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Man Arrested for 'Spam Rage'
Mirkon writes "We've all gotten frustrated at some point with spam. Perhaps we've even been motivated to send nasty, threatening messages back to the spammers, just to vent some frustration. Wired reports that 44-year-old computer programmer Charles Booker did just that, and 'now faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.'"
So of course the guy goes nuts.
Now I see that they are able to send you animations/videos that get past Mozilla's image-blocking feature. Saw the first one yesterday, trying to sell me a Sony VAIO. How long is it going to be before I get one featuring erotic acts with barnyard animals?
The only thing that surprises me about this is that it wasn't a father who went nuts when seeing his little boy or girl subjected to some of this crap. Yeah, the penis ads are truly obnoxious... but to see your kids exposed to this some of this stuff? I could really sympathethize with someone going postal because of this.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Hell, I know I feel like "disabling" these spammers who refuse to take you off their lists.
Sugapablo
It still sounds like the potential penalty is probably a little severe, but this isn't the type of reaction most of us would have.
If you're thinking of threatening savetrees.com (or whomever) with death threats, go and drink some chamomile tea, relax, and decide, in a rational way, what you're going to do about it.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Because the crime originated in the US. Just because there's some hint of the word "international" doesn't immediately mean the suspect gets off scot free.
I must say, I am disppointed that no one is allowed to be legitimately pissed off without getting a lawsuit. Back in the late 1800's, people who were annoying were called out in the street and shot at. I'm not saying that shooting people is the answer, but we should be allowed to vent frustrations so long as they don't include actual, specific assault against someone. Email is not an assault, unless the person says they're gonna hurt you, and you have some reason to believe that they are not kidding around.
stuff |
What kind of help? I'll loan him a gun or two. Can any /.'er surreptitiously provide the anthrax spores?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"Booker said the problem stemmed from a program he mistakenly downloaded from the Internet that brought a continuous stream of advertising to his computer."
Um, remove the ad-ware.
What's funny is the company Albion Medical "claims to produce the 'Only Reliable, Medically Approved Penis Enhancement.'"
He definitely overreacted. There is no reason to ever threaten employees of a company with anthrax infection, torture by ice pick or power drill, and castration. Come on. Then again, what jury would convict? Or at least convict and sentence harshly.
sig
There's more information (including the company name, which Wired withheld) here.
This guy is a computer professional?
Must work for the government, or something.
You threaten to do harm to someone, for whatever reason, its a crime.. you should goto jail...
If that's true, then can we please send the government and police to jail?
Well, in the extreme case, if you kill someone who presents an immediate threat to your life or limb, or that of your family, it's self-defense, which is a legitimate defense in most states. Granted, the spammers didn't present any such threat to this guy -- but then, he didn't actually physically attack anyone, either. I would say that just as deadly force is a reasonable response to deadly force, violent threats are a reasonable response to unrelenting harassment.
Maybe the best legal solution, instead of anti-spam bills that are doomed to failure anyway (opt-out lists? Oh please) would be to grant immunity for electronic acts committed against spammers which would otherwise be crimes -- e-mail threats, DDoS attacks, worms, etc. Right now, spammers have the exact same rights under laws like the DMCA as everyone else. Take that protection away, and there will be a lot fewer spammers very quickly.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
It's not like they guy sent the email to the FAA, threatening an airliner or something like that. He said, 'Take me off your spam list or else', only after asking nicely tons of times. Is that worth a quarter million dollar fine? NO! Just take the freakin' guy off the email spam list the first time, and it never would have escalated. This is a company that found out just how mad spam can make people... they should consider themselves lucky that he wasn't a REAL nutcase and didn't drive a truck full of nitroglycerine through the front door (very very bad)! Making personal threats of violence is wrong, but i ask this: what should be his recourse after being infuriated by being ignored and spammed countless times?
stuff |
I'm sending a copy of the Wired article to President Bush and asking him him to pardon this guy as a demonstration of how we feel about spam. If that doesn't work maybe he could use the "Twinkie Defense".
Booker threatened to send a "package full of Anthrax spores" to the company, to "disable" an employee with a bullet and torture him with a power drill and ice pick; and to hunt down and castrate the employees unless they removed him from their e-mail list, prosecutors said.
Hmm, nothing wrong with that, lets look at it a little differently. The company in question -
1. Insulted him repeatedly about his penis size. Thus making the internet a hostile and intimidating place.
2. They made his computer unuseable causing a loss of income.
3. They intruded into his home and refused to leave his personal property alone.
And the government did nothing about it. Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness, all of these were infringed by the spammers. I think the defendant has his atitude wrong. He need NOT apologize, instead change his defense to "I was being harmed, pursued, harassed and the government refused to come to my aid. What options were left I was was to continue on with my life?".
Now THAT would be interesting, instead, all that we see is another story about hwo bad spam is. It will drive you crazy.
cluge
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Only Reliable, Medically Approved Penis Enhancement.
poor guy if he finds one of those enlarged pennis in jail...
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
Yeah, but it was a very minor crime. It's the equivilant to me yelling, "I'll tear off your head and shit down your neck if you ever come near my wife again!" if I caught you kissing her at the bar.
1. I was provoked
2. There's no real evidence I have the strength to tear off your head so it's probably not serious
3. I make no actual agressive moves toward you
It's just blustery anger, the guy doesn't deserver, and probably won't get, jail time.
TW
Oh, so a corporation making ridiculous claims and flouting numerous laws in doing so is just fine, but when someone replies with empty threats, the judicial system brings down the hammer.
Yeah, this guy is obviously a total moron, but the case shows both how stupid the laws are with regards to spam, and how angry it makes people. It's like the kid on the schoolbus who gets poked and needled every day and nobody notices, but when he finally snaps and slugs one of his tormentors (or worse) it's a terrible thing.
I've done this in the past. Threatened spammers, that is. Nothing so dire nor graphic as this fellow, but I was angry enough that I wanted to get back at them somehow. I know someone who's said that he wants to torture and kill all spammers, and he's a totally meek, mellow guy for the most part. The anger people express about spam is very surprising, even more than telemarketing. It's surprising also that the bastards can make any money at all on a practice so universally reviled.
I used to care, back when I got maybe 20 spams a day. Now that I'm up above ~500, I don't care anymore.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
Then he'd only be facing about a year in jail.
--- Ban humanity.
For real. Also this guy did not unconditionally threaten them. He said he would do these things, if the company continued to send him unsolicited emails. Compliance is easily accomplished and negligible. If he doesn't win this, I will be seriously pissed off (anyone got anthrax, just kidding). But honestly, who in their right mind doesn't think this anyway when they get a barrage of unsolicited emails. The real sad part of this story is that the guy didn't actually go up there, and do these things. Kill em all, I say.
Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
- He is an American
- He resides in the US
- He made the calls and sent the email from the US
- There are laws in the US and in the state in which he resides against making threats.
Any other questions?There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
"I will hunt down and castrate your employees unless you take me off your e:mail list".
Now can anyone tell me what on earth is so unreasonable about that?
But seriously. The fact that the Canadian company failed to take him off their e:mail list the first time he complained / threatened could surely be seen a provocation. (At least in terms of lessening the guys sentence)
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
All of what you say above is true.
But consider what would happen to an individual pervert who sent out hundreds of thousands of sick emails talking about penises, and continued to do so even after the recipients told him in no uncertain terms to stop?
He'd be thrown in jail, that's what would happen.
Why are businesses allowed to do things that individuals aren't?
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
This guy should be nuts. I mean, come on, why would anyone even say NO to an offer of 30% of US$10,000,000 ( Ten Million US Dollars only ) and FREE Pills(TM) to improve Sex Life(TM) ?
getSexySig();
I think we should alls end them many emails saying how we feel.
and click on their website links
a LOT
My favorite line:
"Mackay said such firms gave a bad name to the penis enhancement business."
Gosh, I can't belive I've been mislead to think the whole industry was a farce by "such firms".
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
One word: discovery.
If this guy has any brains (perhaps not a warranted assumption) then he's going to get a defense lawyer and let the subpoenas start flying. This company's criminal behavior is all going to get laid out in black and white as part of the discovery process. This is why Emarketers America dropped their suit against spamhaus and SPEWS -- you better believe this guy will have discovery under criminal proceedings.
That said, it's really not nice to aim your death threats at secretaries and customer service people.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
What you have pointed out is correct. The more important question to ask is why the article even mentions the proposed US law against spam. How could that possibly have any impact against spam comming from Canada, India, China, Russia or anywhere else?
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
" Mackay said such firms gave a bad name to the penis enhancement business. "
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
From directnic.com
And a pissed guy:
The fact that these people do Joe Jobs also doesn't help.
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
It is exactly for that reason that I am now pushing to have internet access removed from local classrooms. The spam and popups have gotten so bad that my second grader sees these messages come up on their classroom computer several times a day. The school has a good IT department, lots of filters, and policy with the best intentions but they just can't keep up with it.
I used to be one of the most vocal about getting/keeping internet access in schools and public libraries. All that has changed now that the spammers have turned the net into the cesspool that it is.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
I'm sure we've all said it. We've had enough. Enough of the spam. Enough with the telemarketers. Enough with people interrupting OUR private time. We've also all fantasized about ways to "get back" at these hucksters. Some of us more vividly violent than the others. And sadly, as this case will illustrate, we seem to be powerless. There is little or thing that can be done about this heinous situation. It's the sad and eventual outcome of capitalism run amok. And the people with the dollars have every resource available to them.
Recently I receievd multiple snail mail solicitations for refinancing my mortgage. These came shortly after I refinanced with a reputable lender. I noticed that quite a few of them had business return envelopes and was going to use one of my old 80s techniques to annoy the companies, which was to send it back empty or send it back with useless stuff in it (other mail soliciations from other companies, etc...). But then I realized, we're in a bind these days regarding the mail. Ever since the whole anthrax thing happened after the American World Trade Center bombings, the arrival of an empty envelope or even an envelope with innappropriate contents could bring about a huge investigation.
A similar kind of situation exists with telemarketers. Ever since the world got more exposure to things like workers "going postal" and the Columbine high school fiasco, even the slightest implication of violent language is now cause for concern. In the past, I could have told a telemarketer, "Have you ever seen the movie Falling Down? Well, if you keep calling you're going to get a visit from someone very much like the Michael Douglas character." and gotten away with it. Now if I say that, there's a pretty good chance that within hours I might get a visit from the police or within days or weeks get arrested. (Witness this story)
So... the question... what to do about this situation? I think the first part of answering this is trying to find out what the goal actually is. I would suggest that the goal is to take back our personal time without having to PAY for it. No... caller ID and Privacy Managers aren't the optimum solution. The Do Not Call list was a nice idea, but who knows when and if it will ever actually be permanently implemented. Talking to these jackholes directly does no good and can only make matters worse. Since most of these assholes are driven to do this kind of thing to profit, I suggest that we do everything we can to damage their profitability. For every call that you recieve or every e-mail or snail mail that you get that has a parent company of address, you lodge a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. Or perhaps, you just waste the telemarketer's time. Feign ignorance and get them to repeat their pitch multiple times. Keep them on the phone as long as possible. For every snail mail you get that has a business return envelope, send them your own form letter that tells them why you will never use their services or buy their products. (Make sure it's well worded and contains no threats no matter how much you may be tempted). On last ditch effort for those of you like me who like a good prank, is to take advantage of the fact that they called you and you can use them as the target of what would have previously been obscene or parnk phone calls. If the person is of the opposite sex, ask them if they are single. Or maybe you can ask them if their refrigerator is running, or if they have pig's feet or bowling balls... you get the idea. Think of it is phone trolling.
Whatever the case, please go to my hournal and post any ideas you might have in my latest JE.
Your Loyal Friend,
T4D
Un-news
...as learned from Corporate Mechanics:
. ht ml
http://www.corporatemechanics.com/pagesa/ourexp
Looks like they (DM Contact Management, aka the spammer) took CM's advice and liked it:
"Corporate Mechanics has been a key member of the set up team for our business. Corporate Mechanics and the guerilla management methods they have developed have streamlined our operation, technology, staff training, and development. Their assistance has cut our growth curve by a large margin and provided us a strong management and business platform to both operate and grow our firm effectively. The savings of effort and resources has been instrumental in our growth and profitability. The level of diverse experience coupled with the cutting edge solutions have served our company extremely well as they would any business. They get the job done period!
If you are looking for business effectiveness specialists Corporate Mechanics is the real article without question!"
Andrew MacKay, General Manager, DM Contact Management
Customer and Support Services Provider to Internet Marketers
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
So I suppose we should add Brian R Bowman (CEO of Corporate Mechanics) to the s#!t list of bad people who support such badgering of "clients". Maybe even drop him an email at group3@intergate.ca or give him a call (1-888-980-7520) to let him know what you think of the tactics which make otherwise sane people become email murderers.
Yeah, it's illegal to send threats, but I think this guy should get off just on the principal of it. Kind of like sending email threats fo Osama bin Laden or Saddam - kind of chicken soup for the soul.
Of course, being CA, maybe this will spark a 3 day waiting period on ice picks and power tools.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I'm sorry ... were you saying something ... ?
I wasn't paying attention...
Here is a california law about WMD's and electronic threats (Anthrax is a Biological agent, so I beleieve it's covered here)
California Penal Code 11418.5 Threat to use weapon of mass destruction
11418.5. (a) Any person who knowingly threatens to use a weapon of mass destruction, with the specific intent that the statement, made verbally, in writing, or by means of an electronic communication device, is to be taken as a threat, even if there is no intent of actually carrying it out, which, on its face and under the circumstances in which it is made, is so unequivocal, immediate, and specific as to convey to the person threatened, a gravity of purpose and an immediate prospect of execution of the threat, and thereby causes that person reasonably to be in sustained fear for his or her own safety, or for his or her immediate family's safety, which results in an isolation, quarantine, or decontamination effort, shall be punished by imprisonment in a county jail for up to one year or in the state prison for 3, 4, or 6 years, or by a fine of not more than two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000), or by both that fine and imprisonment.
(b) For the purposes of this section, "sustained fear" can be established by, but is not limited to, conduct such as evacuation of any building by any occupant, evacuation of any school by any employee or student, evacuation of any home by any resident or occupant, or any other action taken in direct response to the threat to use a weapon of mass destruction.
(c) The fact that the person who allegedly violated this section did not actually possess a biological agent, toxin, or chemical weapon does not constitute a defense to the crime specified in this section.
(d) Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent punishment instead pursuant to any other provision of law that imposes a greater or more severe punishment.
If the guy was a computer programmer, as the article claims, why the heck didn't he have the knowledge to remove the offending program, rather than putting up with a system that "had been rendered almost unusable for about two months by a barrage of pop-up advertising and e-mail."
Even if it doesn't uninstall through the control panel applet, he should have known how to use msconfig, or a registry hack to stop it from running. (I'm assuming this is a Windows system, since no spammers that I know of have written spambots for Linux....)
If this is the calibre of programmer that works in Silicon Valley, I need to go apply for a job there, and put them all to shame...
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
a Silicon Valley computer programmer (!!!)
So, I see. Installs stuff "mistakenly". And what about other stuff he didn't notice? not all spyware stuff spawn pop-ups.
I guess his machine is infected with crap; now this guy writes code - probably distributes binaries. It seems to me that he is clueless about what is running on his machine - didn't even install a spam filter. He's a programmer, not aunt Sally, that's frightening.
What was the name of the company he was working for, again?
This guy should have formulated his threats in a Official-sounding, Religious kind of way. Like:
I, Jesrad, Pope of the DIscordian Church of Kalliste, Hereby demand that your company removes Me from whatever email lists it maintains. Failure to comply will result in [enter list of gruesome curses and obscene tortures in a ritual kind of procedure].
In the name of our Lady of Confusion, [dated, signed]
This way your threats can pass off as protected religious practices. Goddess knows my religious practices often pass off as threatening, so the opposite shouldn't be that hard.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Charles Booher, the man who became frustrated with penis ads popping up on his computer, received no satisfaction when he used civility in his attempts to pursuade whom he thought was the source of the email and popups to quit sending them to his PC. Their rejection of his requests moved him to higher levels of insistance, and finally to threats, even though he obviously had no means to carry them out.
He was merely venting his anger at the helplessness of his situation. Being powerless does that to people. People in power don't seem to understand this basic fact or, in their arrogance, they have forgotten it.
Congress may finally inact legislation that outlaws spam, giving Mr. Booher, and millions of others, relief from that plague. But, there is something you can do to relieve a plague of another kind: an overly agressive prosecutor who lack common sense or is looking for stepping stone in his/her political career. As a criminal forensic investigator for 15 years, I understand the directive to 'ferret out crime', but I know that prosecutors have their own counsel on whom they choose to prosecute, and why. Work loads, budget limitations, friendships, influence from above, and many other reasons affect whom prosecutors finally choose to prosecute. Many times the choice is arbitrary. Mr Booher probably can't afford a high profile attorney, so he is easy pickings. If the prosecutor in this case would only step back a moment and see how ridiculus this action makes him/her and the department look, perhaps they would reconsider. Considering the circumstances this assult could be dismissed with a 'warning', which I think Mr. Boohers' has already become fully aware.
I can understand his rage. At work, where I am a professional programmer, we have trained IT staff that maintain the interface between my PC and the Internet, and filter out 100's of viruses, trojans, and spam email daily, and their effects on my work PC are greatly reduced. Also, Microsoft Windows environments are extremely susceptible, as you are proabably aware, to such malware and Mr. Boohers' is not the only one making threats to spammers. You can Google the internet and see millions of messages venting the same rage, many of them probably from SF itself. In the age of Radical Extremeists blowing up buildings and murdering thousands of innocent people, prosecuting Mr. Boohers' is like an elementry school principle expelling a first grader for 'possession of a weapon' because he brought fingernail clippers to school, or a girl for 'drug possession' because she has a bottle of asprin in her purse.
If Mr. Boohers' has committed a crime it was that he is using the wrong Operating System. You should advise him to switch to a fine Linux Operating System, like Mandrake 9.2 or SUSE 9.0, and send him out the door. He won't be plagued with any malware ever again, because Linux IS secure. It is also free. That should calm him down even more!
Thanks for your time.
jerry Kreps
Lincoln, NE.
PS. Isn't the current "Politically Correct" environment making you ill? If mind reading hardware were available I do believe that we'd see prosecutions for what we think, too. Truely, the Bill of Rights seems to be a dead
document.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Here's what I don't get... This guy is a programmer and he not only can't block spam emails effectively, but look at this quote from the article (yep I'm one who actually reads them ;):
Booker said the problem stemmed from a program he mistakenly downloaded from the Internet that brought a continuous stream of advertising to his computer.
So this is a guy who clicks 'Yes' to popups that say Do you want to install HorsePornSpamSender.exe?! And furthermore, doesn't know how to download and run AdAware or SpyBot (or even search Google to find out that they exist)?
Doesn't sound like a programmer I'd want working for my firm...
THE MAGIC WORDS ARE SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE
Registrant:
Leading Edge Marketing Inc.
PO Box CR-56766
Suite #1210
Nassau, New Providence ---
BS
810-815-1672
Domain Name: ALBIONMEDICAL.COM
Administrative Contact:
Leading Edge Marketing, Leading Edge Marketing domains@leminternet.com
PO Box CR-56766
Suite #1210
Nassau, New Providence ---
BS
810-815-1672
Technical Contact:
Leading Edge Marketing, Leading Edge Marketing domains@leminternet.com
PO Box CR-56766
Suite #1210
Nassau, New Providence ---
BS
810-815-1672
Record last updated 06-20-2003 03:25:11 PM
Record expires on 05-23-2008
Record created on 05-23-2001
Domain servers in listed order:
UDNS1.ULTRADNS.NET 204.69.234.1
UDNS2.ULTRADNS.NET 204.74.101.1
Gee...that was tough.
And what kind of retarded programmer is this that he doesn't even know how the internet works in this day and age? You don't reply to spam. Of course it's going to get worse. You simply launch a ddos attack on their mail servers while talking to their ISP and forcing them to stop hosting the wankers. And if they don't, then ddos them and talk to their ISP. Etc.
Here's a start...
Starting nmap 3.48 ( http://www.insecure.org/nmap ) at 2003-11-22 12:23 Ea
Interesting ports on 65.39.243.197:
(The 1650 ports scanned but not shown below are in state: closed)
PORT STATE SERVICE
22/tcp open ssh
25/tcp open smtp
80/tcp open http
443/tcp open https
587/tcp open submission
801/tcp open device
873/tcp open rsync
Device type: general purpose
Running: FreeBSD 4.X
OS details: FreeBSD 4.8-STABLE
Uptime 123.792 days (since Mon Jul 21 18:24:33 2003)
Nmap run completed -- 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 20.954 seconds
FreeBSD. Good. More of a challenge =)
01100111 01100101 01110100 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01101101 01101111 01110010 01100101 00101110
Here's what's going to happen after February 21:
-
You're going to get tons of spam, and from major companies. This becomes legal, even in states where it used to be illegal.
-
The headers will be correct. There are penalties for forging headers.
-
The spam won't necessarily have the company name, just some unsubscribe URL and a P.O. box for written "opt-out" requests.
-
You can go through the motions of "opting out", but it won't do much.
"Opt-out" is interpreted narrowly, on a "per sender" basis. "Sender" is defined narrowly - "The term `sender', when used with respect to a commercial electronic mail message, means a person who initiates such a message and whose product, service, or Internet web site is advertised or promoted by the message." (from S.877) Note the "and"; it's not there by accident. Each combination of spammer and advertiser may be considered a different "sender". That clause could even be interpreted to completely let third-party spammers off the hook.
So advertisers get to throw away the opt-out list every time they change spamhauses. There's even a "separate line of business" exception to make this explicit - spammers with both "Viagra" and "refinancing" spams don't have to use the opt-out list from one with the other.
-
You can't sue. Only the FTC and the U.S. Justice Department can sue.
This was all carefully crafted by lobbyists for the Direct Marketing Organization, who will be celebrating as soon as they get some sleep, having been up all night getting this through the House.What they did is no better? So now, sending spam is equal to threatening to torture or murder someone?
What Mr. Booker did was illegal and wholly unjustified. He overreacted for whatever reason (I doubt it's solely because he got a lot of spam and suspect there's a lot more going on) and now he has to pay for his actions. He is, after all, an adult and adults are still responsible for what they do and how they react to situations.
We've all gotten frustrated from getting spam. Most of us have gotten frustrated enough to issue threats against the spammer. But really, how many of us actually do that? Surprisingly few. Why? Because we know it won't solve anything and we know it's illegal. It's called "impulse control". While I can sympathize with Mr. Bookers plight, I can't see how anyone can say what he did was justified or what the company did was "equally wrong". That, my friends, is just pure and utter rubbish.
Anthony Papillion
Advanced Data Concepts, Inc.
"Quality Custom Software and IT Services"
If El Rago del Spam snapped one time after asking Penis mailer to quit then I could see this guy owning up and saying, "wow, lost my temper; didn't mean it. Sorry about threating your company, spammers." and let it drop. But he did not, he continued to threaten over a period of time.
Much as I would like ot see rednecks with whichester rifles and Spammer tags, I think it's probably best if we continue to pretend we live in a society governed by the rule of law.
Cheers,
- RLJ
I got one of those, and placed it in the trash. And I pay my bills!
Somehow I ran across it later, and to my suprise it was with a company I had done business. Upon checking, I was given credit for a return but I only assumed I was later charged for the replacement.
My assumption had been incorrect.
It is best to get the best spam filter you can get, because I am now getting more spam where I work on assignment than work related emails.
At home, on Linux - Mozilla has been doing an excellent job. Recently I had been wondering why I was seeing so few appearing in my junk email directory. [I got my first one in weeks just today - but I am assuming labeling it and transferring it will spare me].
Another source are companies you have done some sort of business with in the past - that forever more send emails. Hence, I no longer provide my email address to most requests. On these latter, I tend to ignore their emails unless they have something about a 24 hour sale - that gets an immediate deletion. Others can sometimes be of interest, particularly for information that does not enhance their attractiveness. For example, I had been dealing with a company that while priced higher than some others I order through has been extremely reliable. Moreover, they had a good return policy. With their ads I see that have been acquired - though I sometimes check their prices on items it is very unlikely I will chance another order from them. Anyone remember Fat Brain? I only began to noticed the difference that the shipments arrived using USPS (which can be excellent though usually slower). Only later did I learn they were acquired after encouraging my son to place an order with them that was nearly botched.
So the above my be viewed as my SPAM rage - so much easier to take with pretty good filters. Also I never respond to any of the junk.
$250k and 5 years in prison for making fictious threats? Jesus we can't allow ourselves a moment of rage nowadays.
Can you imagine the tediousness of getting people to sit on the jury of this thing?
Prosecutor: Do you own a computer?
Prospective Juror: Yes.
Prosecutor: Do you use electronic mail?
Prospective Juror: Yes
Prosecutor: Your Honor, I need to disqualify this juror on the grounds of a predetermined prejudice against electronic mail marketing companies.
Seriously, in San Francisco they're going to have to get a jury of 12 homeless people to find people with no computer experience and who dont hate spammers to their core.
"Peers" my ass.
s'wut i sed.
The idea behind Flash Click-to-View is a really great one, but the installer is broken, there's no uninstaller, the assumptions made by the author about how one browses the web are just stupid (only works as root? please), and the worst part is that he's not fixing any of this. He's not even talking to the users asking for help.
So, it's much like most of the other mozdev extensions I've tried. :-) It compiles/parses/looks pretty! Ship it and ignore it!
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)