Slashdot Mirror
Anti-Virus Companies: Tenacious Spammers
jaroslav writes "There is a great article over at Attrition about the problem of anti-virus related spam. I don't know if we should all start reporting this to the government, but telling the companies themselves that this should stop might get some results."
Not three hours after this comment, someone mailed this to Declan's Politech list, a cheat sheet for computer illeterate journalists angling for something to stay more relevant than the typewriters they still swear by. And then the very next day, we see three different articles with variations on this very topic. Five bucks says the next issue of eWeek borrows in their next issue as well.
Yes, as always, none of the stories credited Politech, though the names of the authors who borrow liberally are always the same. And Politech didn't credit Slashdot, where the Politech submitters borrow a full half of their stories with equal disregard for journalistic integrity. Indeed, the only time Politech credits Slashdot is when they believe Slash has said something stupid. These reporters are hooked on the easy source of stories, yet trash it publicly for fear others will find the tool that's kept them from having to do actual reporting anymore.
I may be here to take Linux away from you, but you can't argue that I don't give something back. You hate me. But you love me too, and you hate that as well. Think of it, you see me just the way others see Slashdot.
If you'd like to track Politech's ongoing plagiarism of Slashdot, jump on their free mailing list and have a laugh. Watch the submissions. Watch each story jump from Slash to Politech (search the comments after each new Politech post and you'll find the original +4 or +5 comment 4 times in 5), then check the NY Times, Barron's, and Ziff Davis Publishing for the same authors publishing borrowed stories the very next issue. They do it like clockwork, because these "tech" journalists don't realize that we're on the internet too.
~Darl
No kidding. I used to pass the emails along to the end users. Not any more. After this last worm (MyDoom), I became fed up with having to explain to the users why they were receiving the emails. As the parent poster did, I just throw them away. Problem solved. As for the people who allow their AV gateways to send back auto responses, they should be shot. Every time I receive one of those emails from postmaster@somewhere, I fire back a nasty email tell them to cut it out.