were dumb enough to buy the stocks because of his spam, and people who were dumb enough to buy the stocks without having read his email?
These people have already been penalized, after all, by losing money on the stocks.
Can we copyright our e-mail address's
(they are unique to us) and go after spammers with the dmca?
Hear hear! They should be going after Enron, Ken Lay, et. al. with glee. Me thinks this is the most backward administration, ever. They go after the little guys first then worry about the big ones later.
the daily enron
The longer they let it sit, the less likely it will be mentioned at the next "election."
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
jonathan lebed
;-P
anyone remember this kid?
read the new york times magazine article i linked to if you aren't familiar with his story. it absolutely floored me. great story.
15 years old, made at least $250,000 in six months
the amazing thing about this kid is he settled with the SEC... they BACKED OFF prosecuting him because at the time, shortly before the stock bubble burst a few years ago, his lawyer was ready to make an issue of the illegality of what he was doing... inflating stock prices through hype.
the problem? think about it: what was going on at the time via PROFESSIONAL stock info outlets?
same damn thing
makes you think, doesn't it?
made the SEC think at least, they backed off, so the kid actually cleared some profit (a small percentage of whatever he actually made... no one knows for sure, but not bad for a 15 year old)
amazing!
jonathan lebed: if you're at some university today, lurking on slashdot, my hats off to you for staring down the whole damn SEC
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
One less spammer bites the dust... I was the one that "blew the whistle" on this sleaseball.
About 8 months ago I get this spam that advertizes this site. I go to the site, contacted them about the spam because there was no opt out. I had gotten an excessive amount from this spammer, so it raised a lot of flags.
I learned this company had just gone IPO, and had a good product, but was unaware of the spammer. I sent them a sample of the spam. They got back to me right away and thanked me for bringing it to their attention. I turned them onto this FTC agent I became acquainted with earlier who agreed to take on the investigation.
Because the case is still pending, I cannot give ANY details on it, until the case is closed.
Why? Because only greedy people would fall for a "pump & dump" pitch.
Okay, I decide to jump for the trolls, just this once!
I'd be out putting the hurt on some fucker if he robbed me of my retirement.
Well boy, you best be sure somebody is not smarter than you and decide to steal your identity! That would be great...
1. Steal Mr. Hunsaker's identity
2. Commit fraud under new alias
3. ???
4. Watch idiot vigilante kill another idiot vigilante!
Steve Linford has the evidence at spamhaus.org.
a base=spammers.db&-layout=list&-response=roksolist. lasso&-noresultserror=norecords.lasso&-operator=cn &status=live&-clientusername=guest&-clientpassword =guest&evidence=Meltzer&-search=Search&-search =).
See it at http://tinyurl.com/63go (which forwards to http://www.spamhaus.org/rokso/spammers.lasso?-dat
I question the validity of the statement "black hole lists solve (2)".
Block lists have been tried for many years now.
The quantity of spam has steadily increased during that time, even if you only include spam comming from unblocked IPs.
Based on the spam I've received in the past six months,
the quantity of spam comming from listed IPs is realtively constant,
all the increases have come from unlisted IP addresses.
-- this is not a
Boiler Room and you'll get a good idea of how penny stock scams work.
I don't think you accurately measure the damage this guy has done. He made $160k. Not much on the Enron/Worldcom Pimping Scale (TM), I agree. But in order for him to make a buck, a certain stock has to be pumped up with the hard-won cash of countless small investors. These people collectively lost much more than $160k when the bastard dumped the stocks.
It's not a zero-sum game. Like most other criminal activity, each dollar of illicit profit is actually creating tens of dollars of damage. So we're talking millions of destroyed wealth here.
Also, don't forget that countless other shitbags would be thinking twice before attempting pump-and-dump schemes now thanks to this deterring case.
Be thankful to the SEC that they finally condescend to catch the kind of miserable bastards that defraud the small people, instead of devoting all its time licking the wounds of multi-billion investors.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
> $159k over 3+ years isn't exactly a killing,
> especially for something he was spending a
> considerable amount of his time on (read: full
> time job).
Anything over a hundred thousand dollars in three years is fucking incredible. As a netadmin (and programmer, and web master, and ISO 900x form designer, and part time journalist, and data enterer, and end user support dude, and machine setup guy) that could bring his company down with a simple push of a button (I'm in a room with all the servers, and that UPS switch looks mighty inviting at times), half that amount would be a pretty sweet raise. Heck, you can also figure in that he wouldn't have to spend four thousand dollars over those three years to pay for the gas for the commute. Heck, all that commuting has cost me a good six or seven thousand dollars on my car if you also count wear and tear (and that replacement engine) over the last three years.
Wow. This guy has a dream job. Work from home, exploit stupid people, make fifty thousand dollars a year with far fewer expenses. Shit, if only I had less in the way of ethics and morals....
-JC
http://www.jc-news.com/
Best .sig ever
Synergy is your friend
take advantage of the spammers work
You can't
That way if anyone sent spam I could sue the fuck out of them for patent infringement.
Hmm, I guess I was lucky to never get to it before it went up. I've watched a couple, but never close enough to the bottom before the rise to bite.
Oh well, it was a fun idea however.
The truth shall set you free!
Think we can do to him what we did to the last spammer that caught media attention?
Snail spam to the rescue.
Snail spam is good, but a bit "20th century." I'm sure both Sam, and his spamming 'bro Adam Meltzer would love to talk about their spamming of your emailbox.
651-224-2484
They have no real jobs and are home most days.
(yes, if you have an email address, there's a very good chance the Meltzer boys have spammed you!)
Does somebody want to start an Alan Ralsky on this guy? I'm all for learning signing him up for a couple of mail-order catalogues that I know of. And some financial mailing lists. After all, he DEFINITELY wouldn't want to miss out on these opportunities now!
Thanks cgenman -- great parody, made me laugh!
-kgj
This is only the tip of the iceberg. Any network messaging medium is vulnerable to abuse by spammers. The problem started with Netnews, it continued with e-mail, it's happening now with instant messaging. We need at least high level solution that helps solve the problem regardless of prototcol.
...and most of all...
So, how do you get the word to motivate people to act on this mushrooming problem? One way that I can think of is by giving them a new way to think about it. Relate it to something that they understand...
Spam is not junk mail.
Spam is litter on the information superhighway.
Its trash. Pure and simple trash that gets in the way of people communicating with each other. And pretty soon this garbage will be everywhere. On the sides of roads, in the streets, in our driveways. We won't be able to go anywhere because of this TRASH.
Besides...your POSTAL MAILBOX isn't about communication anymore. The only kinds of mail you get in your postal mailbox are BILLS and your MAGAZINES and NEWSLETTERS and CATALOGS. Come on, does anyone send US mail now except for at the holidays? Or to grandma? Except, heck, Grannie's on AOL now, too.
That's what the word SPAM was coined for. (The history of the word is a different topic for a different (overly rehashed) post.) But the fact was, a new word was needed and SPAM arrived to fill the need: To let people know that this wasn't regular junk mail. Pretty much ALL postal mail (besides checks) is junk mail, anyway...
But SPAM is too soft. Too cuddly. SPAM doesn't convey the sense of urgency that is needed...
I think it would be effective if people started calling it for what it is: Trash, Garbage
Pollution!
I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.
After all, if I didn't buy stuff from all the e-mails I received, I wouldn't have this pair of 36DD breasts! I just love kicking around in my cheaply-re-mortgaged home not having a clue what to do with my 24" penis...
Or that his victims were Australian! Or maybe he's being nailed by the Australians! Anything with Australians in it, that's the way to popularity on /. these days! Or so it would seem... ;)
Exactly right- but the lack of a central governing authority over the net makes it possible and legal for those who have set their lives on a career of spamming and fraud to increase the volume of spam logarithmically. I believe if follows Moores law: if in the past one hundred thousands spams had to be sent in order to generate a sale, now it is in the hundreds of millions, but those billions of spam can be sent with more or less the same effort. Legitimate use is also increasing, but at a linear rate.
Therefore, the junk volume vs. usability of the internet will come to a head in a year or two. The end will be the wiping of the internet as we now know it (because it will be useless by junk) or the creation of an alternate internet with protocols designed to resist the abuse of shared resources.
It's very hard to make laws against corruption when there are so many things that are merely immoral and not illegal. Crooks will always invent mechanisms that exploit loopholes and oversights of the lawmakers. The more complex and all-encompassing the laws try to be, the easier they actually are to break. It's a sad consequence of system theory. Read
That's why, when you can catch one of them crooks, you should be merciless.
Finally, you correctly point out that getting investment advice from spam isn't too clever. The real crime in the Enron/Worldcom scandals was indeed not committed by the corrupt execs. It was perpetrated by the accountants and auditors who certified the books, tarnishing the whole system. For this form of economic sabotage, the Chinese government would shoot them.
Let's hope that more heads will roll in this case.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
I've got an idea for revenge. Since we could easily find where he lives, we could print out copies of all the penis enlargement and free money spams we have to wade through every morning. Take about 30 flyers down to his car every morning and affix them to his car: under the windshield wipers, curled up in his door handles, stuffed into the seals of the windows. So every morning he'll have to take the time to remove them all before he is able to do what he really wants: to drive his damn car.
I'm from St. Paul, so I could pull it off.
-Slo
Strict obedience to the law is the key to liberty.
We need a new protocal that makes the sender more accountable and traceable maybe. I would not think of knocking on your door to convince you that your disk is too small. But maybe via spam. Perhaps a protocol that demands a certain accountability from the sender ...
From Spamhaus:
"Defendant Samuel Meltzer resides at 1370 Carling Drive #302, Saint Paul, Minnesota."
For mailing, that's MN 55108-5212
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us