Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Stupidity, Telebastardy, Fast Search
"I read your Overture/FAST story on Slashdot and wanted to make a clarification.Thanks for the correction, Peter.Your headline implies that Overture is completely acquiring FAST. This is completely incorrect. Overture has only acquired FAST's Internet business unit assets, which includes FAST WebSearch, FAST PartnerSite and FAST's popular search site, AlltheWeb.com."
Isn't that the stuff that sells? icantblvitsnotbutter writes "In what looks like a scoop, The Register has an article covering the latest in the ongoing battle between Gary Kremen and VeriSign. The High Court of California has rejected a request to consider the legal issue of whether a domain can legally be deemed as property. This is a huge help for (relatively) money-strapped Kremen, whose opponent VeriSign was evidently using the request as a delaying tactic. VeriSign previously had breathlessly warned that a wrong decision would 'cripple the Internet'."
And they made such a pleasant version of Debian, too ... robmered writes "Three years after receiving US$135M in cash from Microsoft, and one and a half years after Xandros bought Corel's Linux assets, The Age is reporting that Corel has finally removed all Linux software from its website. The end of an era, or a margin note in history? The Age thinks the former, but the strength of Open Office, Gimp and numerous desktop environment efforts seem to indicate that the Linux bandwagon will roll on regardless."
Certainly, I would like to talk at length about your business proposal. Would you like to know my fees in advance? KC7GR writes "There's an article running at DMNews about a company called Castel, Inc. that has, supposedly, developed software that can be used by automated dialing equipment to bypass a TeleZapper, or similar SIT generators, and get through to your phone no matter what.
It is also claimed that the software can deliver any type of text or phone number to a recipient's caller ID box, no matter if it's true or false, and that it can also bypass the anti-telemarketer blocks made available by some telephone companies, such as SBC and Qwest.
Granted, this software is not cheap (about $2,700.00 per calling position, apparently), and Castel is quick to claim that they created this stuff primarily for collection agencies to help them get through to deadbeats who use TeleZappers. Does anyone here really think that'll stop telemarketers from using the same crap, just because they can?"
Brevity is one antidote to stupidity. Yoda2 writes "Here is Part II of the Salon story on the Loebner Prize that Slashdot covered yesterday."
*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_ _ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ _
g_______________________________________________g
o_/_____\_____________\____________/____\_______o
a|_______|_____________\__________|______|______a
t|_______`._____________|_________|_______:_____t
s`________|_____________|________\|_______|_____s
e_\_______|_/_______/__\\\___--___\\_______:____e
x__\______\/____--~~__________~--__|_\_____|____x
*___\______\_-~____________________~-_\____|____*
g____\______\_________.--------.______\|___|____g
o______\_____\______//_________(_(__>__\___|____o
a_______\___.__C____)_________(_(____>__|__/____a
t_______/\_|___C_____)/Get It\_(_____>__|_/_____t_ _
s______/_/\|___C_____)___In__|__(___>___/__\____s
e_____|___(____C_____)\__You_/__//__/_/_____\___e
x_____|____\__|_____\\_________//_(__/_______|__x
*____|_\____\____)___`----___--'_____________|__*
g____|__\______________\_______/____________/_|_g
o___|______________/____|_____|__\____________|_o
a___|_____________|____/_______\__\___________|_a
t___|__________/_/____|_________|__\___________|t
s___|_________/_/______\__/\___/____|__________|s
e__|_________/_/________|____|_______|_________|e
x__|__________|_________|____|_______|_________|x
*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_g_o_a_t_e_x_*_
Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic. Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) If you want replies to your comments sent to you, consider logging in or creating an account.
Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic. Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) If you want replies to your comments sent to you, consider logging in or creating an account.
Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic. Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) If you want replies to your comments sent to you, consider logging in or creating an account.
burninating the countryside
burninating the peasants
burninating the people
in the thatch-roofed cottages!
THATCH-ROOFED COTTAGES!
TROGDOOOOOOOR!
oh, yeah, fp.
Whatever.
I side on the fence that if you care enough about privacy to make it your job to fight it, you clearly have something to hide.
Background: 28/M/Bi-Sexual; Owner of a Linux company; MBA Harvard 2003; B.S. Comp Sci MIT 2000
don't forget your local meetup. :)
Is that not illegal yet?
Help a college student
Perfectly on topic.
When someone invented a caller id blocker blocker blocker.
I heard some sad news on the radio today, Fred Rogers, the host Host of 'Mister Rogers' Neighborhood,' died today. He was 74. Say what you want about the Public Broadcasting System, but Fred Rogers embodied the American Spirit during a time when the commies were trying to take over America. Truely an American icon ... He will surely be missed.
Adult Movies, Adult Videos, XXX Videos XXX Movies, Movies, Video, Hardcore Videos Phone Sex, Cheap Phone Sex Live Sex, Live Chat, Video Chat Sex, Adult, XXX, Porn, Hardcore Amateur, Amateur Sex, Girl Next Door Escorts.Sex.Com, Escorts Personals, Singles, Swinger, Dating, Strippers Fetish.Sex.Com, Foot Fetish Panty, Foot, Peeing, Legs, Pregnant, Smoking Lesbians, Pussy Licking, Lesbian Sex Lesbo Shemales, Transsexuals Chicks With Dicks Anal, Orgy, Oral Sex, Ass, Pussy Blowjobs, Cum, Anal Sex, Fucking Teens, Teen Sex, Teen Pussy, Girls Teenager, Young, Cheerleaders, Teen Porn Free XXX, Free, XXX Passwords Free Sex, Free Porn, Free Sex, Free Pussy Store.Sex.Com, Sex Toys, Toys, Dildo, Penis Enlargement, Adult Toys, Viagra Black Sex, Asian Sex, Japanese, Ebony Interracial Sex, Chinese, Latina Sex, Indian Sex Tits, Boobs, Big Tits, Nipples Huge Tits, Big Nipples, Big Boobs BDSM, Bondage, Torture, Spanking Porn Pics, Hardcore Pics, Photos Casino.Sex.Com, Casino Online Gambling, Gambling, Online Casino Gay.Sex.Com, Gay Gay Sex, Cock, Nude Men, Boys, Twink Voyeur, Live Video, Upskirt, Spy Webcams, Spy Cams, Public Nudity Mature Porn, Mature, Mature Fucking Older Sex, Granny, Mature Sex, Adult Sex Erotic Stories, XXX Stories, Stories Erotica, Tantra, Porn Stories, Books, Romance Huge Cocks, Well Hung Abnormally Big, Dicks, Hard Cocks Plumpers, Fat Pussy, Fat Big Beautiful Women, BBW Cartoons, Hentai, Anime Cartoon Sex, Cartoon Porn, Manga, Toons Webmaster.Sex.Com Software and Scripts, Hosting, Content Providers
And here is a local sex mirror: $$exySlut
Er, nope.
And people still fork out $5 a month for CLI. Meanwhile there's just no way a telemarketer can get through to my phone, and I don't breach the privacy of my friends and collegues (why should I force them to give me their phone number? I wouldn't force them to give me their address before letting them in the house...) and all because of a $15 piece of junk I got from the local branch of Wal*Mart.
Bliss. And my electricity bill's lower too. Between this and my new Mac, I can power the entire house on my own smugness...
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
A possibly less slashdotted version of the TeleZapper article can be found at http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20030225/1553220. shtml.
I worked as a telemarketer once... for a week. I got paid full time for my training and then bailed and got a new job before ever making a call. So I know nothing about the industry.
I'm curious, how long do you think it would take a telemarketing company to pay off the huge chunk of change they'd require to buy enough copies of this program to outfit their entire outfit? As I recall, there were several hundred stations at the place I worked.
~SL
http://www.codebushido.com
its a website!
that is unrelated to this post!
believe it!
for it is true!
This new technology allows the telemarketers to make any name appear that they want. Great. Now I'm going to get calls from "President Bush" and "Saddam Hussein" and "Michael Jackson", instead of "Unknown Out of Area Caller". Which is worse? ;-)
--sex
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
Is SourceForge working on a competing model yet?
~SL
Incoming Call From: Bill Gates ...
Accept/Decline?
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
I can think of a number of uses for this, including search engines, help desk stuff, etc. How long before this becomes commonplace technology? Five years, ten years?
So, who aquired Make.Money.FAST?
Karma: Marginal (mostly due to the border around the website)
developed software that can be used by automated dialing equipment to bypass a TeleZapper, or similar SIT generators, and get through to your phone no matter what.
I would think that this would do far more to hurt the industry than help them, especially as far as the government deciding whether or not to regulate do not call lists.
If you have your own phone switch, you can send out any caller id you want. It's not authoritative, never has been. It's about the same as a reply-to address in email. It's a shame the poster didn't buy Kevin Mitnick's book after it was mentioned on slashdot so many times, because he does cover caller id spoofing for social engineering on people who do think caller id is a secure way to id the caller.
Argh, I haven't even finished the FIRST article. Are they writing a book??
if(!cool) exit(-1);
1.My kids' names
2.Their ages
3.Their birthdates
4.The school they go to
5.My address
6.What they look like
7.What route they take home from school
8.Who their teachers are
9.Where hteir soccer practice is held
10.The secret password we use to authenticate and
11.When I am home and when I am not
authorize pick-up-the-kid-from-wherever functions
Oh and privacy isn't just about secrecy, it's about private spaceand private property. Private property means control over that property.
I think every address should have a public phone to which certain callers are restricted to only leaving messages. Kind of like how you can yell from across the street at me all you like, bu the minute you get on my property I cantell you to go away in which case refusal to do might cause your yell-from-across-the-street privileges to be legally revoked as well.
Dinner time is highly private property. Weekends and afternoons are highly private property. Ho
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
...and Castel is quick to claim that they created this stuff primarily for collection agencies to help them get through to deadbeats who use TeleZappers.
Ok, so let me get this straight. I'm Joe deadbeat, but I still pay for a phone. But, since I've been labled a "deadbeat" by EQUIFAX or some rabid collecation agency, it's OK for them to spoof my CallerID or bypass means that I have put in place to try to require callers to present a valid call?
This type of morality, it's OK to do X to Y beacuse they are Z, just sickens me. I personally think that anyone who subscribes to this kind of slipperly slope logic should get a punch in the mouth.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
10. The secret password we use to authenticate and
authorize pick-up-the-kid-from-wherever functions.
Homework time is private property.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
I'm in charge of the phones, among other things here at the office. And our Nortel switch can already transmit whatever the owner wants, for CID info, according to the company that handles our maitenance contract. The tech told me that it's childishly simple to change it to almost anything.
And this system, is several years old.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
Wow, a business being held accountable for their actions? Who would have thought!
Of course VeriSign would have no problem nuking your domain should you fail to pay them for registering your domain name to you. By definition then you are paying for the domain name to be registered to you.
If I purchased a car and the dealership turned around and gave my car to someone else do you think they'd get away with it for long?
If I order food from a restaraunt and they make an error on my order do they turn around and tell my "Tough sh*t"?
Why then, if someone were to pay VeriSign for a service, should VeriSign not be accountable for said paid for service?
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
I used to work at a skip-only (acounts sent to us with no numbers, we had to skiptrace first) collection agency. Our margins were razor thin. There's no way in hell we could have spent $2,700 per position for this software.
Most dialers SUCK BALLS as well- their software was designed by idiots. How does this call-blocker-buster proport to work, anyway?
Should we really feel bad/left out that Corel's products were as irrelevant on Linux as they were on Windows? Frankly, I don't feel too bad about that...but if I were the CEO of Corel that might be different.
In Texas, law explicitly requires callers to identify themselves in CallerID with a phone number the business can be reached at (NOT attached to an autodialer), or if the equipment is not capable of presenting a number, they must state their company name and callback number in the first 30 seconds of a call.
Note that by having ANY id, your equipment can obviously present callerID.
For once, Texas has a useful law.
Experience-Based Language Acquisition (EBLA) is an open source software system written in Java that enables a computer to learn simple language from scratch based on visual perception. It is the first "grounded" language system capable of learning both nouns and verbs. Moreover, once EBLA has established a vocabulary, it can perform basic scene analysis to generate descriptions of novel videos.
A more detailed summary is available here and this is the project web site.
I've always been intrigued by Salon's output, but I cannot honestly take this article seriously. The author has a very clear pro-Loebner bias that he doesn't even try to conceal. His hostility towards Minsky, Dennett, and the rest of the established academic community is so blatant (and unfounded) that it's embarrassing to read. Take this quote:
Decision sciences, by the simplest possible definition, refers to computerized assistance in resource allocation. An example provided by a press release from MIT announcing the creation of a decision sciences program was "complex computer-based 'passenger yield management' systems and models that the airlines use to adjust pricing of each flight's seats in order to maximize revenue and profitability to the airline." That's a far cry from the bold claims made by A.I. visionaries in decades past. But focusing on such systems has a signal advantage for scientists who have been failing miserably at the Turing test. It gets them off the hook.
And later: In other words, if you read between the lines what you come up with is that one reason "serious" A.I. scientists don't try to mimic human speech anymore is that they discovered they can't do it.
Okay, so he's holding up the academics to ridicule because they abandoned the Turing Test. Why did they abandon the Turing Test. Will, according to the filty academic, it's because: ""The Turing test is not very useful for many A.I. scientists today because they work on projects that have nothing to do with human linguistic performance."
So, the respectable AI people aren't working with the Turing Test because they aren't working with linguistics. Gosh, that seems fairly reasonable to me. I mean, I suppose it's possible that the entire AI academic community, en masse, chose to boycott a hack contest run by an East Coast elite who started the contest because "He's a hedonist who thinks work is an abomination and sloth is our greatest virtue. He got interested in A.I. because he hoped the day would come when robots and A.I.'s could do all the work and people could play all the time." The rich kid wants to play so those damn academics better make me a robot who can bake me a pie. But I digress....
The contest focuses on a field that has been abandoned by current AI research. Why? Because we can't make it work yet. The hardware isn't there yet. So we're doing other stuff. Look at the progress of chess programs, mission-critical systems, UT bots. AI is getting better. A souped-up ELIZA isn't going to confirm that. They attack the AI people for not producing better entries for a contest the AI people don't find valid. Loebner and the author, who are obviously in the same camp, are trying to have it both ways. Bullshit. If Salon wants my money to stay afloat, they'll have to do better than this.
~Chazzf
No statement is true, not even this one.
It might even be possible to say that by intentionally bypassing someone's blocks they put on your incoming calls that you're harassing them. IANAL though. I only play one on slashdot.
And why exactly can't we have a SPEWS/blackhole type of call blocking list? I'm paitently waiting.
The question remains:
If people are willing to subscribe to/buy telezappers, block lists, do not call lists, etc...
Can't telemarketers get the point that these people are not potential sales, they're only potential angry call recipients?
Not only that, but wouldn't forging a phone number come under some sort of legal troubles... especially if you used a number that somebody else owns?
It is also claimed that the software can deliver any type of text or phone number to a recipient's caller ID box, no matter if it's true or false, and that it can also bypass the anti-telemarketer blocks made available by some telephone companies, such as SBC and Qwest.
Anybody with an IDSL or PBX phone system can put in anything they want on Caller ID. And recognizing SIT tones is a feature on better telemarketing rigs, and generally one that can be turned off. They don't "bypass" the telezapper, they simply ignore it. Duh.
On the other hand, any telemarketer that pays $2700 for something so obivously a ripoff will get no sympathy from me.
Re-reading your sentence just made me realise it made no sense at all.
Sorry for responding, but it's unclear to me exactly what the hell you're trying to say now that I've taken a second look at it.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Isn't Castle, Inc's software a direct violation of the DMCA? It purposely gets around blocks AND can falsely report information to a caller id box. Sounds like it's time to pull out the lawyers.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
what happens when all the data farms get sold to these assholes? suddenly you start getting calls from your mom, your friends, your job only when you answer the phone its a friendly telemarketer who want sjust a moment of your time to complete their survey..
oh well, i remember reading extensive articles about these kinds of things 10 years ago on bbs's.. (how to block/change/build your own shit etc) i guess now its mainstream for telemarketers hooray
There should be a mod +1 "Common misconception shared by many".
The parent is *serious*, it seems. I think a couple of good replies have been posted and modded up already. But please, mod him up or put up an explanation for him. Unless its a troll do not mod him down and pretend he does not exist.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Read his journal and tell me he is not a troll.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
if you have a lot of lines you'll probably have at least a T-1 for the phone system. I haven't seen a T-1/PBX send out CID info as it is. I know it has to be possible somehow, but all the places I worked I just left it alone and the caller just saw "unavailable". I know a lot of the hospitals around here are like that too.
sex.com having sordid adventures... I sure hope so!
Why isn't this type of crap covered by the security circumvention laws.
Caller ID is easy to spoof, our company spoofs ALL outgoing phone traffic to report the phone number of our main trunk line. So this isn't that surprising to me. It's all in what you send over the data channel.
But what about 911? They use something other than Caller ID, don't they? Something that can't be spoofed by the end user? If they don't, or it can in fact be spoofed as well, I can see quite a bit of abuse once this practice becomes mainstream.
What is their "special" Caller ID called? How is it transmitted to them? Can regular people receive it?
All the telezapper does it emit the first of the three tones in a standard SIT signal... you know, the little "doo dee dweep the number you have dialed is no longer in service" thing you get from time to time. This tone is handled in the automated dialing software the same way that any other tones (1,2,3,#,etc) are... i.e. however the programmer wants to handle it, depending on the application. There's no magic involved in "getting around" a telezapper, it would involve one line of programming code to simply ignore it.
by the way, you don't NEED a telezapper... if you use an answering machine, just record the SIT tone (or even the first 1/3rd of it) at the beginning of your outgoing message. Human callers expect weird noises from answering machines, they just ignore it. But automated dialers which are programmed to look for it assume the number is disconnected.
To get the SIT tones, just google up sit.wav, you can find it all over the place.
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
I submitted an article about the telemarketing fsckers and it was rejected!!
It allways takes longer then 30 sec to get that far.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
Since these devices answer, then play the SIT tones, a fair number of predictive dialers are immune to them anyway. The reason is that they detect answer supervision and move their tone detectors to another call. Real SITs are sent without answer supervision, and moving the detectors to the next call saves resources.
As to sending false CLID, a PRI trunk can be made to do it, if the carrier doesn't enforce checking. For that much outbound calling, probably a lot of carriers would be more than happy, if they bother doing that in any case.
I don't know, or perhaps don't recall, where the name lookup is done. If it is from the A end, it would be equally easy to fake. If it is done at the receiving telco, they would have to give the real number of the institution being faked.
There is a plethora of discussion on Telezappers in comp.dcom.telecom. Check the Google archive.
They will start calling you collect.
so as rabid /.'ers are we supposed to be FOR or AGAINST domains being property?
sig.
There is a secure way to id the caller. Answer the fucking phone. If the call really is from your grandma, she will nag you to cut your hair or something rather than trying to sell you a subscription to Redbook.
If the Loebner prize isn't respected by your peers, then the competition isn't that much worth the work of cleaning up your system for the competition. If competing was simply a case of opening up a telnet port to the equivalent of your running nightly build, it wouldn't be such a big issue running in each and every competition out there.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
1. The fact that I don't have a girlfriend
2. The fact I use M$ Windoze
3. The fact that I like vi and COBOL.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Ok, so let me get this straight. I'm Joe deadbeat, but I still pay for a phone. But, since I've been labled a "deadbeat" by EQUIFAX or some rabid collecation agency, it's OK for them to spoof my CallerID or bypass means that I have put in place to try to require callers to present a valid call?
Dear Mr. Mon,
You are absolutely correct. Not only that, but we are also granted access to slashdot.org's log files. Now, if you don't want us to inform your loved ones that you're the "In Soviet Russia..." troll, you'll give us a call right now.
Sincerely,
Ichthyiophile Debt Resolution Service
"'Cause if you mess with Ichthyophile, and you'll be sleeping with the fishes."
A friend of mine lives in Denver and his phone has a service provided by Qwest (I think he got the service when they were still USWest) that plays a message stating that "this number does not accept solicitations... if you're a solicitor hang up and put this # on do-not-call list, otherwise press 1..." His phone doesn't ring unless the caller presses 1. There is also some legislation in Colorado that states, with a system like that, any solicitor who presses 1 to go through anyway can be sued for something like $10k per incident. My friend tells me there have been very few times when a solicitor comes through (where he then mentions the possible fine and they hang up abruptly).
I wonder why there aren't more phone companies offering such a service and why more states don't back up the disturbances with hefty fines. Maybe the telemarketers' lobbyists are lining pockets... maybe(?).
We dont get enough telemarketers in the UK, the ones I do get are mostly charities, and i dont have the heart to have fun with them. I want more telemarketing people that i can screw with, i once had a double glazing salesman say "thanks for wasting my time" after i had him on for 10 mins. My ultimate goal is to give one a heart attack but thats very hard to do over the phone. I guess if i had them calling all the time it would get boring and piss me off.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
1. Win Loebner Prize
2. Adapt it to answer telemarketing calls
3. Fun and maybe Profit
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Are there devices that can get the ANI data, outside of being a 911 operator? Or does the phone company only allow certain circuits access to ANI?
+1 Insightful and let's pray this makes it to 10 Hot Comments.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
My Adtran Telephone switch will let me put in whatever caller ID name and numbers I want. We've got a PRI at work and I can send my DID numbers for each employee, or our main office.
It's long been rumored that SBC has "pink contracts" with certain spammers, where for a certain amount of extra money, SBC agrees to hold off enforcing its supposed anti-spam policies. So if they do this as an ISP, what's to prevent them from doing this with regular phone service?
And they do. Pacbell, an SBC company, has been doing this for years. Even if you sign up for an unlisted number, certain companies, notably the LA Times, seem to automatically get it within hours of your establishing a new line. This has happened to me every time I've gotten a new phone line in the last 15 years. When I ask how they could have gotten my unlisted number, they say it's automatic whenever someone gets a new phone. So there you go -- the number *is* being given out, even when you've *paid extra* to not have this happen.
Taking this one step further -- if unlisted numbers are for sale to the right bidder -- why wouldn't they let certain companies, for the right price, get through caller ID blocking systems?
The fact is, there's no real protection. Whatever the laws are, companies seem to flout them freely. That's because there's no practical means of enforcement.
Take faxes, for example. Junk faxes are clearly illegal, and have been for at least 10 years, yet I know people whose offices receive dozens per day. And these tie up phone lines much worse than junk phone calls do. But still, no one bothers to track down the culprits and prosecute, even when it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. The problem is that each junk email, call, or even fax is too much trouble to pursue individually for the amount of nuisance it creates. And that's the perpetrators' inherent advantage.
2003-02-26 18:30:58 A New Tool to Help Telemarketers Fight Against Evi (articles,privacy) (rejected)
all the telezapper does is send out eh same tone that a switch sends out to signal that "this number is not in service", so the computer will detect it and hang out, i cant imagine it could be anything more than trivial to program the computer to simply not hangup when it receives that tone.
-- free as in swatantryam - not soujanyam.
Consider doing your part to waste the telemarketers
time. If I am not busy I will sometimes answere and
string them along, some get wise faster than others.
Think of it as gift to your fellow man.
You can also argue with them. My best was when one
telemarketer told me "you don't deserve to live on this plant" and then hung up on me.
A good telemarketing call can get the juices flowing again. Sometimes better than a cup of coffee.
mike
They are going in together with YAHOO. It seems that PacBell has a customer base in place as an ISP, and YAHOO would like to rape it. I have been with SBC for about five years as a PPP customer.. but now they are constantly sending me emails under the heading "action required" that direct me to the Yahoo download page .
Note this has to be downloaded to a Microsoft machine.
No linux support.
I do not like it at all that they insist me download software on my end that their end will talk to. I have no idea of any hidden agenda what the software on my end is doing, nor, under DMCA, is there really any way for me to even legally discuss whats going on.
So, it looks like I may have to change ISP only because Yahoo wants me held captive.
Does anybody have ideas for a good ISP? I am looking at www.copper.net .
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
I signed up for phone service in December With Telus, in British Columbia, Canada. In order to not be listed, on Caller ID and the telephone book, they charged a few bucks a month.
So I listed myself as "Heinrich Holiday". They took it, even though The name on the credit card I use to pay the bill and actually listed on the account is totally different.
Hey, saves a couple bucks a month.
Sure there is. Ditch the phone, and go cellular. I haven'd had a hard line phone for four years, and I've loved every minute of it. The few idiots that call my cell are quickly (in the first 60 seconds) that they called a cell phone, and that I don't accept solicitors on that line - please remove it from their list. I've only had to do it twice - in four years.
I simply do not understand people who duck telemarketers. They are the greatest free stress relievers in existance.
Come home from work pissed (as in mad, not drunk), the phone rings, tear the jackass on the other end a new one. You don't know them, they are vermin, your karma is clean.
I have made MCI telemarketers cry before.
Hey, if they want respect they should pick up cans or work at MickeyD's...
And how, by chance, is a device that fools caller ID "primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title"? Last I checked, no one's TeleZapper or caller ID box is protecting copyrighted works.
Sheesh, you'd think that with all the DMCA articles on slashdot, people would actually *understand* the law...
"I personally think that anyone who subscribes to this kind of slippery slope logic should get a punch in the mouth."
Normally the slashdot croud is more up on the technical aspects of the issue, but in this case I have to disagree. What we want is a jab/cross/hook/overhand right/double leg to side control/knee in the belly ground n pound/straight armbar with at least three popping noises. You can find the white paper on Sherdog.com. I'm surprised more people haven't read this.
My Blog
I never was able to get WordPerfect to run under Linux, so I'm not too sad to see it go...
I do wonder, however, what the status of the WP filters for OpenOffice is, 'cause I've got a whole lot of papers in WP format from my undergrad days. Anyone know?
For that matter, what's the likelihood that a WP-like mode might ever appear in OOo? Given OOo's native format is XML-based, a WP-style `reveal codes' might be possible to implement. I mostly use Vim/LaTeX these days, but when I have to do WYSIWYG word processing, I miss WP.
In principio creauit Linus Linucem.
I wonder what would happen if you were to tell the telemarketers that you are on your state's No Call List and that they can be fined $25,000 per incident for calling you. EVEN IF YOUR STATE DOESNT HAVE A LIST, I think you could bluff them into leaving you alone. I'd try it, but I actually am on a No Call List.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Have you met my mother? If you have, you'd know there's just some things she doesn't need to know, and other people don't need to be able to tell her.
Privacy is the ability to force people to make decisions about you based only on the information YOU want them to have. And I like my privacy very much, thank you.
paintball
Someone needs to find out the contact info for these Castle, Inc guys. Post it to Slashdot. Then we start signing them up for all the junk mail they can handle. Maybe everyone on /. can take a turn making fake calls to their offices requesting information on their services. Tie up all their lines and people dealing with a huge crapflood of angry geeks. Seems fitting.
Why the fuck do collection agencies (or anyone for that matter) think they have a right to get through to you on the phone?
Well, it worked for me, anyway.
1. Telemarketers never call my cell phone (seems to be a common phenomenon, and I hope it stays that way). Yay! So now I just have a cell phone and no direct line. I suppose this doesn't work for everyone, and you have to find some other way to get Internet (like cable), but it worked for me.
2. Before cable was available, we had a phone line. And since once in a while it came in handy, we didn't turn off the ringer. Thus I learned that there is a moment of silence between when the autodialer detects that you answered the phone and when your call gets picked up by a telemarketroid. This is your golden opportunity to hang up before you get caught up in a conversation you don't want to have. Pick up the phone, keep a finger on the hook, say hello, and if you hear dead silence, hang up immediately. (If you made a mistake, they'll call back!)
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
So, wait, Peter.. that means that a copy machine, water tower, and microwave are the remaining assets at FAST. Thanks for clearing that up!
Some X, Y and Z values (note that I don't agree with all these statments (just some), but they're spouted often enough anyway):
And finally
Am I the only one who thought "why are debt collectors using war diallers"?
I have a very common name and I once had a particularly nasty debt collector on my back over some bozo's AmEx debt. My name is common enough that I suspect this agency simply picked my name out of the book. They called once, I called back, left a message (no these aren't the droids you're looking for). They ignored it. Then they proceeded to call every week during the day [so I was at work] and harrassed my wife, eventually threatening her with legal action. I can't help wondering how often this must happen.
So now they use war diallers so they can go through all the people with the same name as their debtor - hell, sooner or later they're *bound* to find the right chap!
Yeah, this invention is *much* safer in the hands of debt collectors than telemarketers. Not.
No fscking way! I am on every "Don't Call" list I can find. They have no right to bug me at home!
They are the ones being dicks. The GD telemarketing industry says they don't want to call people who don't want to be called. That is bullshit. They work to get around any tech blocking method.
I say let Bun-Bun have their asses!
lest someone discover exactly how truly boring I am!
Actually, WordPerfect's UI was far superior to OpenOffice's (though OpenOffice's text handling is much better). It's a shame that Corel has left WordPerfect to stagnate all these years.
Gee, the anti-telezapper device sounds like a security defeating technology to me. Anybody care to try DMCA? (Yes, it's a BIG stretch, but why the hell not? Might get them lobbying against the DMCA...)
I should have remembered about the single calling computer. One of my friends once told me that it was possible to screw with the telemarketers by simply setting the phone down, and not hanging it up. Because they have no actual control over their own phone line, the telemarketer is supposedly unable to do anything without sending for a supervisor to disconnect the line.
Anybody care to confirm/deny this one? It'd be cool to find out more; anything we can do to make telemarketing less cost-effective is a bonus in my book.
~SL
Here's a twist on that scenario, though: For months now I've been receiving RECORDED telemarketer calls again, which I thought were to supposed to be illegal by Federal statute (right?); there's no human involved in the call at all. If you're right that it's the receiver of a call who has control of termination (I can never recall which it is), refusing to hang up would hafta be especially ugly in this case because there's no one listening on their end! It could be quite a long time before their telecom guru figured out what was wrong....
Who wants to talk to the POTUS? But apparently lots of people will talk to former Nigerian presidents.
The LA Times is probably calling all numbers in the area code/exchanges for their circulation area. Since the average person in LA gets one such call a week, about 5% of new subscribers would get such a call within 4 hours. So you had slightly worse than usual luck.