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FTC Shuts Down Pop-Up Extortion Firm
An anonymous reader writes "The FTC has shut down D Squared, a company that's been spamming via the Windows Messenger Pop-Up Service. In some cases, ads would pop-up every 10 minutes, and only advertised a $30 product that disabled similar pop-up ads. The FTC is slamming the extortion gauntlet on them. Interestingly, the FTC only caught onto all this because one of their own commissioners was among those getting spammed."
Who is John Galt?
"Interestingly, the FTC only caught onto all this because one of their own commissioners was among those getting spammed."
There's a lesson for us all, there.
"POP-UP ADVERTISING is a fact of life," said Howard Beales, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "But one company has taken pop-ups beyond annoyance."
No it's not. I use Safari (Mac OS) and Mozilla (Linux/Windows) for all my web browsing. And I use Trillian, Gaim, or Fire for IM.
So no, POP-UP Advertising is deifnetly not a fact of life. It's just that too many people are unaware how easy it is to get away from.
Shame on us! We are intruded upon every day and no one complains. Hour by hour, our eyes and ears are bombarded with advertisements, but we accept it all as a fact of life. Why do we allow this tresspass into our daily lives? Why is it considered acceptable to allow companies to push products in our faces every second of every day? Why don't we have laws against advertising?
If someone dumps raw sewage in the streets, the cops will take them away. If someone plays their boom-box too loud in my neighborhood, they will eventually be fined. So why do we allow billboards, huge store signs, and ads on cars, busses, and park benches to pollute our visual environment?
I should be able to go for a walk or ride my bike outside without having to endure constant sales pitches, without having huge logos and brand names all over the place. Don't you agree? Is some corporation's desire to sell a product really more important than our desire of a peaceful environment?
If I stood outside your house all day shouting "Buy My Product!!!" over and over you'd get kind of angry wouldn't you? So why don't you get angry when corporations do the same thing via huge billboards? What exactly is the difference?
I wonder if the same logic could be applied to charge spammers advertising spam blockers with extortion? How about HTML popup ads for popup blockers?
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
You know, when I saw in the article that AOL was automatically turning off users' Messenger Service, I wondered if that was stepping over the line. After all, we Slashdotters *hate* it when someone messes with our configuration without our permission!
Then, I read the process, and remembered doing the same thing to turn off the oh-so-obvious "Your print job is complete" messages from the laser printer in the next cube. It would be so easy for a non-geek to either screw up or freeze like a deer in the headlights:
Beales recommends that current Windows users manually shut the service off to protect themselves from unwanted pop-ups.
To disable Messenger:
* Click Start, and then click Control Panel (or point to Settings, and then click Control Panel).
* Double-click Administrative Tools.
* Double-click Services.
* Double-click Messenger.
* In the Startup type list, click Disabled. Click Stop, and then click OK.
Not to stereotype AOLers, but considering what their tech support would face if newbies were given those instructions, I think they did the right thing to shut off a service that nobody uses anyway.
I'm trying to think of why the Messenger Service was a good thing in the first place. I recall way back before Win95, we used to prank each other with dire "system messages". Was that all it was ever good for?
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
I would also suggest that M$ should pay a penalty as well for leaving this service on by default.
Contributory negligence?
Sounds plausible to me.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
AFAIK, the only product that can send these messages is a commercial windows program that checks that your registration hasn't been used on another computer every time it starts up. I wonder why noone has written a light implementation of this hole yet... how about an extension to the linux/unix "talk" command?
The popups are annoying, but they can easily be blocked by installing Zonealarm, or any other good firewall.
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
The article outlines the steps to remove it. There is also a free utility that does it for you, but fake registration is required.
Well, I personally use the ZoneAlarm Pop-Up Stopper...very handy and nice prog. Works like a charm.
So, to pay $30 for a pop-up stopper that's already incorporated in another prog you bought? - I'd say is ludicrous...
But, to pay for a prog at all - when you can go Open-Source and get better results is just as insane...
I use M$ for school (VS.net) - and games. Other than that I would use Linux exclusively!
Don't forget Opera, which has configurable pop-up options built in -- accept, refuse, open in background, open requested only. I always run with "open requested only", so I have yet to see a Pop-Up I didn't like.
Except when my wife is running her virus portal, I mean IE browser.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
And this popup supression you have on Mozilla will stop messenger popups? Damn, tell me how you did that? I run IE with google popup blocker, it has yet to block any messenger popups.
alias dir='rm -rf
Windows Messenger service != pop-up browser windows. How did this get modded informative?
Carousel is a lie!
Mozilla can suppress the Windows Messenger service?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
They are talking about "Windows Messenger", which has nothing to do with web browsers.
is here.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
This is a COMPLETELY different thing, this has nothing to do with popups on browsers.
This is using DOS's NET SEND command to make dialog boxes pop up on machines that have the messenger service enabled on the internet.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
but how many to go? This is a good step, but the legal system is too slow and too regional to deal effectively with Internet-age criminals. The solution to spammers and domain name squatters is going to have to come from the Internet community itself.
I think a lot of them should be easiler than the FTC would like to admit. I know unwanted junk advertising when it invades my computer, and it doesn't have to be as obvious as above!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Well this is like the story a few days ago about an FBI agent who was spammed about a credit card scam and got the women arrested. Prehaps things like the FTC should have one individual who they try to get on every mailing list / get target by spammers. Least that way something could be done
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
A clever individual, you are. I use Lynx to avoid all the other toxic waste that comes with web pages. I am more leet I guess.
They're talking about Pop-ups through the Windows Messenger Service, not web based browser pop-ups.
Mozilla or not, you'll get them if you have WinNT, Win2K, WinXP with the messenger service enabled and are not firewalled in some way.
This is not about Javascript pop-up ads, this is about the Windows Messenger service, which is a service that listens to a different port, and will pop up a dialog box when it receives a message from the wire.
This is similar to the service that Novell used to have, and the purpose is for local sysadmins to send out messages like "Server going down in 5 minutes, save your work and log out".
You could have your browser closed, and be doing nothing, and these will still come through.
Now, why the HELL do ISPs allow these packets on the wire, as they are a LAN service only, is beyond me (no, it is not - I understand all too well the stupidity and laziness of most ISPs).
www.eFax.com are spammers
"On its Web site, the firm said the software could beam 135,000 pop-up ads at consumers every hour, and claimed to have a database of over two billion Internet addresses, according to the FTC."
2^32, minus subnets and netmasks, minus 10, 127, 192.168, etc...
I gotta know. Who ported cluestick to Windows? :-)
Carousel is a lie!
Spammer gets arrested for spamming an FBI agent.
FTC has shut down D Squared for spamming one of their commissioners.
Something isnt right here.... why is it _only_ when something starts affecting those in power, they decide to do something about it..
So...do we have to wait for George W. Bush's pc to lock up while playing solitaire for the govt to move away from windows? (besides pentagon use)
This is a problem?
Also, what about all those TV ads for reprehensibly misrepresented products. Why doesn't the FDA or the FTC go after the dozens of companies flagrantly running ads making miraculous health claims, many of whom have become so brazen as to not even bother with the little disclaimer at the bottom of the screen saying "this product is not intended to treat or cure any medical disorder or disease".
The one bright light I've heard about recently was the Q-Ray (www.qray.com if you're curious). The founder of the company apparently had his personal assets ordered frozen by a judge, to be used to pay back duped customers, after the FTC cracked down on them hard. Note that they no longer make most of the fraudulent deceptive claims about their product, they just vaguely hint about it balancing your chi, ionic energy, and so on. They used to pretty much flagrantly imply that it cures arthritis, makes your joints stop aching, and so on.
Not Redmond disciples...all software developers.
No offense, but I don't want to be partially responsible when someone abuses something I have written. Sure, you will say, "write better software" but the thing is, even perfectly written software, when used for something it was not designed for, can have bad effects. Should we blaim the person who wrote ping if it is used in some sort of denial of service attack?
They aren't talking about those kind of pop-ups you assgerbil, they are talking about the windows messenger service ok cocksniff. Now go read the article.
See, the problem here is encryption and keying. We need keys and certs to not allow anonymous messages to be transferred across networks.
Secondly, since windows is coded in mostly visual basic and cobol, it has a harder time keeping the network code that sits on the kernel in tune. It must run a c library to offer these features.
The windows messenger service needs keying. Bottom line.
Simple. I can effectively tune out billboards and do all the time. If you were in my living room shouting, I'd have to do other things to "tune you out". duh.
Uh, no it's not Howard. I use Mozilla with pop-up supression as do thousands of others. $30? Try free
Not sure about XP, but if you do a default Win2K install, the 'messenger' service is set to Automatic - meaning it is up and running when you start your computer. What is key here is this is essentially a windows application, not anything to do with the far too frequent HTML popups everyone is use to.
On Win2K, go to Administrative Tools > Services, find the messenger service with the description "Sends and receives messages transmitted by administrators or by the Alerter service.", stop it, and disable it so you don't have to deal with the (messenger based) pop ups again.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
If you think I'm lying, press ALT+F2, then paste the following into it.
To see if you computer is vulnerable, press ALT+PRINT SCREEN+B at the same time.
why they have Messenger Service enabled by default anyway? (I believe they've changed this with the next service pack for 2003. Better late than never!)
"In some cases, ads would pop-up every 10 minutes"
Obviously, this company had imagined a beowulf culster of such pop-up ads
How long though before MS integrates it in as an essensial feature ala Internet Explorer. Isn't MS still on a drive to create the ultimate MOS (Monolothic Operating System)?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Daddy, what's Microsoft Windows???
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
First post and score +4, informative!
Looks like you've got all the bases covered!
I might agree if they're talking about XP Home Edition -- since that's obviously targeted at users/machines not on a corporate network.
But I'd disagree when it comes to XP Pro (or 2k, 2k server, server 2k3, etc.), since they're targeted at corporate users but have non-trivial numbers of home users as well. It's perfectly reasonable to have the service on by default if you expect most of the product's users to be in a corporate environment where the service was intended to be useful (and reasonably shielded from external attackers like this extorting spam company via firewalls).
It's not clear whether MS is turning it to 'off by default' for Home, Pro, or what, or whether it was already off by default for Home.
On a more general note, consider the possibility of culpability simply because the service doesn't care who pushes messages through it. There are parallels to SMS and (to a lesser extent) Bluetooth.
In general, I'd argue against implementors/providers of these services being culpable for negligence damages, because it would weigh a little too heavily on the 'stifle innovation' side of the spectrum (with 'stifle innovation' on one end and 'protect the consumer from malicious users of a service' on the other).
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
"On its Web site, the firm said the software could beam 135,000 pop-up ads at consumers every hour, and claimed to have a database of over two billion Internet addresses,"
not a very hard claim...
for(int i=255;i >=0; --i)
for(int j=255;j >=0; --j)
for(int k=255;k >=0; --k)
for(int l=255;l >=0; --l)
printf("%i.%i.%i.%i\n",i,j,k,l);
should pump out all the addresses, but it will hit some broadcast addresses and network addresses... probably should add some logic to skip 127.0.0.1 and the 10.0.0.0/8 (etc...)
I posted this on an ASK Slashdot a while back.
::History::
Its funny how the goverment doesn't seem to care until they get experience it for them selves? That fast against the messanger pop up stuff.
Wooooo..
How long will it take until they can't stand spam in their email and they decided to finally decide to take care of it. How about all of us legimate email users get together and spam the FCC and maybe we can piss them off anough to do something about it.
No.
This is ridiculous. I understand why it's difficult to block spam: the sender makes an effort to be anonymous and unknown. They aren't recognized as legitimate companies and many of them are overseas and not subject to many laws.
Read the title. "FTC Shuts Down Pop-Up Extortion Firm" This is a firm in the United States with one heck of a business model. If what they're doing isn't illegal, it needs to be. The idea that a company could do this for so long and scam so many people certainly doesn't prove the effectiveness of our system to me. Something needs to change.
I hope we all do some research and think twice the next time we hit the polls. Matters like these are the responsibility of many various lawmakers. Let's hope they can earn all those figures and get some work done at the same time. Sure it's difficult, but suck it up for once.
...goes the weasel. LOL!!
Oh, and I'm using Linux...hmmm, guess pop-ups are completely foreign to me. I can see why I misunderstood the article.
(sigh) Guess I'll go back to my serene computing life.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
leet?
don't you mean 1337?
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
A resource waiting to be used:
"Use this form to submit a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Bureau of Consumer Protection about a particular company or organization."
https://rn.ftc.gov/pls/dod/wsolcq$.startup?
no its doesnt, this article is talking about the Windows - Messenger Service, a service turned on by default in Windows 2k and XP
I was a Mormon Missionary in Russia in the early 90's. One of the missionaries knocked on the door of the Minister of Religion for the city we were in. Suddenly we weren't allowed to knock on doors any more. Back to the streets with us.
Annoyances are acted upon quickly only when those in charge are annoyed.
(I'd like to point out that Mormon Missionaries don't try to extort money from you to stop knocking on your door.)
Should we blaim the person who wrote ping if it is used in some sort of denial of service attack?
No, we should blame the person who wrote the spell-checker.
I got spammed by a few of those, and it must have been the most annoying 5 minutes or so that I have ever spent on a computer... and it really, really made me despise the company or individual sending them. It is 100 times worse than e-mail spam, because they interrupt work or other important activities!
stuff |
no, im using xp and its on by default
and when i started getting them, I turned off the service.
A simple fix without requring me to sintall AOL 9.0 optimized.
-Grump
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
It's free. I haven't had a non-requested pop-up in over a year since I switched. And as an added benefit none of my code (web development) needs to be tested for Netscape (I do have to test for IE but since most of the people who use my software use IE, I hear errors first from them).
more like...
0.0.0.0
0.0.0.1
0.0.0.2
No.
I wrote this really amusing application a time ago, it listened to the ports used for MS win msg, and if it received a valid message, it replied once every 5 seconds, 600 times with the same message + the text "\nQuit spamming ffs!". Quite efficient.
Why? Well, my son is a student at a computer college, and he was sickin tired of people thinking that broadcasting MS windows messenger popus was fun, so he asked me for a tool to repent the spammers.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
Last time I checked, I seem to recall they said "You really shouldn't disable Windows Messenger; buy a firewall instead." (Followed by instructions on how to disable.) Now they seem to be admitting it wasn't necessary in the first place here
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
The people who wrote ping do not have the ability to prevent it's abuse in the same way that Microsoft IS responsible for leaving this abomination on by default. There's a difference.
rar'd um up and put um on floppy disks for safe keeping
Should we blaim the person who wrote ping if it is used in some sort of denial of service attack?
No, but they're allowed to feel quilt over it on their own if they so desire.
http://www.nobel.no/index.html
KFG
An entire business set up on the basis that Microsoft leaves this stupid thing turned on. They get caught, (and yes the burgler is still responsible even if the door is left open) and Microsoft gets absolutely nothing, no "you should be more careful leaving un-needed services like that on by default it just encourages them" no bad press coverage about how all these things (pop up windows, pop-up messages, VB viri) could have been prevented if microsoft had changed 1 line of code.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
yeah, try to pay more attention and not comment when you don't know what you're talking about. thanks.
If any wants, I can sell them a copy of that database for just $25,000. A brief sample to show I have the goods:
192.168.0.1
192.168.0.2
192.168.0.3
192.168.0.4
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
You ever thought of a career in Human Resources?
blockmessenger.com
defeatpopupspam.com
easypopupblocker.com
endads.com
fightpopups.com
I guess it's like the big corporate guys trying to buy up all the yourcorporatenameheresucks.com domains. On the other hand, maybe selling pop-up blockers to defeat their own spam tool was their way of making money from both sides of the equation>
Sell pop-up spam tools to the marketing firms, and sell blockers to the consumers.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
Its called: zoning
Those people with extra $$$ get domeciles in areas with strict building codes preventing, say, billboards. Mendicino CA, Grinnell IA come to mind, but there must be thousands.
I know a filthy rich woman, who succesfully personally lobbied to keep all billboards off of Interstate 71 between her house and downtown louisville, because "she didn't want her friends to have to look at them on the way to the opera".
Or is it the end of the beginning?
__
Sig: Marine Stock Photos
Doh...sorry, but the direct link to the list of domain names was incorrect on the prior message.
Here is the PDF file of the Square D domain names.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
if we actually bought the product?
Of course not. No more than TV, radio, and newspaper ads cease once you purchase an item. All you can do it choose to ignore them.
This easy enough to do in a newspaper and most magazines. With TV you almost have to prerecord all your shows and then zip (zap?) through them to eliminate the commercials.
This makes me wonder why no genius has created a "flip book" ad for TVs shows that are recorded and replayed with skip-search to bypass the ads. On fast forward a slow-motion ad would appear in real time, just no sound, but then all they would need to do is add subtitles. (Maybe I should patent this idea!)
But I digress.
With advertisers always looking for new ways to capture eyeballs and traffic and with many of these new Internet technologies, we will continue to see these new and dare say innovative methods to reach target audiences until the Internet truly matures.
I only hope that I live long enough to se it happen.
--When it's my time, I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather -- not screaming like all the passengers in his car
... keep your goddamned machines patched. All it took was a 2 second patch from Windows Update, or a 15 second trip into the control panel to turn off the messanger service.
Sign up the good people down at the FTC to as many SPAMmers as you can. Watch those SPAM shops get closed down in a hurry?
MORTAR COMBAT!
I actually wrote something similar, but not quite as annoying, for IRC quite a while ago. Every time someone would spam (channel-wide notice, or one of those obviously infected-with-a-trojan messsages), it would send that IP a net msg saying "Your computer is infected with a virus, please download an anti-virus tool and fix it"..
I don't really know if it was effective or not, and likely a lot of people couldn't recieve it anyways (behind firewall, going offline before it could complete, etc), but at the least, it would annoy them a little bit and hopefully make them look into it, at least.
Speak before you think
Just goes to show, the law is an ass and enforced for the convenience of the enforcers.
This service is useful on a LAN. I see no use for it on the Web. To leave it turned on by default and to allow it to propagate to/from an Internet connection is just stupid! stupid! stupid!
Who would be that stupid? Oh, Microsoft, right...
Interestingly, the FTC only caught onto all this because one of their own commissioners was among those getting spammed.
Quick! Somebody get me Dubya's personal email address!! We are gonna get him to start a new "war on terror", and can even get Homeland Security involved...
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
That is some messed-up shit! Good work! Are you the one responsible for the gay startrek rant, too?
Does this mean that we can sue spam companies that send us spam to sell us their spam blockers? Wouldn't that be considered extortion as well?
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
Try Kerio Personal Firewall. The only feature I miss from ZoneAlarm is the "This program changes frequently" box. It effectively lets you disable the checksum on just that one program, while still using it on everything else. Very handy for the constantly-updating EverQuest client (and similar programs). KPF is completely free for personal use, and doesn't have the cartoony look of ZA. Also, I had problems with VPN and some other network stuff due to ZA. It would cause the problems unless completely uninstalled. Disabling all blocking inside the program or shutting the program down didn't help, only removing it.
Personally, I think it's a lot smarter to disable Messenger-related stuff from outside your LAN, rather than disable the service completely. Most people don't need it, but I'm sure there are some who do need it but aren't aware of it, and will screw things up by disabling it. And how would you send them amusing (to us, confusing to them) messages if they all disable Messenger? =)
Some claim to have a list with 4,228,250,625 IP addresses, but 16,581,375 of those seem to all refer to the same computer. I, however, have a verified list of 4,211,669,251.
If companies weren't aggressive advertising they would not be competing for clients, and therefore not winning clients. Further, if no one could compete, the average joe would not know about many products available -- just because you and I research doesn't mean everyone does. Why not just go back to the stone age? Advertising allows for companies to flourish and maintain viable concerns through growth. If you're so unhappy about it move to the dessert.
"Ain't I a stinka..." - Bugs
In the article:
"The defendants created the problem that they proposed to solve - for a fee. Their pop-up spam wasted computer users' time and caused them needless frustration."
sooooo, if their sales pitch was anything else - then they'd have little or no case.
This isn't about the abuse of spamming through Windows Messaging, it was an abuse of advertising. It's just a matter of days before others (MANY others) see this and decide to advertise anything else.
This is not my sig.
It is rare when a metaphor applies *THAT* well.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Oh wait, I know why I've never seen one. I bothered to take the few minutes and spend the money to secure my pc's and network before attaching to my cable modem.
What do you want people that make toilets to handhold you also when you go take a piss? Might hit the floor and make a slick spot then go after the plumber or something.
Its called accepting responsibility, in this case for your network.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
you know, having messenger service enabled on the corporate version makes sense. On the pro, it would be understandable. but i wonder what genius decided that XP home version would have a network notification service enabled by default on the version of xp that is mostly unique by its lack of networking/admin tools? If XP home is on a network at all other then the internet, it will be a 2-5 home LAN that would have no conceivable reason to have a network notification service period. really, at the least its more bloat, at the worst its what win users are suffering from now.
To me the most interesting part is Microsoft's response:
In other words, despite all the hype about security and code reviews, Microsoft just doesn't view exploitable *features* as holes until the exploit actually occurs. The idea of trying to make the systems they release secure from the start still hasn't taken hold.
How will doing research affect how Diebold interprets our votes ?
That's what this article should have been called. Oh, wait, I forgot...governmental control magically becomes good when used against people you don't like.
Do not implement legal "solutions" for technological "problems." A problem for one person is a useful tool for another, and when there are obvious voluntary means of eliminating the issue for those who see it as a "problem," the law has absolutely no business intervening. Hell, the current open-ended nature of the internet could precisely be seen as a loophole relative to the closed network it was designed to be, but look where "exploiting" its capabilities got us?
Regulation is the enemy of progress.
Checks are not percieved to be worth anything if there isn't money behind them. People know that and take steps to make sure that they are legit (requiring ID, not sending an item until the check has cleared, using check verification services). With money, people generally assume it's valid... and our entire economic system would collapse if too much counterfitting existed.
I have blog like everyone else
I have the Metacrawler internet toolbar installed at work, and it has a popup blocker with it. It's been installed for 2 days, and has block 62 pop-ups. Only one pop-up has made it through in that time.
There are two hi-rez, "diamond vision" type billboards that are a menace. They are inevitably and purposefully a distraction, and they are also bright enough to be a hazard.
They should be eliminated on public safety grounds.
I think the standard billboards can reasonably be regulated on other grounds. If my neighbors can prevent me from hanging laundry, I should be able to keep the Ad Council from telling my kids to abuse legal-for-adult drugs.
There's a balance between doing what you want with your property (putting revenue enhancers like billboards) and making other people's property worth less (by making the neighborhood look like shit).
I use the Google tool bar and it stop 99% of all pop ups. It also is site by site configurable so I can have usefull pop ups on some sites
Keep in mind.. The FTC is slamming the extortion gauntlet on them They're not being shut down because they are spamming.. they are being shut down because they are making people pay for a solution to a problem they're making... If you get a messenger popup about viagra or whatnot... unless they're the reason you're having the problem.. they'll continue their popups...
One every 10 minutes is an understatement. When I was using windows XP I was getting one every minute easy, I had to change my ISP. Its just sick how they try to get people to pay to dissable messanger. I wonder if their "service" actualy just added the users name to an exclude list!
Uh oh. Public broadcasting better watch out during their next pledge drive.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
So one of the FTC's commissioners is browsing the internet on an firewalled connection on some type of windows box. Interesting, sounds very secure. No doubt he works on that box regularly probably with important information.
I just don't understand this point of view. Nothing paid for by advertising is free - the consumer still pays for it in some way. If Nike is paying for a park bench in return for an advertisement then Nike is able to make that money back from the consumer by charging more for its trainers, their desirability having been raised by the advertising. In fact, it makes it even more expensive because Nike wouldn't do it simply to cover its costs - it must know it will make a profit on the deal.
Paying for things through advertising actually costs more than paying for it directly, and as an added bonus you have to endure the ads as well. The only difference is that the person benefitting from the service is not necessarily the same person who pays for it, but it probably averages out fairly well in the end.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So just before the raid, did the FTC send them a pop-up saying, "You are SO busted."?
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
Is it me, or are the American "Authorities" trying to look mean in order to garner consumer confidence, or deflect criticism before the US Administration enacts a law which permit wide scale spamming?
tom
&lawyers($instruction);
Nah - but I have to admit its what got me started. I spent an hour laughing so hard I sat in a pool of my own drool. I can only aspire to reach the genius of that rant.
Note: This is the very same service that AOL finally started remote-disabling reported last week. It was really annoying because it came up BEFORE you went to any websites!!!! The messanger service is not tied to a browser but to your IP address...very easy to find a nice big block like AOLs and just spam the list of IPs...ouch.
...I got those damn pop-up messenger ads from those assholes every ten minutes for the past four or more months ...it got so bad I just had to unplug my cable internet connection unless I was surfing. I was actually really suprised when I stopped getting them around 10:00pm last night, I guess I know why now. Maybe the government is usefull after all :P
Try my new smokable Sig,
A few times I had some spam pop-ups from messenger show up while using XP. Even though I never made any kind of messanger or passport account. There seemed to be no way to turn off messenger.
>how the fuck is this redundant?
Because the article's about Windows Messenger Service popups. Browser popups are something entirely different.
...told the FTC that they had to wait 30 days before any enforcement actions, as the Party had just sent out a fundraising letter and they wanted to see if they'd get a check, first.
/.'ers may complain this is unfairly partisan, it *does* strike me that the Republican party's main goal in life is enabling anybody who calls themself a corporation to do anything they want and call it a (patentable) business model.
While some
Get the Google toolbar, uninstall Flash, and you're all set.
A year ago I was on the treadmill at a nearly empty fitness club that had three tvs in front of the fleet of treadmills. I chose to turn off the one on the far right, which was the one most directly in front of me; nobody else was watching it. A woman came over from way across the room to hassle me about it; I guess she was a tv junky and couldn't handle the notion that the tv was off, despite the fact that neither she nor anybody else was watching it. Her argument to me was that I didn't have to watch the tv. I disagreed. True, the tv only took up a small percentage of my total visual space, but the luminance and constant motion make it impossible to ignore if it's within 30 degrees of my center of vision. My suspicion is that many people have a similar inability to ignore a tv, as it's an undisputed observation that human eyesight is very keyed into motion (helps confer an evolutionary advantage of some kind). I think arguments that one doesn't have to watch a tv if its in their line of sight are pretty specious.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
That's a classic protection racket. In its heyday, the Mafia made much of its money that way, hassling small shopkeepers. The threat doesn't have to be explicit. Going around and telling people "something bad might happen to you if you don't pay us", combined with any act of harassment, is usually good enough for jail time.
If you are using their service for criminal activity, then yes it's their business.
Check out "links" (links.sourceforge.com). Same as Lynx, but supports tables, frames, and GPM. Very sweet :)
could'nt agree with you more.
Try my new smokable Sig,
What are these popups of which you speak? Oh yeah that's right that's what non opera user's get. haha that's funny.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
D Squared sends millions of Messenger pop-ups in-your-face adds. Complaints flow, nothing happens. The one ad that popped on an FTC commissioner's screen got D Squared slammed.
You know, that suggests me an obvious trend. Us lower cast peones can get shafted all day long and nobody cares. But if the e-sleazoids ever dare annoying a member of the Authorities, they get immediately sued if not jailed.
Us peones are forbidden to take any action ourselves. The state has the legal monopoly of violence and enforces it. So the obvious cure to spam (a vigorous reshaping of Eddy Marin's head with a baseball bat, for instance) is denied to us.
This means that absolutely NOTHING effective will be ever done for us lowlife taxpayers until a Higher Up get splashed by some of the shit thrown at us daily.
You know what you have to do. If you want a spammer arrested, you need to give him the email addresses of Higher Ups.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Oh no! How will public radio survive this new stance from the FTC? Isn't that the public radio/tv business model?
How is anyone going to decide for themselves to adopt an alternative OS if the FTC keeps playing the role of the protective parent. Its a dangerous spam-filled world out there and I want Microsoft to be right smack dab in the middle of it.
on some public internet terminals in London City airport on Monday - thought it was hilarious, a popup from a company selling software to guard against well, basically - itself.
"There are no laws that can stop this form of spam so the government is power- less to stop it."
I bet the nice folks over at the FTC had a good chuckle when they read that. "Oh, is that so?"
"Understand you're having a little Jimmy Page trouble."
whether or not a Win user receives messages as a result of the Messenger Service has no relation to his or her choice of web browser.
That's like saying the entire email system is broken. Well, actualy the entire email system pretty much is broken, now that I think about it...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The constitution guarentees Freedom of Speech, and the vast majority of speach is considered protected. You can't "as a society" simply decide something is too offensive, it's up to the courts to decide if it's "protected", even if you are offended. And the standards for protection are very low.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
TV ads are part of the programming on TV. If you don't like 'em, just don't watch TV. Why should you be forced not to use your own computer so that someone who has nothing to do with you can't harras you?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
This is a "feature" of MS windows, designed to allow sys-admins to message everyone at in their workgroups or things like that. It's been there since '95 at least, if not longer.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
So I guess you're OK with SPAM as well? I mean, if you don't want it, just stop using email.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I was tempted to do something "drastic" when I got a spam like this one time. Stupid bastard had spammed through windows messenger service. It was extortion. He basically was telling people that in order to get him to stop harrassing them with pop-ups that they would have to go to his site and buy some web security software. Norton I think. I checked into it and Mr Dumbass had registered his domain with real info...including home address and phone #. I forwarded the information to Symantic that some douche bag was giving them a bad rep by associating them with extortion. Then I emailed Mr Dumbass that I had his home address and info and would be forwarding it to his local authorities so they could charge him with extortion. I also told him that he had entered my system with non-approved system resources and as such he was committing computer related hacking activities. He replied back that the intent of windows messenger was that lame ass spammers like him could spam people. I harrassed him a little bit, but basically, I was just making idle threats. I doubt his local authorities would give a fuck. The feds certainly wouldn't care, even though it was a interstate related extortion scheme. I ought to look up his info. I could post it here so we could all give him a call and tell him what a punk ass bitch he is.
I spent $40us for a SMC 7004 Barricade before hooking up the 3Com ISDN 2 years ago [model had com port out] and the plugged it to the Motorola SurfBoard last year when hell finall froze over hear in south Texas.
The conspiracy - why 3Com, Motorola, Linksys, et. al., does not put the firewall inside their boxes. I no long need McAffe or Norton *new* business model of *network security* wasting memory and resources.
BTW - I still use OutPost Firewall because it has alwasy tagged *dot safe* on the end of executable attachments in emails.....just another layer of safety.
my $0.0175us from C4n7 5p3L1 R 71Pe
I don't believe this has been said already but although I do agree with many of the viewpoints in this article I also understand that
FUCK OFF WANKERS GEORGE BUSH STINKS OF WEE AND YOU DON'T HAVE A FUCKING YANKEE CLUE WHAT YOU STAND FOR OR WHAT HE FUCKING STANDS FOR.
For more information visit goat see dot see ex.
Cunts.
I have that exact same database! I'll sell anybody out there my list of IP Addresses for the low low price of $20. It lists each IP from 1.0.0.1 through 224.254.254.254!
Amazing.
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
This is wrong.
No, it wasn't Iraqis pounding her ass it was her fellow officers. They didn't get lost like the news said they simply pulled over for a gang bang on Lynch's ass. Then the Iraqis found them and took them out while they were fscking Lynch.
Oh, and I'm using Linux...hmmm, guess pop-ups are completely foreign to me. I can see why I misunderstood the article.
One would assume that a person smart enough to be using Linux instead of windows would have likewise had enough of a clue not to have so grossly misunderstood the article in the first place before posting.
Yeah Mark...uh...completely unnecessary jab there. Okay, I made a mistake, but what the hell's the point of your post?
Maybe the Windows folks are right about the Linux and Slashdot crowd "come, laugh, learn...come join the love of Open So.... OH YOU F*@#ING MORON! HOW COULD YOU HAVE SCREWED UP CONFUSING SUCH A BASIC TECHNICAL DETAIL!??!? Everyone, shun this guy".
Be a little nicer to errors, folks. That's what moderation is for. Keep the barbs to yourself, because it doesn't help anyone.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
There's a lesson for us all, there.
Yeah, it's good to know there's at least _one_ feedback loop that will kick in when the "market" gets too saturated with this crap.
It always makes the news when a stupid crook accidently picks a cop as a victem of whatever scheme, or they're fleeing the police and try to hide in a police station, etc. In the case of all kinds of internet spamming they don't have to be stupid though, they just have to be "successfull" enough, and eventually they'll piss off the wrong people.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
What made you think that the machine sending the pop-ups would have that service enabled on their machine?
-- Ian
Hmm... if selling someone the cure for a threat you yourself have created - can we go after YHWH, or his self-appointed agents on earth?
Please?
* (Installing Linux isn't an option, 'cause if you know how to do that, you've already disabled Windows Messenger.)
There ain't no rules here; we're trying to accomplish something.
I love flash, don't uninstall it!
I'm a pint and three quarters ..... does that make me 13373r?
I've never used Windows, because I don't believe in paying for software, but couldn't you just recompile the Windows kernel without support for whatever rarely-used function it is that handles these pop-up messages and have done with it? It would make more sense from where I sit that the distribution should include a few precompiled kernels for various classes of installation. This would save most users the headache of configurating and compiling a kernel {though it's not as hard as it's made out to be! Most people don't realise they can do vector calculus in real time in their heads ..... then they catch a tennis ball ..... go figure}.
/etc/init.d/ directory {the registry, I think}?
If it isn't in the kernel, but is just a daemon, then can't it be turned off in whatever Windows uses for an
As I said, I don't really know much about Windows, but you would think it would not be difficult, requiring no more than recompiling a kernel in the worst case and probably just requiring renaming a file or removing a symlink {shortcut in Windows parlance, I think?}.
"Bit inflammable looking, this building. Good job my colleague and I are in the fire insurance trade. Hey, careful with that ciggie, Clem! Don't want this place to burn down. Go up like a torch, this would."
..... you look out for us and we'll look out for you."
"Now, you see, these streets are a bit dangerous, you see. Lot of undesirable people around. Course, we could keep 'em away from you, for a Small Favour, you understand. Makes sense
"BUY OUR SOFTWARE!!! and you'll NEVER!!! repeat NEVER!!! be bothered by any more of those annoying POP-UP ADS again!!! GO ON!!! BUY TODAY!!!"
What the hell is the difference anyway? This is an out and out protection racket, whichever way you look at it, and the perpetrators deserve the same treatment as any other protection racketeer.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
you could sell routable addresses
This is just like software companies that program bugs then they charge support fees for help when the bug breaks the program.. its all a SCAM
AcmeShells.com The cheapest Eggdrop
Let me get this right...
Your son is at a computer college? I don't even know what a computer college is but it allready sounds dumb. "Welcome to Emachine College"
Then he is oh so bothered by people using the messenger service that he has to call daddy and have him write a "revenge" program?
You must live in Gullifornia.
A) Make him write the damn program himself...he could even ask his professor for help since he's at a "computer college."
B) Explain to him that you can TURN OFF the damn service...which is probably what whomever you sent 600 messages to did.
Lordy, somtimes the geek way is also the STUPID way.
Apple free since 1990!
By Computer College i mean a college that is 100% specialized on computer eductation, not providing anything else :-)
>A) Make him write the damn program himself...he >could even ask his professor for help since he's at >a "computer college."
Well, it was his first year, they hadn't gotten that far in network programming yet.
>B) Explain to him that you can TURN OFF the damn >service...which is probably what whomever you sent >600 messages to did.
There is no way to do anything when you receive a popup every 5 seconds. You can't type w/o loosing window focus. Makes disabling it rather difficult don't you think?
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
It's funny, because my very first impression of Windows XP when I "upgraded" from 98 was "What the fuck are these fucking pop-ups?" I mean they were present literally the instant I got online.
I thought JL 'forgot' the details. And when she was 'rescued' from her 'captors' by a daring mission by the marines, a bunch of soldiers walked into a hospital at which she was being treated for her injuries by some doctors.
Now if I were shot in the US Mid-West I would only get such treatment that she received by the hands of the Iraqis if I had enough credit on my credit card.
Please troll in a more creative way, your troll was dull.
-- Alchohol is a hard drug. Cannabis is a soft drug.
The pop-up that got through.
I don't use any pop-up blockers. I use my router's
firewall.
I don't have pop-ups. Weird. I must not go to
the same internet sites ya'll R' talkin 'boot.
"Well, it was his first year, they hadn't gotten that far in network programming yet."
I doubt it would take much googling to find the info he needed to teach himself enough to acomplish the project.
"There is no way to do anything when you receive a popup every 5 seconds. You can't type w/o loosing window focus. Makes disabling it rather difficult don't you think?"
Yea, you remove the network cable from the PC, clear the dialog boxes, disable the service and reboot. Hard I know.
Good luck to your son, he'll need it.
Apple free since 1990!