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Interview With a Spammer
Shipud writes "The NYTimes interviewed Richard Colbert, under the title of 'Confessions of a SPAM King'. Richard talks about one-time credit cards,
WiFi, 'good' vs. 'bad' spam and more."
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can I harvest his email address from the article?
KFG
"good spam vs. bad spam" Hrm... Is there such a thing?
Insert witty Slashdot sig here.
What a life!
When an "out of the office" auto-reply comes back on one e-mail message, Colbert says: "Oh, we love those. They confirm that the address is active."
This should put to rest any remaining doubts about whether or not "unsubscribing" from spam lists actually works.
The coolest voice ever.
These days you actually have to downlad the java script to your computer, because of those clever NYT people, but it's still possible for those who have personal issues with registrations....
The spammers' definition:
Good: The spam I send and make me money
Bad: All that junk that fills up my inbox
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Seems as if that Nigerian king DID give him the money to buy all that nice stuff, because you know no one actually clicks on spam ads.
I misread this as Stephen Colbert, of The Daily Show fame. Luckily this is not the case.
The reporter in the course of his interview steals a piece of shareware with spammer. Then he goes out harvesting email addresses
I don't care what you think about spam but in that interview its real obvious who is conducting the interview and its not the reporter.
This sucks, for a spammer to take a tool that we use for work, and find a way to misuse it.
Is there any way to set auto-reply's to only send notices to emails on a specific domain, and not respond to any others?
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
I tend to rank these people just as low on the societal ladder as those who write virii. I understand the thrill and excitement of knowing that your work (albeit destructive) is affecting millions, but why can't these brilliant folks put that energy to use solving problems instead of creating more?
This is an honest question -- why do so many people choose to create destructive and malicious programs instead of harvesting the glory that can be had when a really good app is written? That's simply a mentality that I don't understand and perhaps never will.
Good grief.
Yes, the sent a reporter who refers to the computer itself as "the hard drive", Nice solid reporting.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
More recently, spammers have figured out how to send unwanted text messages to cellphones
I've never endorsed vigilante action against spammers, but the instant I get a text message on my phone from a Nigerian businessman, I'm changing my mind. With my computer, I can run programs like popfile to stop the spam, but with a cell phone, there is nothing I can do.
It never ceases to amaze me what people will do for a buck. Every piece of crap thing that happens in the world is thanks to the monetary system. Maybe what they need to do is make it impossible for spammers to make any sort of money. I don't think it'll ever be possible, but if those jerks couldn't make money off what they were doing, they would never ever do it. Spam would come to a complete halt.
Thought about this for about 30 seconds, checked, and, what do you know :)
I bet if enough of us had a bit of fun signing up catalogs and free brochures, and phone calls for more information to.
Richard Colbert.
Sunset Colony MH Park
2400 W Broward Blvd
Fort Lauderdale
954-583-8602
The mobile home park might get pissed and kick him out? This is the park's address and phone, not his. ;) so extra annoying for them :)
*There's Klingons on the starboard bow, scrape em off Jim!*
I'd like to see a beowulf cluster of those dropped on this guy's 'nads.
LOL, i got a few good laughs out of his story. one of my favorite parts:
;)
'"I was thrown off more BellSouth accounts than half the state of Florida,'' Colbert says. His name was known, and he was a marked and wanted man. But he found a way around the heat. ''Do you remember when American Express came out with temporary credit cards?'' he recalls happily. ''You could go to the 7-11 convenience store and buy a $25 credit card -- sort of like you buy a $25 phone card, only it was good for just $25 worth of credit."
Armed with a dozen of these cards, Colbert would go to the BellSouth Web site and create numerous e-mail accounts from which to send spam, each account with a fictitious name and address. Since the credit card couldn't be connected to him in any way, he could spam away until BellSouth finally got around to canceling that particular account. ''They were great, totally untraceable,'' he says of the credit cards. ''They don't sell them anymore. I think it's because of me.'' '
pretty smart feller
...people stopped buying their crap.
i mean -- who the HELL buys penis enlargements, weight loss drugs and college diplomas from these sites? obviously -- too many of us.
prof.
and...
Back in Colbert's mobile home, I ask my spammer guru if he is feeling nervous, now that Congress is in the market for a few high-profile public hangings. Doesn't he fear that Orson Swindle might soon have him in an orange jumpsuit and shackles, doing a prime-time perp walk? ''Congress is full of idiots,'' he notes succinctly. Colbert says he doesn't believe that a strategy of going after a few kingpins will accomplish anything. Politicians will gain some publicity, but in the process, he argues, they will drive smaller operators further underground. ''Spammers will just use even more deceptive practices to keep from getting shut down,'' he says.
This guy is an idiot. That is the problem with the USA, anyone will do anything for money. There is no ethics at all. It is all self justificating.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Due to the fact that it is a cell phone, and, under almost all cell phone plans currently, you have to pay for Text Messages and calls, incoming and outgoing, it is illegal in the united states to send unwanted text/audio spams to cell phones. You may take the offending business to court and collect $500 to $5000 just for recieving said message.
*There's Klingons on the starboard bow, scrape em off Jim!*
I should be surprised, but somehow i'm not....
Confessions of a Spam King
By JACK HITT
Published: September 28, 2003
Brian Smith for The New York Times
Richard Colbert, spammer.
1. MEET THE SPAMMER
''Click here,'' says my spamming mentor. Hovering over my chair, he points to the computer screen. ''Now click on that file of e-mail addresses there.'' I have been invited by a master for an education in spamming, the practice of blasting millions of unsolicited e-mail messages into the Internet in order to advertise everything from loans with easy terms to women of easy virtue.
''Let's go online and download some software,'' says my guide. His name is Richard Colbert. On the Rokso, or Register of Known Spam Operations (a kind of Most Wanted List for the Internet posted on an antispam Web site called spamhaus.org), Colbert is described plainly: ''Nonstop scam spammer, kicked off so many hosts and I.S.P.s'' -- or Internet service providers -- ''it's hard to count.''
Dressed in blue shorts and a purple T-shirt, Colbert, 31, has blondish hair stuffed under a baseball cap, a prominent diamond earring and a mild twang that betrays his Atlanta origin. He lights up a Monarch menthol as he shows me his computer room, an intimate homemade space built off the side of an aging two-tone mobile home -- robin's-egg blue and white -- which sits among hundreds of Airstreams and Miami Deco single-wides in the Sunset Colony Mobile Home Park in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Colbert claims that he's now on a sabbatical from spamming, but he's watching current events and weighing a return. During this interlude, he has agreed to help me learn how the avalanche of solicitations I receive winds up in my online mailbox every day. Who are these guys? Who hires them? How do they get legitimate e-mail addresses? And finally, can federal legislation currently under consideration actually stop them?
First off, Colbert doesn't think about spam the way I do (or, most probably, the way you do). He likes to call it ''bulk e-mailing,'' for starters. And he considers it just one of the many exciting new markets available on the Internet. He's the kind of guy who is always interrupting himself to tell you about some smart economic angle he has figured out, some new edge.
''These shorts are Dockers,'' he says, pointing at the clothes he has on. ''And I got them off eBay. Shirt? Tommy Hilfiger. EBay. Shoes? Nikes. EBay.''
Colbert and I dig around on the Internet until, under his direction, I find a piece of software that allows for mass e-mailing. These are common and legal, used legitimately by professional archaeologists, say, or chess enthusiasts to form an online group and conduct chats or exchange information.
Right away there's a problem. The software we've selected requires registration or payment. But Colbert says he once used this very piece of software, slightly altered, when he worked with some other spammers who live nearby. So he snatches his phone and calls a neighbor for support. A minute later, we are back in business. It turns out that an unusually large number of spammers live in this area, the stretch of beaches north of Miami that old-timers loosely call Boca and new-timers know as a staging ground for the smarmier characters in Carl Hiaasen's novels.
According to Steve Linford, who maintains the Rokso list, there's a good reason that so many spammers wind up on Spam Beach: ''Boca Raton is where they used to run those pump-and-dump investment scams and where the telemarketing sweatshops are.'' The phone scammers and infomercial wannabes of the 80's and 90's -- who themselves supplanted the land speculators who established Florida's earliest cities upon shifting sand and sinking swamps -- have been pushed aside by the new boys on the block, the bulk e-mailers of the Internet.
2. A SPAMMING PRIMER
How does a spammer obtain a million working e-mail addresses? Most simply, there are lists you can buy off the Internet. But there are also other, cheaper, ways. A ''dictionary attack,'' Co
To stop the spam, we just need to shut down Ebay for a week or two. He'll starve to death.
The attack on the WTC?
The crusades?
There are hundreds of things.
''Click here,'' says my spamming mentor. Hovering over my chair, he points to the computer screen. ''Now click on that file of e-mail addresses there.'' I have been invited by a master for an education in spamming, the practice of blasting millions of unsolicited e-mail messages into the Internet in order to advertise everything from loans with easy terms to women of easy virtue.
Advertisement
''Let's go online and download some software,'' says my guide. His name is Richard Colbert. On the Rokso, or Register of Known Spam Operations (a kind of Most Wanted List for the Internet posted on an antispam Web site called spamhaus.org), Colbert is described plainly: ''Nonstop scam spammer, kicked off so many hosts and I.S.P.s'' -- or Internet service providers -- ''it's hard to count.''
Dressed in blue shorts and a purple T-shirt, Colbert, 31, has blondish hair stuffed under a baseball cap, a prominent diamond earring and a mild twang that betrays his Atlanta origin. He lights up a Monarch menthol as he shows me his computer room, an intimate homemade space built off the side of an aging two-tone mobile home -- robin's-egg blue and white -- which sits among hundreds of Airstreams and Miami Deco single-wides in the Sunset Colony Mobile Home Park in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Colbert claims that he's now on a sabbatical from spamming, but he's watching current events and weighing a return. During this interlude, he has agreed to help me learn how the avalanche of solicitations I receive winds up in my online mailbox every day. Who are these guys? Who hires them? How do they get legitimate e-mail addresses? And finally, can federal legislation currently under consideration actually stop them?
First off, Colbert doesn't think about spam the way I do (or, most probably, the way you do). He likes to call it ''bulk e-mailing,'' for starters. And he considers it just one of the many exciting new markets available on the Internet. He's the kind of guy who is always interrupting himself to tell you about some smart economic angle he has figured out, some new edge.
''These shorts are Dockers,'' he says, pointing at the clothes he has on. ''And I got them off eBay. Shirt? Tommy Hilfiger. EBay. Shoes? Nikes. EBay.''
Colbert and I dig around on the Internet until, under his direction, I find a piece of software that allows for mass e-mailing. These are common and legal, used legitimately by professional archaeologists, say, or chess enthusiasts to form an online group and conduct chats or exchange information.
Right away there's a problem. The software we've selected requires registration or payment. But Colbert says he once used this very piece of software, slightly altered, when he worked with some other spammers who live nearby. So he snatches his phone and calls a neighbor for support. A minute later, we are back in business. It turns out that an unusually large number of spammers live in this area, the stretch of beaches north of Miami that old-timers loosely call Boca and new-timers know as a staging ground for the smarmier characters in Carl Hiaasen's novels.
According to Steve Linford, who maintains the Rokso list, there's a good reason that so many spammers wind up on Spam Beach: ''Boca Raton is where they used to run those pump-and-dump investment scams and where the telemarketing sweatshops are.'' The phone scammers and infomercial wannabes of the 80's and 90's -- who themselves supplanted the land speculators who established Florida's earliest cities upon shifting sand and sinking swamps -- have been pushed aside by the new boys on the block, the bulk e-mailers of the Internet.
2.
Or you could just sign up for an account so you don't have to go through that rigamarole each time. :D
With perl, in 15 minutes I can make a program that automatically (and correctly) de-spamproofs about 90% of the spamproofed addresses out there. In another hour I can probably get another 5%. The remaining 5% are a lot harder, but they can easily be ignored. (Of course, many humans (think of grandma) have a hard time deciphering much of that remaining 5% as well.)
Spammers are stupid, yes, but when there's money on the line, they can certainly figure out simple things like this, or if not, they can pay somebody else to figure them out for them. True `hackers' may have their scruples, and may hate spam, but if they're out of a job and a spammer offers them $1000 for an hour's work ... guess what's gonna happen?
I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet, but just wait -- those who use user@NOSPAMdomain.com are going to find their `spamproofed' addresses getting more and more spam.
Everyone knows what we do to SPAMMERS here. Address, first, Pictures next, Add this guy to every Junk mail advertizing list we can find, and US Mail DDos him.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
Simulate an 'address not found' daemon in a reply to the spam sender. It may not always work but if they think they're getting a bad address, sometimes they've been known to take that address off their list, so I've heard (during my stint as customer/tech support for an ISP).
Moo
but I'll give me something to do when I get bored. I not only live (relatively) close to the "Park" but also know the people who own the land.
Too late for me. I've received two.
g .nextel.com (on request of course).
Nextel really needs to get on the ball and replace the old NNNXXXYYYY@messaging.nextel.com system with user-selectable-arbitrary-64-char-string@messagin
Everyone has their own favorite story about an interaction with a real live spammer, this is my personal favorite from the archives of Hot Wired's defunct Packet column, called "My Spammer Dream Date"
bad spam is spam, all spam is bad, because even if I block it, it costs me money in bandwidth costs. and my upstream provider.
non annoying spam is spam that is caught by my block filters.
good spam is spam that only gets sent to aol users. so i don't have to deal with it, filter it, pay for its transport accross my network, etc.
better spam is spam that doesn't exist because the spammer realized what a dickhead he was and decided to get a real job where he doesn't make money by annoying the hell out of others.
the best spam is the empty spam can I am going to beat all spammers to death with someday, because we all know that they never realize they are dicks and decide to quit, they send more fucking spam.
spam spam spam spam, SHUTUP! spamity spam! wonderful SHUTUP!!!!!!
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
We need to Ralksy on his ass...
these guys are the real problem !
What is SPAM ?
SPAM is a form of direct marketing, where the customers is approached by email.
Note that direct markting itself was never a problem itself, and it's much older than computers. The first forms of direct marketing can be traced back to the end of the 19th century.
The main problem with SPAM is that it is undirected. Zillions of people getting zillions of email with offers they don't need. But this doesn't mean that SPAM is useless - if there would be no customers reacting to the offers, then the advertisement would be useless and thus SPAM wouldn't appear. The problem of SPAM is that it is undirected. We get offers we don't need. We might be interested in offer to enhance our TiVos or about newest Linux/*BSD distributions, but we get penis enlargement and hebal viagra instead.
This is the result of the low quality of the customers databases of the advertisers. If they had high quality databases then the issue wouldn't occur. And the "they will send it anyway"-argument is non-sense because unwanted offers are at best useless and at worst even damageing (bad reputation etc.).
So we should strive to increase the database quality of the advitisers. This can be done by creating a national/global database were everybody enters his preferences/hobbies and other personal data. Or the goverment could extract such data from emails etc by e.g. the carnivore system. In the end this would create high quality direct marketing with benefits for everyone.
However, at this stage the self appointed privacy advocates come into play. With their zealot mission to destroy any storage of data of customers or citizens, these people effective block the road to the SPAM solution. Even more they actively decrease the quality of databases leading to more SPAM. In Europe their lobbying pressure got even "privacy bills" issued which make any high quality direct marketing impossible, leading to a increased SPAM level of 24 percent relative to the US.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
Good god...get a load of this loser in his disco mobile home. If I was a spammer I'd be looking to change jobs quickly, just to avoid being associated with this ass.
\/\/oobie
But the distributive-justice approach is all but dead in Congress, at least in part because of the Republicans' deep antipathy for trial lawyers.
... beloved of Libertarians ... why?
If we empowered individuals to sue spammers, then trial lawyers would make money, so it is bad. Ours is a system of laws, but setting up laws so that individuals can hire lawyers to protect their health, property or privacy is bad, because any lawyer who would profit by helping individuals in those causes is bad. Laws should only provide opportunities for corporations and corporate lawyers, never for individuals and the guns-for-hire they bring to the arena.
Republicans
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
FWIW, in Europe it's pay for outgoing, don't pay for incoming. I'd hate to live in the US. :P
To avoid the dictionary attack, why not use some random letters/numbers for your username? Something truly random, looking fake.
...is that Mozilla 1.2 on RH9 completely barfs when opening that link. Wierd.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Anyone else like to chime in?
OS X's Mail.app's "Bounce" feature does this. Only trouble is that a lot of my bounces bounce right back to me.
Fat people with small penis' who never went to college I would assume.
Check out this guys alleged bio : from the mention in the article
Apparently he suffers from mental problems.Hes been through hell! And surprisingly hes asking for paypal donations!Let me just provide him with some money and my email address...
Poor guy.
Oh wait maybe this is just another scam...
This freak has a NOC in a mobile home. He buys his clothes off of ebay. Yea, more evidence of how lucrative spamming really is. That's another myth that needs to be busted: that spamming is profitable. It is not. Spammers can't build a successful business when the business is built around violating the law and stealing computer resources. The people that spam today are the same losers who would be running around slapping illegal signs up on telephone poles promoting Ponzi schemes.
Sigh. One of the many advantages of having a unified cell infrastructure, unlike the USA. Each provider has their own network, which means you need to buy a new phone if you switch. Heck, we still can't even port our number with us.
Since the mobile home park is on a Blvd. Not a Ave... unless its so huge they decided to give it its own street system?
*There's Klingons on the starboard bow, scrape em off Jim!*
I thought it was incredibly ironic that he spams people in order to get clients for spamming. If he has such low response rates, wouldn't prospective clients be less likely to hire him?
If that trailer park the guy is living in gets leveled by a tornado, we'll know.
Richard D Colbert
1765 NW 39th Ct
Fort Lauderdale
FL 33309
Tel.: (954)484-9977
Have your email address actually be: NOSPAM@domain.com The spammers will automatically filter out that NOSPAM token - too bad for them it's legitimately part of the email.
I was born in Decatur, GA on January 25, 1972 to Richard Dennis Colbert (Sr.) and Deborah Mae Colbert (Williams). In 1976 my father left my mother, as he has since told me it got so bad that it was either leave or kill her (and he had already planned out her murder).
In 1978 I was forced to have sex with a woman (not to be named) while I had a loaded 357 Magnum to my head.
Throughout my childhood from 1978 (age 6) to 1985 (age 13) I was repeatedly physically and mentally abused and at the age of 13 (in 1985) I was placed in State Custody in Georgia. Between the ages of 13 & 17 I was bounced around between more than a dozen group homes, foster families and shelters. At 17 I was placed in a group home in Cedartown, GA where I was repeatedly physical and sexually assaulted by members of the staff. After more than 30 times of running away from this group home and going straight to the police to report the offences I was placed in Northwest Georgia Regional Mental Hospital for three months. While there I tracked down my father in Texas whom I hadn't seen in over 12 years, after learning of my demise he fought the state of Georgia to get custody of me. When he won, I was removed from the hospital, taken to Atlanta and put on a bus to Texas. Due to the enormous span of time we had been apart and the horrific child hood I had endured so far we did not even come close to getting along. After a few short months I left and went back to Georgia to live with my mom (boy was that a huge mistake). As I am sure you can guess that didn't work either. Subsequently I hitchhiked across the country for a couple of years and then in Jan. of 2001 I went into the US Navy. Right after boot camp I met Angela Marie Canatarro. She was the apple of my eye and three weeks after meeting I asked her to marry and she accepted. Three weeks after that she got stationed in San Diego, CA and I got stationed in Virginia Beach Virginia. For 8 months we didn't get to see each other until finally I got myself thrown out of the Navy. The Navy put me on a bus back to Atlanta, as soon as I got their I hitchhiked to San Diego in 3 days. When I arrived at her base her two roommates met me at the gate. On the way to the barracks they informed me that she was on Base Restriction. They wouldn't tell me why, but they did tell me that she cheated on me with three different guys during our 8 month separation. Needless to say I went off on her and called of our wedding. A couple days later she called me at my hotel and begged me to take her back. I went to the base to talk to her, when I got their her two roommates again met me at the gate and told me why she was on base restriction. As it turns out she pawned the wedding set I bought her and had her roommate that had moved out earlier that day arrested for stealing it. Well I went off on her again, however a few days later I took her back again. Shortly after that she developed a sever case of the measles/mumps or something like that. While she was in the hospital I went to see her and she told me it was over, that she never wanted to see me again. I walked out of the hospital, went back to my hotel and checked out and caught the bus to LA. For the next year I went from LA to Las Vegas to Atlanta to Key West to Fort Lauderdale. Once in Fort Lauderdale I spent the next two years on the streets (homeless). Finally in 1995 I met a Doctor (a man) who I really liked and moved in with him (as his lover). Four months later (in January of 1996) I moved in with Richard Barboza a man that I had known for over three years and whom I liked even more. Three years after moving in with Richard I started working for a guy in Coral Springs, FL. He sold custom built computers over the internet and used Bulk Email to promote his business. While I was working for him, building/shipping the computers and doing tech support, I picked up how he was Bulk Emailing. Shortly after learning to Bulk Email I went to work for one of his friends and began sending out massive amounts of Bulk Email for numerous customers. In 2001 I qui
The Internet, AP
Computer hacking site Slashdot posts instructions for breaking into New York Times Online Website.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
One thing that I've always wondered is why no groups have embarked on a public education campaign against spam? These days, there are public service announcements for everything. How much could a 20 second spot between a Metamucil ad and a personal injury lawyer be during some Judge Shrill Crackpot at 2:30 on a Tuesday?
Hit the bootleg Viagra and weight loss crowd where they live: glued to their couches during prime soap and talk time when the rest of us are at work.
The only question is how long would 'the industry' sit on their laurls while we badmouth their fine, economy-stimulating trade. Do Not Call List, the fine folks at the DMA, and Federal judges, I'm looking in your direction.
Food for thought. I'm not sure who would be producing these ads, but I'd kick them some money...
"These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined" --Homer re:
...Al Capone become the King of Chicago?
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
If the info you posted is not the spammer, I hope that the person who gets bombarded with phone calls, catalogs, and hate mail, subpeonas your IP address from Slashdot, subpeonas your identity from your ISP, and sues the living shit out of you.
Administrative Contact:
;-)
Colbert, Richard pcheaven2k@zwallet.com
2400 W Broward Blvd
Suite 523
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33312
US
954-327-0766
Whether it be real or not.. Someone find out
It annoys millions of people, but it brings in enough money to keep you in trailer payments and those fashionable ebay shorts!
This guy is 31 and he's bragging that he's wearing Nikes and Dockers? Dockers? Pants that sell new for $30? Were they used when he bought them on ebay?
He doesn't even pay for the shareware he's using. But he brags that he's made $130,000 in the past.
These losers don't care how many people they annoy as long as it brings in the pittance necessary for his continued extravagant lifestyle.
From page 2: But even after the bubble burst, spam was handsomely profitable. ''I cleared $130,000 in 10 months,'' Colbert says, ''the best money I've ever made.''
From page 4: ''It's a Dell Pentium 233,'' he says. ''I got it for $15, plus $23.95 shipping.'' A cloud of smoke fills the side room of the single-wide.
I hope if I ever make $110k in 10 months, I have a little more to show for my labor than a P233 and a single-wide in a park! Sounds like he's scratching to come up with that.
Perhaps Marcy Playground has some insight:
And all the whores on Blecker Street
They wear the blissful grin
Caused by the drugs they take
To relieve them of their sins
Nuke Florida.
(Those who have read the article will understand)
If you have asked the person on the other end of the phone to power off the computer, then power it back on, and they report that they see "the same thing" and you know that the computer has not had time to reboot, suggest that they turn off the "hard drive box". If they seem confused, point out that there is a box, possibly on the floor where they put their music CDs, or their floppy disks, that's what you want them to power off and back on.
You never know...
Maybe then they'll try to hire reporters with a clue. Nah.
Complain about it here.
The latest Slashdot meme.
"at the end of which is a link to bowieltd.com, one of Colbert's Web sites."
$ host www.bowieltd.com
www.bowieltd.com CNAME bowieltd.com
bowieltd.com A 66.176.55.110
$ host 66.176.55.110
Name: c-66-176-55-110.se.client2.attbi.com
Address: 66.176.55.110
Tsss... *send mail to abuse@attbi.com*
Payment to Colbert was strictly old-school. ''I didn't ever take credit cards,'' he says. He would insist on being paid by money order or check. .....
But even after the bubble burst, spam was handsomely profitable. ''I cleared $130,000 in 10 months,''
Mr. Colbert meet IRS Audit. Audit meed Mr. Colbert.
Anyone care to do a better interduction?
...is he still alive? Would not be if I lived in the US :-)
It looks like he's trying to build up stock for a yard sale. "Gay Monopoly"? Reindeer ashtray? Hideous vases? Back issues of Daredevil comic?
If my life ever got that pathetic, I'd just suck a bullet.
It's like an unholy cross between an 8 year old punk and an 80 year old grandmother.
A couple of months ago I got a call on my cellphone from the AT&T-run deaf relay service, which has expanded from relaying TDDs to relaying from some Internet interface (I think web?). It was, as near as I could tell, a Nigerian scammer. It was obviously not an American, because they were calling me on a Sunday evening on Memorial Day weekend to talk about a business opportunity, and I asked what time zone they were in and it was compatible with being daytime in Nigeria... I asked the operator if she could trace the call but apparently she couldn't.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
-Cowards Anon.
And let me just preface this by saying I'm not a spammer, I have never spammed, and I dislike the daily purging of my Hotmail box as much as anyone.
Now then, everyone knee-jerking with "KILL SPAMMERS!" "MAKE SPAM ILLEGAL!" take a step back and look at the situation logically for a moment, difficult that may be given what an emotional topic bulk commercial e-mail apparently is.
I'll work under the assumption that most people replying to this are American. We have, I'm sure you remember, a little thing called the Bill of Rights. The First entry on this list reads: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press..." Any of you in other democracies, you probably have a similar clause. The Government is not allowed to restrict speech.
Now then, over the years, exceptions have been found. Shouting "FIRE!" in a crowded room is not protected speech. Urging an assembled mob to violence is not protected speech. Openly plotting to kill your leader is not protected speech. We accept these restrictions because the slight loss of Freedom is GREATLY outweighed because of the societal benefit. But we still accept ANY restriction grudgingly, and with hestation.
Does "because I have to click "DELETE" a few times" REALLY count as a justifable reason to restrict free speech, with open speech being THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENT of any democracy? Hmm. Incite a mob to violence... killing the president... advertising herbal weight supplements. I'm just not seeing the progression there.
People are fond of quoting this one in civil rights articles, so I'll repeat it: "Those who sacrifice liberty in the name of freedom deserve neither." (Franklin) Are any of y'all SERIOUSLY arguing that FURTHER restrictions on the Freedom of Speech are actually justified in this case?
And if you're in doubt, let me outline the future scenario. Let's say, The People express their Will. Congress passes a law further restricting speech, banning all unsolicited commercial e-mail. Yay! Yay! Go us! No more spam, right? WRONG.
Making a profitable activity illegal DOES NOT MAKE IT GO AWAY. Some of the most serious societal blunders America has made have revolved around that false belief. (like Prohibiition) Spam makes money, sad but true. The Spammers aren't going to just quietly slink off into the night. They'll just relocate overseas, to where there are no restrictions. Suddenly, sure, you've got no bulk e-mail coming from within the United States - but you've got even more pouring in from China, Taiwan, South America, and any other country without anti-spam laws.
Further, it would be a country with no fair business regulations either. Want a working "opt out" link? Forget it. Valid return address? Never. ANY legal recourse against the spammers? Not a chance.
And thus, in short, you will have sacrificed your Liberty in return for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
So, I ask you, is THAT the American way?
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
Unfortunately, THEY DO. It's called Free Speech. Bill of Rights, at the top.
No, they fucking well DON'T. Spam is NOT a first amendment issue, and it has NEVER been a first amendment issue. The spammer's right to speak does NOT include a right to use anyone else's property for that purpose.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Actually, I've felt that the "Out of Office" auto-reply is a bit of a security risk anyway, when it's used anyplace besides within the company's internal network.
This is just one more example of why it's not necessarily a good idea to use it.
My original concern was with advertising to the world that you're not at work. Granted, it's common practice to record this type of message on your corporate voice mail system - but that's not quite the same thing. People have to know enough about you to know your company's phone number and get to your private extension to hear it.
The idea of any random spammer finding out that I'm away on vacation until date X/Y strikes me as a bad idea. That's like making public announcements to would-be hackers, saying "Hey, hack in using my account! I won't even notice for 2 more weeks!"
It amazes me how these degenerates get space in the NY Times and other important matters just don't get covered at all. The guy is an unscrupulous SOB who is willing to harass 1 million people for a meager $900.
:))
His home is not that far from mine. I think we should get a bunch of slashdotters and go there break his legs, which, in my lingo, is called "mass beating".
I can't wait until I see the first 1975 rusted-out Chevy van festooned with soup, floppy disk and pringles can antennas galore, cabin lit by the pale glow of an LCD, go creeping through the neigborhood.
Oh great, I just realized something else. All the telcos and cable co's will finally be able to have their congressional butt-pupets legislate all of we pesky home WiFi users out of existence now. After all, we're too iresponsible/stupid/ignorant/lazy to do anything about security on our APs and so, can't be trusted with them. With all those unsecured APs out there on the user end of those thousands of DSL and cable connections acting as virtual spam-spots instead of hot-spots the internet will become an instant disaster! Oh the HUMANITY!
Anyway, soon after the telcos/cable co's save us all, yet again, from our own self inflicted demise we will be lining up at the retail outlets of [insert wireless carrier name of choice here] to sign up for service. It will be quite reasonable at ~$75/month for all you can eat or ~$20/month for say, a generous 500KB/month and then $5.00/minute after allowance usage. Oh, and it will be secure and guaranteed to work with Windoze. Only Windoze. So it can be secure...
Forget the tar and feathers, cover him with the spammers delight: a golden shower from middle aged russian women followed by rolling him in penis enlargment pills. Then sign him up for a home improvment loan on his "mobile palace".
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
dude
I'm not even remotely close but I wouldn't mind "interviewing" this guy myself.
In addition to the other arguments here about abusing other people's resources, the First Ammendment also does not give you the right to commit fraud.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
*wrong* - Nextel charges (me at least) 15 cents for every incoming SMS message.
Morphing Software
You obviously don't understand the first thing about commercial free speech. Or harassment.
I got a spam letter in the mail, saying That if I signed up for $40, I could submit Addresses, (postal, not email) and names, and for each valid name address combo I would recieve.. 10? 20 cents? With no limit on the number I could submit. I pondered signing up and mailing them one of those "US ALL NUMBERS" phone books, but they cost too much.. lol
*There's Klingons on the starboard bow, scrape em off Jim!*
The spams I'm most interested in suing are the massive retaliatory strikes after I successfully piss off a spammer (by getting his host yanked or publishing his contact info). When I receive a wave of 1000+ spams/joes/bounces, even $5 per message will exceed the small claims limit.
Richard D Colbert, (954) 484-9977, 1765 NW 39th Ct, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309 http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe =UTF-8&q=%22richard+colbert%22+bellsouth
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22richard+colbert% 22+florida&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Most spammers don't make their money actually selling crappy products to individual people. They make money selling their spamming services to sleazy or misinformed businesses. Spammers do not depend on actual sales, they depend on the perception that there may be actual sales. All a spammer has to do is convince their client that 1) what the spammer is proposing to do (which may not be what they actually intend to do) is not illegal or sufficiently unethical, 2) the spam campaign will bring in enough additional sales to cover the spammer's fee, which 3) should be paid in advance.
Convincing a small lending institution that they can make a ton of cash if they "advertise mortgage rates over the Internet to a carefully targeted opt-in list of interested homeowners" is a lot easier than convincing someone who has just received more crappy unsolicited untargeted spam to refinance their home.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
...Al Capone become the King of Chicago?
By committing tax fraud.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Not according to Warren Burger, Chief Justice, SCOTUS, May 4, 1970:
seriously, so much whining.
change isps to one who give you tools
to stop spam.
Also includes a larege picture of the man himself.
Spammers are nothing but trailer trash :P
:)))
bowieltd.com on port 25. I like the message that exim gives warning that it is not authorized to deliver bulk email. Guess he forgot to read that part.
Yeah, and Hitler came up with lots of creative ways to kill Jews, too. This guy is a fucking monster. The fact that he is a creative monster is not particularly meaningful to me.
One obvious technique for using remove-me addresses is, if you're using spambait addresses to feed your spam filtering system, to send unsubscribes for those addresses rather than your real ones. (Obviously you only do this for removal addresses that don't appear to have your real address encoded in them.) Worst case is that some spammer gets his time wasted by removing addresses that weren't on his list.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Just about every law on the books is still broken by someone. Does that mean we should embrace anarchy?
Just because the spammers will move overseas, does that mean we don't pass laws against spam?
If we only passed laws that the bad guys would not attempt to violate, then we wouldn't have very many laws. Theft would be legal.
"Further, it would be a country with no fair business regulations either. Want a working "opt out" link? Forget it. Valid return address? Never. ANY legal recourse against the spammers? Not a chance."
In other words, the situation would be exactly as it is today, except the spammers would have to utilize the resources in another country.
Would those resources would have to be paid for? Or would they be stolen?
If stolen, then, eventually, that country would get around to passing their own laws against that. I can't think of any country that would welcome the spammers stealing their bandwidth.
So, eventually, the spammers would be left with the option of breaking the law and stealing resources or paying for services in a foreign country.
Now, the foreign countries tend to want to increase the money coming in. I believe they will raise the rates as high as they can without completely destroying the spammer's business. But those increased rates would mean that the spammer's margins get even slimmer.
So, the majority of spam ends up coming from a few overseas countries. That should make filtering it a lot easier.
This is spam. Not whiskey. The spammers are losers who will DDoS their enemies, but that's about it. No Al Capone style shootings.
As for scrificing my Liberty, what Liberty have I lost if it is illegal to send spam?
...And think that this was a revised version of an Ann Rice novel?
that explains why i've seen a huge amount of bell south dialup and dsl spam in the past few months. I've been damn busy filling up the firewall with blocks of their network.
# bell south dynamic blocks
iptables -A spam -s 68.158.0.0/16 -j DROP
iptables -A spam -s 216.79.0.0/16 -j DROP
iptables -A spam -s 68.154.0.0/16 -j DROP
iptables -A spam -s 68.18.0.0/15 -j DROP
iptables -A spam -s 67.34.0.0/16 -j DROP
iptables -A spam -s 65.80.0.0/14 -j DROP
iptables -A spam -s 216.76.0.0/14 -j DROP
iptables -A spam -s 66.156.0.0/15 -j DROP
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
Because they pay for the bulk mail and they send so much of it, it reduces the cost of the mail I send.
If the spammers want to contribute towards my internet bill, then they can send me crap as well.
If they aren't going to reduce my internet charges, then they cannot spam me.
In your example, if my mailbox was filled because of people stuffing flyers and such in there that had not been sent through the mail, then I would have a problem.
Actually, I wouldn't have a problem because I believe that such behavior is already illegal.
If they are willing to pay, they can send it.
If they aren't willing to pay, they cannot send it.
No one cares that you are illiterate.
''I cleared $130,000 in 10 months,'' Colbert says
It's in black and white, and I'm very doubtful that all got declared...
I've lost track of the junk text messages I've got, advertising free holidays, premimum rate lines, and the latest one this morning was from a phone number "important" telling me to go to a certain url for a surpise prize.
Unfortunatly, I live in the UK, where despite this being illegal (my cell phone is registered with TPS), trying to get these people fined, never mind shut down, is next to impossible. Hell, I can't even find what company sent it to lodge the iniital complaint!
As an aside, does anyone know if you can get any info from your phone provider on thses "anonymous" text messages, Also, can you do a reverse lookup on premium rate lines? (I know if you register a PO box, your information must be available, is the same for premium rate lines?)
Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
i mean -- who the HELL buys penis enlargements, weight loss drugs and college diplomas from these sites?
Thanks to UCE I got it going ON! I'm fit, trim, buff, hung like a mule and got an ASS KICKIN job. My teeth are white, I'm debt free and the Viagra persciption is never ending. My Ferrari has a 150K bumper to bumper extended warranty and HOT Teenage Nymphomaniacs are hanging off my thick, throbbing man muscle like leeches. And FREE MONEY! Did you know that our government needs successful people to be Role Models! Sign UP!
There are people out there that want to help YOU. Let them. Grab that big brass ring and SWING BABY!
Yea! That's what I'm talking about.
That's the CPU! Idiots...
Money isn't the root of all evil, it's power. You could live in a society with no money and there would still be corruption. Money is just a way to gain power.
The E-mail pricing structure needs an overhaul. If servers charged 1 cent per email, spam would atleast be reduced to a level of "good spam". -- Worthwhile products advertised in the traditional direct marketing approach. making it illegal and calling spammers at home has constitutional problems. So either make a few ammendments, or start paying per email.
you don't need to, someone needs to prove that you did send it
we need to do the following to fight spam effectively:
1.* create a viable business model for international law enforcement to assist
2. develop punishment guidelines
2.A Fee Schedule
2.B Internet banishment lengths
2.C Prison terms
3.* An internet banishment list, kind of like a list of criminals
3.A Fee schedule for ISPs who do not enforce the list
3.B Internet banishment for ISPs of not enforcing the list
3.C Prison terms for ISPs not enforcing the list
4.* FCC/DHS prohibitions on wireless access point devices which are found to be generally easy to gain access to the internet with.
5.* Internet cafes and WiFi hot spots must require identification of users, similar to a background check to buy a gun.
5.A Fee schedule for internet access points using prohibited devices that do not use reasonable limitations on who can access the network and/or violations of internet banishment laws
5.B Internet banishments for internet access points using prohibited devices that do not use reasonable limitations on who can access the network and/or violations of internet banishment laws
5.C Prison terms for internet access points using prohibited devices that do not use reasonable limitations on who can access the network and/or violations of internet banishment laws
not only security against SPAM, but security against HACKERS.
"He lights up a Monarch menthol as he shows me his computer room, an intimate homemade space built off the side of an aging two-tone mobile home -- robin's-egg blue and white -- which sits among hundreds of Airstreams and Miami Deco single-wides in the Sunset Colony Mobile Home Park in Fort Lauderdale, Fla." We're used to the filthy rich that just built a house that eveyone can sign up for mailing lists spammer, but this guy is mobile! Gonna be hard to keep track of them Duke Boys. Ksshhhh ksssshhhh ksssshhh. -Rosco Pecko Train
that would work if i could remember the damn password for my account.
to the provider of the link to the auto-login, thank you.
Are they sill moving massive illegal columbia product through that area? If so the local vice cops might be better.
...in reading his site, http://www.bowieltd.com , he blames everyone but himself.
Your average person has more will power, determination and responsibility in their pinky than this guy has in his whole body. I'll bet if you investigate this guy further then you will find his technical knowledge to be extremely limited - not nearly enough to justify an article in the NY Times.
Confessions of a Spam King
By JACK HITT
Published: September 28, 2003
1. MEET THE SPAMMER
''Click here,'' says my spamming mentor. Hovering over my chair, he points to the computer screen. ''Now click on that file of e-mail addresses there.'' I have been invited by a master for an education in spamming, the practice of blasting millions of unsolicited e-mail messages into the Internet in order to advertise everything from loans with easy terms to women of easy virtue.
''Let's go online and download some software,'' says my guide. His name is Richard Colbert. On the Rokso, or Register of Known Spam Operations (a kind of Most Wanted List for the Internet posted on an antispam Web site called spamhaus.org), Colbert is described plainly: ''Nonstop scam spammer, kicked off so many hosts and I.S.P.s'' -- or Internet service providers -- ''it's hard to count.''
Dressed in blue shorts and a purple T-shirt, Colbert, 31, has blondish hair stuffed under a baseball cap, a prominent diamond earring and a mild twang that betrays his Atlanta origin. He lights up a Monarch menthol as he shows me his computer room, an intimate homemade space built off the side of an aging two-tone mobile home -- robin's-egg blue and white -- which sits among hundreds of Airstreams and Miami Deco single-wides in the Sunset Colony Mobile Home Park in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Colbert claims that he's now on a sabbatical from spamming, but he's watching current events and weighing a return. During this interlude, he has agreed to help me learn how the avalanche of solicitations I receive winds up in my online mailbox every day. Who are these guys? Who hires them? How do they get legitimate e-mail addresses? And finally, can federal legislation currently under consideration actually stop them?
First off, Colbert doesn't think about spam the way I do (or, most probably, the way you do). He likes to call it ''bulk e-mailing,'' for starters. And he considers it just one of the many exciting new markets available on the Internet. He's the kind of guy who is always interrupting himself to tell you about some smart economic angle he has figured out, some new edge.
''These shorts are Dockers,'' he says, pointing at the clothes he has on. ''And I got them off eBay. Shirt? Tommy Hilfiger. EBay. Shoes? Nikes. EBay.''
Colbert and I dig around on the Internet until, under his direction, I find a piece of software that allows for mass e-mailing. These are common and legal, used legitimately by professional archaeologists, say, or chess enthusiasts to form an online group and conduct chats or exchange information.
Right away there's a problem. The software we've selected requires registration or payment. But Colbert says he once used this very piece of software, slightly altered, when he worked with some other spammers who live nearby. So he snatches his phone and calls a neighbor for support. A minute later, we are back in business. It turns out that an unusually large number of spammers live in this area, the stretch of beaches north of Miami that old-timers loosely call Boca and new-timers know as a staging ground for the smarmier characters in Carl Hiaasen's novels.
According to Steve Linford, who maintains the Rokso list, there's a good reason that so many spammers wind up on Spam Beach: ''Boca Raton is where they used to run those pump-and-dump investment scams and where the telemarketing sweatshops are.'' The phone scammers and infomercial wannabes of the 80's and 90's -- who themselves supplanted the land speculators who established Florida's earliest cities upon shifting sand and sinking swamps -- have been pushed aside by the new boys on the block, the bulk e-mailers of the Internet.
2. A SPAMMING PRIMER
How does a spammer obtain a million working e-mail addresses? Most simply, there are lists you can buy off the Internet. But there are also other, cheaper, ways. A ''dictionary attack,'' Colbert instructs, is when you blast reams of computer-generated potential
This sig no verb.
after talking, worse ughhh interacting with such filth, hell I'd be showering over and over for months. :-D
in my life God comes first.... but Linux is pretty high after that
Francis Smit
My initial reaction to your posting was predictable, I thought you were outright wrong and suspected that you were a spammer even though you stated that you are not.
...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness...
p eech.html
After some research I am willing to give you some benefit of the doubt. But at this point I will still disagree with your conclusion and suggest the following reading and points:
From the Declaration of Independence all people are
And from the 9th Ammendment in the Bill of Rights you were eager to refer to
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
And for some historical perspective on Commercial Free Speech the following article will provide some important insight
http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/17/frees
Conclusion
In the same way that the vagueness of the 1st ammendment provides commercial freedom of speech rights, the Decleration of Independance and the 9th Ammendment provide some vagueness for other rights which the rest of us have which spammers rights cannot "deny or disparage".
While you will find some support for free speech rights that allow for spamming it is obvious to me from doing some research that the individuals and the business entities that are bearing the brunt of the financial, productivity, and annoyance affects brought about by these spammers also have rights that are trampled by the spammer's free speech rights.
Furthermore, it is important to make a distinction between "free speech" and "commercial free speech" as they are not the same thing and in some cases have different tests they must pass before they can be guranteed the free speech right. While I agree, as does the Supreme Court, that commercial entities require the freedom of speech right, it does not play the same role or hold the same level of importance as our individual right to freedom of speech. To me this seems like simple logic, however, in recent history logic has been twisted or dumbed down in many cases so that free speech can cover just about anything to some people.
And finally, I would say to you that spamming should be banned based on the tests proposed by the Supreme Court:
Government may ban "forms of communication more likely to deceive the public than to inform it, or commercial speech related to illegal activity." A high percentage of spam is mis-leading, deceptive, or outright illegal. Of course this would have to be tested in court, but I'm giving you my judgement first hand from reading the crap.
And I would say that "bulk commercial e-mail" should be regulated based on the additional test proposed by the court. But as I think you were pointing out in your post, completely eliminating this marketing method just to make life easier may not only be bad, but may be wrong.
I should also point out that I make a distinction between spam and what you are calling bulk commercial e-mailing. In our culture spam has a negative connotation which has been derived from the fact that all that crap you want to protect is quite negative. Now bulk commercial e-mailing on the other hand could be acceptable if implemented with some manners and ethics.
burnin
Why is the parent modded as troll? Inciteful, I'd understand, but troll?
Since when are Anne Rice novels within the purview of /. ?
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
I should know. I gave her that trailer.
Well said!
If you consider purchasing used tennis shoes off of ebay exemplary of business acumen, I suspect we have different ideas of that concept.
More importantly, this guy was bragging about acquiring his wardrope from an auction web site. That wouldn't be high on my list as a means to demonstrate what a good businessman I am. Who is that supposed to impress? Wait a minute. He lives in a trailer park.
This guy's statements have less to do with him revealing how fiscally resourceful he is, and more to do with his immaturity, which seems to be a defining characteristic of most spammers. If he wants to save electricity by only washing his underwear once a month, that's fine, but if I were him I wouldn't brag about it.
In the Good Spam vs. Bad Spam argument I think the analogy would be that "Good Spam" is like Grey Water. It is Nasty, but not nearly as nasty as Sewage.
I'm still not going to buy it.
Getting "Good Spam" is kinda like someone leaving a barrel of grey water on your front doorstep.
This signature used to contain a cute kitty virus with ansii art. Please set the slashdot editors on fire. Thank you
I signed up for an account, and then just tried to enter in info that just doesn't make sense.
I'm a CEO/President for the Military-Industrial Complex that makes less than 10k a year.
This signature used to contain a cute kitty virus with ansii art. Please set the slashdot editors on fire. Thank you