Interview With a Spammer

All I want to know is. . . by kfg · 2003-09-27 04:56 · Score: 4, Funny

can I harvest his email address from the article?

KFG

Re:All I want to know is. . . by hendridm · 2003-09-27 05:21 · Score: 3, Informative

You can start with some of the addresses listed at the ROKSO.
Re:All I want to know is. . . by 1010011010 · 2003-09-27 05:52 · Score: 4, Informative

How about one of his websites?

http://bowieltd.com/

Administrative Contact:
Colbert, Richard pcheaven2k@zwallet.com
2400 W Broward Blvd
Suite 523
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33312
US
954-327-0766

--
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Re:All I want to know is. . . by linzeal · 2003-09-27 06:22 · Score: 3, Funny

Hope he really really likes pepperoni.

--
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Re:All I want to know is. . . by Blkdeath · 2003-09-27 08:09 · Score: 5, Insightful

Hope he really really likes pepperoni.

Nice sentiment and all, but as someone who's worked both for pizza places and as a delivery driver I ask you; please don't. It costs the restaurant money in wasted food and preparation time, costs the delivery driver time and gas to make a round-trip for nothing, and is generally a Very Bad Idea.
If you want to annoy the man, please find a means of doing so that won't affect the pocketbooks of innocents.

--
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.

Eh? by Garrett+Combs · 2003-09-27 04:57 · Score: 5, Insightful

"good spam vs. bad spam" Hrm... Is there such a thing?

--
Insert witty Slashdot sig here.

Re:Eh? by jellomizer · 2003-09-27 05:56 · Score: 5, Insightful

Well in the article he states it this way.

Good Spam. With Proper from line and workable remove links that actually remove your list and not used to verify your address.

Bad Spam. With altered from addresses bounced from every open relay on the planet to hide it origin. Remove links that are broken or use it as a method of verification.

Although I think all Spam is bad. I would focus my energy to getting all Spammers to get the "Good Spam" type first. That is why I forward all my Spam to uce@ftc.gov. That way the Federal Trade Commission checks the legality of their Spam. Usually when it is "Bad Spam" the FTC will go after them. After forwarding all my Spam to use@ftc.gov after many years there has a been a decrease in Spam. When I first got my current email address I had 3 or 4 Spams a day. Now I get 1 or 2 a month. Plus I know at least one of the Major Spammers has gotten hit with the FTC. Which was the Married but Single site. Which was Bad Spam because they Hid their identity their remove was a bad false link. And bounced over a variety of open relays. After I heard that the FTC went after them their Spam magically stopped.

If it is "Good Spam" I can normally handle that much easier without much effort. I just hit my Bounce to Sender feature on my email client and then I send them back a standard bounce-back message saying that my address doesn't exist thus making them take me off the list to save their bandwidth. Or if they are really annoying me I find the contact of the site can call them up by telephone telling them to stop. And most of the time they will be polite about it because they are sending "Good Spam" they have some morals and will follow my request.

So "Good Spam" is Spam that you can easily get off of, and often done by people and companies that don't realize the spam problem, or from Pointy Hair Bosses who don't think it is a problem because their Sysadmins did a good job to blocking them so when one or two gets in they think it is novel Idea.
"Bad Spam" has SCAM written all over it. Where it is just bad news all around.

--
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.

Spamming must be lucrative by l810c · 2003-09-27 04:57 · Score: 4, Funny

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.

What a life!

Re:Spamming must be lucrative by Lord_Slepnir · 2003-09-27 05:09 · Score: 5, Funny

Unfortunatly, the Mobile home has become a necessity for the spammer. The need to relocate on a moments notice and be able to out pace the lynch mob once they have your address should not be underestimated.

Finally, confirmed. by Faust7 · 2003-09-27 04:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

Re:Finally, confirmed. by MassacrE · 2003-09-27 05:03 · Score: 5, Funny

I get excited about an awesome car with a sexy girl in it, who has an active e-mail address ;-)

Obligitory link... by dnaboy · 2003-09-27 05:00 · Score: 5, Informative

The obligitory link to the New york times random login generator for those who don't feel the desire to identify yourself (or bother to create a clever alter ego).

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....

'good' vs 'bad' spam by Kjella · 2003-09-27 05:01 · Score: 5, Funny

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

"a second hard drive"? by way2trivial · 2003-09-27 05:07 · Score: 5, Insightful

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

Re:"a second hard drive"? by KillerHamster · 2003-09-27 05:18 · Score: 3, Interesting

"...the nine hard drives bound together with a superfast connection speed..."

Man, I wish I had a RAID setup like that!

Oh. Crap. by CGP314 · 2003-09-27 05:08 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

I've gotta hand it to this guy... by rwven · 2003-09-27 05:11 · Score: 5, Interesting

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 ;)

Re:I've gotta hand it to this guy... by KC7GR · 2003-09-27 05:49 · Score: 3, Funny

Smart? Yeah, sure... 'Smart' like the petty criminal he really is.

Spammers, as a rule, either have zero concept of private property rights, or they (like telemarketers) think they have some mysterious "right" to (ab)use their intended recipient's E-mail boxes.

If this creepoid is so smart, and making so many $$, why is he living in a dilapidated mobile home in the middle of a Florida trailer park?

--
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,

Blue Feather Technologies

spam would stop tomorrow if... by professorhojo · 2003-09-27 05:12 · Score: 5, Insightful

...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.

Compare two statements.... by John+Seminal · 2003-09-27 05:14 · Score: 3, Insightful

''That's not fraud,'' he said. ''If it was fraud, the company wouldn't make any money.'' When I tried to pursue this suddenly slippery definition of fraud, he quickly added, defensively, ''The only sex product I sell is the penis-enlargement pill.''

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."

Re:Why I love the times by 1u3hr · 2003-09-27 05:27 · Score: 4, Interesting

Note at the end of the article:

He points under his desk to a recent arrival, a second hard drive, precisely what he would need to begin a new network.
''It's a Dell Pentium 233,'' he says. ''I got it for $15, plus $23.95 shipping.''

The reporter seems unable to distinguish between a "hard drive" and an entire computer; one wonders if his grasp of other details is as weak.

All-time favorite interaction with a spammer by Kurt+Gray · 2003-09-27 05:29 · Score: 3, Funny

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"

Distributive justice by wytcld · 2003-09-27 05:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

But the distributive-justice approach is all but dead in Congress, at least in part because of the Republicans' deep antipathy for trial lawyers.

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 ... beloved of Libertarians ... why?

--
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton

Spamming doesn't pay by mabu · 2003-09-27 05:51 · Score: 3, Interesting

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.

Re:Why I love the times by John+Miles · 2003-09-27 06:14 · Score: 4, Insightful

C'mon...just because the reporter isn't up to snuff on computers, doesn't mean they can't write. I hear this all the time from our users at work. It's almost accepted among the non-tech folk.

So what you're saying is that I'm supposed to decide what companies to invest in, whether or not to support various wars, which of several political candidates to vote for, and whether to take an umbrella to work tomorrow based on journalism of this quality?

Here's a question for the NYT apologists: if their reporters don't give a shit about accuracy in matters you can call them on, what makes you think their reporting is worth anything on other, more important topics?

--
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.

Spam is NOT free speech by frankie · 2003-09-27 07:50 · Score: 4, Informative

It's called Free Speech. Bill of Rights

Not according to Warren Burger, Chief Justice, SCOTUS, May 4, 1970:

"Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit"

"We therefore categorically reject the argument that a vendor has a right under the Constitution or otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another. If this prohibition operates to impede the flow of even valid ideas, the answer is that no one has a right to press even 'good' ideas on an unwilling recipient. That we are often 'captives' outside the sanctuary of the home and subject to objectionable speech and other sound does not mean we must be captives everywhere. The asserted right of a mailer, we repeat, stops at the outer boundary of every person's domain."

Re:Hello my name is Richard Dennis Colbert Jr. by randyest · 2003-09-27 08:16 · Score: 3, Informative

Hey fuckwit moderators: this is not offtopic. It's from the spammer's own website mentioned in the article.

There really needs to be some sort of IQ test before mod points are given out. Really.

--
everything in moderation

Think yourself lucky by IIH · 2003-09-27 11:05 · Score: 3, Interesting

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.

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

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