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In (Sort Of) Defense of Spammers
CowboyRobot writes "Eric Allman of Sendmail has a rant in which he looks at the economic forces that have led to the spam problem: 'The sad point of all of this is that I'm going to (sort of) defend the spammers and point out that they are responding to basic economic forces that we all respond to at one level or another. As long as spammers can take in more money than it costs them, they will continue to spam. This is "rational" behavior in the economic sense.'" Otherwise known as the Willie Sutton principle.
Kill all the Marketing Majors.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I prefer the Willie Maykit principle for spamming, ie. Willie Maykit from his house to the grocery store once everyone knows what he does for a living and the government suspends any and all criminal offenses for 'dealing' with this type of scum.
Robbery and murder may be economically rational too, but I'm not looking in to a career change.
Maybe a little TNT will change their minds! ;)
I guess it's rational for me to become a hit man.
Well, the main health insurance company here has a helpful service that will send a text message to your mobile phone to remind you to take your contraceptive pill. My only regret was that 6am was the earliest time you could select for that reminder...
Here is Rational Economic Sense to you:
(cut to the 'GodFather' set -- small smoky room in the middle of nowhere)
Godfather (in a very breathy voice): Guido, I know you like that little spam business of yours, but I am gonna make youse an offer you can't refuse...
Spammer (badly bruised up and tied to a chair between two very tall and muscular men): Yes, Don Corleone?
Godfather: You stop that little racket of yours -- the one that sends me insulting emails about my manhood size -- or you are going to find yourself in a trashcan in the toilets of Grand Central Station. All 600 little pieces of you. Is that economically rational to ya or what?
Spammer: Su... Sure, Don Corleone...
Godfather: Good boy. See? I just knew ya were going to like my deal! (pats spammer on the cheek)
(Godfather stands up and exits the small smoky room . A group of even bigger tough guys are waiting outside.)
Godfather (talking to no-one in particular): As soon as he has erased his hard disk, chop him up in a thousand pieces and drop the remains in the toilets of Grand Central Station. Then, kill all his family and business associates, chop *them* up and throw the pieces in the Hudson.
(Godfather enters his long black limo)
Godfather: Increase my penis size! Sheesh, you don't get no respect these days...
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
If I were to set up a filter that said the first time you send me an email put Foobar in the subject line and then you will be added to my allowed list. This does get rid of soome of the overhead of the send-reply-send auth email schemes. I could then put my email address (not obsfuscated) on my website with the subject filled in Foobar and then if a long lost friend was looking for me it would be simple for them to get past the filter and be in address book of allowed people in the future.
I really like the idea of neighborhoods being cropdusted with cocaine. It kind of reminds me of the videos they showed us in school when I was a kid with the people having a picnic while they're being spray with DDT. Cocaine would have made that video a lot funnier though, imo.
carefully-target unsolicited email (aka spam) was an essential part of our business plan
..
He's a spammer! I'll grab the tar, someone get feathers and pitchforks..
Set up a private fund that would give money to individuals who seek out and bring spammers to justice. These individuals could somehow *cough* convince spammers to not spam anymore. (Some money would also be used to bribe public officials to "look the other way.")
Once spamming becomes the most dangerous job less people will decide to make that career path.
Seriously, we must expose who is doing the spamming. Once people are out in the open, they may be less willing to send spam.
A locked room, the spammer, fifteen minutes, and a 20-lb lump hammer?
I call shotgun!
D
"No one finds a briefcase full of crack on the street and asks, 'Hmm...how am I going to get rid of all this crack?'."
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
He probably meant "fixing" SMTP in the same way as one might "fix" a dog...
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Mafia Don Announces New Anti-Spam Venture
As the NSA and FBI fear, traditional crime organizations have been incorporating high-tech communication into their organizations. Although Janet Reno was quoted stating "This is law enforcement's worst nightmare.", techies around the world are sure to be pleased with one New York Syndicate's new venture.
It all started when Don Dominiqi signed onto his AOL account last Monday morning. His inbox was filled with "Make Money Fast", "Viagra On-Line", and "Teenybopper Web Sex" ads. Lost amidst the drivel was an important note detailing a non-taxed shipment of Marlboros, which were later confiscated by the BATF. Little did he know, as he shouted "Bring me the left hand of this f*cking gutterslime!" what would become of it all.
Later that same day, Billy "Run!" Brutekowski and Larry "My Eyes!" Plucker cornered the pasty-faced offender of the Family in a small cyber cafe in Grenich Village. "This was by far the creepiest place the Boss has ever sent us." stated Billy, who only spoke on condition of anonymity. "Everyone in this place looked pale and sickly, like they had already been 'spoken to'. We asked for this punk, and several people quickly pointed him out. Most of the scum we find in gin joints aren't so quick to finger one of their own," Billy continued.
"He must not watch much TV, because this sh*t didn't even flinch when we came to the corner he was hiding in," Larry proceeded to relate. "We dropped this sheet of paper the Boss had given us on his table and he says 'So you guys want to make money fast, eh?' He puts out his and says to give him $20. This scrawny little dirtball tells me to give him $20!" Larry was quite agitated at this part in his story, and his description of how Sammy Spammer's hand fell off was quite garbled.
Billy continued, "Up till now, this was a routine visit. We was just being playful. The weird sh*t began when we tried to leave." "This pimply faced kid blocks the door as we try to leave, and I'm thinking to myself 'Great, a f*cking Karate Kid hero. He just stand there, and then he hands me a $5 bill." Billy pulls out the $5, and holds it like it is his first quarter from his favorite grandmother. "They lined up after that, and we had $175 in 'tips' when we left the joint."
Later that day the Don himself visited the cafe, unwilling to believe the story. Although the details are unclear, sources at the cafe indicate that the Don has hired them to build and host a new Anti-Spam site. Through a SSL transaction system, the site will accept spam complaints and credit card donations towards 'solutions to problems'. Multiple complaints against the same spammer are added to the total until an acceptable solution has been found.
Larry tells us that a typical $250 solution is a broken hand, and for $2000 all anyone ever sees again of 'the problem' are his shoes.
The URL is to be announced next week, and the cyber cafe's phones have been jammed with requests for more information.
I've posted this before, but it is still funny.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
How can anything I do now help my ancestors? They're more-or-less all dead.
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
The newspaper at my grad school attempted to do a ... they defined SMTP as "Smart :-) Those of us there who ...
techie article
Mail Transfer Protocol"
routinely used the SMTP RFC were rolling in the
aisles
-Kara
then go to the hospital, have the bill paid for by the county, to whom we pay taxes, then off to detox, again supported by our taxes...then start the whole process over again. So either taxes have to increase
....If only there were some way to apply a tax to users that would address these negative externalities. That way, the people driving up costs are also paying higher taxes. How could we tax drug users?????????????