How to Become A Spammer

permeablepdx points to this story in The Oregonian about how to become a spammer. Summary: "Local Oregon boy makes big bucks after learning from the Spam masters."

Comments

Re:I don't under stand why...

[anthony_dipierro]

Well first I PAY to have an Internet connection, I do not however, pay for the mail that gets sent to me - thats the mailers responsibility.

Some people pay for the mail that gets sent to them.

Also it seems a bit more personal being intruded upon in your own home, than having something sitting in your physical mailbox outside on the step, or the entryway to your building.

Oh please. You choose to download the spam. Are you intruding upon me in my own home, when I read your slashdot post?

Personally I think snail mail is far more wasteful in terms of actual resources, I just don't directly pay for it and I don't get as much of it and I can recycle it, but the time I spend sifting through hundreds of ridiculous spam emails a day impacts me more directly.

How do you "directly" pay for email spam? The only difference is you happen to get more email spam than snail mail. It takes a lot more time, per piece, to deal with snail mail spam.

I knew a spammer

[GoatPigSheep]

A friend of mine was into the spam game for a while. At the age of 19 he was making much more than any of the unix programmers I knew. He recieved several death threats from basement dwelling geeks and most of them have been tracked down and charged for their heinous crimes. My friend got out of the business after other members of his family were threatened too.

Remember, while spamming is a grey area subject, death threats are illegal. Whatever twisted morals you might have, if you threaten a spammer with violence expect to be tracked down and charged for it.

Re:Jeez

[lostPackets]

I'm sure I'll get modded down for this, but anyway: I still don't understand why people get so irate about SPAM, or why legislation is necessary.

I get around 20-30 Spam messages a day. I'd estimate that it takes me UNDER A MINUTE to delete them all.

Yes it's a nuisance, please move on

Jeeze

[Alizarin Erythrosin]

"I know this all sounds like you're hiding yourself and doing this illegitimately, but the reason you have to do it is everybody tries to shut you down," Shiels said.

And this guy doesn't think that they have good reasons for this? It doesn't sound like he's doing it illegitimately, HE IS! Forging email addresses, maybe not quite misleading subjects but others clearly are guilty of that, abusing open relays overseas, disguising the mail's origins... it's fraud, pal. You'd think as a former cop he'd realize that.

"There's people who sit in their basements and have nothing better to do than get all upset about spam," Shiels said.

I'd love to know what he's basing this data on. I myself never respond to or even READ a piece of spam mail, because most often that mail will never get to them, or they won't care. Reminds me of Homer: "Facts schmacts... you can prove anything remotely true with facts." (or something like that)

"I realized I didn't like to sell anything that nobody wants or needs or despises," he said. "I started to realize people just hate this so much."

Notice he still hasn't realized WHY people hate it so much.

Re:I thought the idea was to rid ourselves of spam

[taernim]

Good plan.
So basically the plan for spammers for that line of logic should be:

1. Spam people relentlessly.
2. Dodge lawsuits.
3. Profit, profit, profit!
4. Retire.
5. Expect pats on back for "repenting" -- while still keeping all the millions you made at the time & expense at others.

Why does that seem flawed to me?....