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Junkie Loves His Spam
VicPylon writes "Here is the reason we have to spend time and money on spam filters. This character actually responds to and buys from spam. I wonder if he is aware that he is supporting digital pollution?" I guess this proves that there really is something for everyone online.
Interesting they didn't give out his email address.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
There is only so much male enhancement products a man can buy.
They seem to be the only spam i've been getting lately. Maybe my wife is feeding them my email addresses...
This is why I'm not completly against Spam, but I wish they would clearly mark it so those who don't want it won't get it and this guy will.
Ah, I get it now. Those "enlarge your penis" spams really do work - if you respond to them, you're nothing but a big dick.
I've got some old junk around the house I could probably dress up in an ad. I should mail him, "Do not miss out on this opportunity! xcxzxczx"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
This guy needs a better hobby than answering spam. Maybe he can practice dodging oncoming traffic.
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
...I'm sure some resourceful /.'er could find at least one of his e-mail addys... maybe we could get that number from 150 up to 1500 a day or so. He's be REALLY happy then.
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
People buy crap sold by infomercials.
You can sell anything to almost anybody.
and has a huge member ship to BMG whilst downing Omaha steaks?
I don't know about you guys, but I am betting that he is insecure about his size, and thought that adding 3 inches seemed like a good idea.
An idiot is born everyday.
...my comment on the other thread. It seems there really are people out there who value their inbox being filled with mindless junk.
In a survey by MailShell, a San Francisco antispam company, 8% of respondents said they have bought products via spam. Spammers say that percentage is probably low because many people are too embarrassed to admit responding to spam.
Well, there you go. Far higher than I'd ever have imagined...and the spammers admit that replying to spam is embarrassing. Guess they realise a bad thing when they see it.
Although
Mr. Soto recently spent more than $100 on vitamins
you do have to question the man's ability to appreciate the value of a dollar. 100 bucks on vitamins? I'll go down the high street and get three bottles for 10, thank you very much.
That is a hell of lot of enlargement going on.
Imagine the size of his p*n*is... All new herbal med*icine*, add 6!!In*ches
Dear Mr. Soto,
I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.
He must have the lowest mortgage rate ever.
Did I miss anything? I mean damn, how many different ways can you spell V!@G.RA???!
Today's date... not April Fool's day.
Web site... the Wall Street Journal, not the Onion.
I'm stumped.
Its almost like a reality show were they've tweaked things up a bit for TV.
... maybe by a bit a of acting? Because nobody is really that naive.
This is an average joe and his wife that are suddenly famous
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
i'm a christian, and the only feeling i have towards him is not compassion, but wanting to beat some ever-living sense into him. sorry jc
vodka, straight up, thank you!
He buys spam-pitched aromatherapy oils for his wife and pharmaceuticals for himself.
I wonder if his wife benefits from these pharmaceuticals...
Nothing about his activites seemed very interesting until I read this part:
He says he purchased two pornography Web sites, again via spam, and ran them for a while, but then he decided they weren't worth the trouble and disabled them.
Spam that advertises buying and managing for porn sites? What?!
This summer, when its hot outside, and your hemmoroids
gets even hotter, just look to the cool relief of
Preparation-H to get you on your way.
This guy's just as happy as if he had a brain, isn't he?
"I planned within my means and got a fixed rate mortgage, so where's MY bailout?" -cafepress
I wonder if he realizes that he is making life harder for everyone else. Most people that I talk to despise spam. Like the artical said, it wouldn't survive unless someone paid money for it. He might be getting enjoyment form it but he is causing other people pain.
Well this is somewhat related to the second, but I bet his Nigerian friend helped him bring in a few extra thousand a month.
# fuser -v
#
-L
Don't Panic.
The problem I would have with buying *anything* from a spam email is the fact that the company has resorted to spam to pitch their wares. To me, it always smells of desperation and contempt for the customer.
In the current anti-spam climate, a company cannot use spam to market themselves and be seen as a professionally-run organisation.
Patriotism - the last resort of scoundrels.
Big Deal. Some people also like making money off banner ads on a "Nerds' News Site" that just copies everyone else's newsfeeds and makes their members do the rest of the work.
It's sad how it just promotes digital laziness.
He is already a grandfather. Bummer...
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
I have this bridge, you see...
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
If the guy wants to buy from spammers, let him. We have to fight spam from another angle, not by supressing people's rights to do stupid things.
Anyone know this gey's email address? He seems just the kind of person I need to help me transfer $500000 from the deceased king of Nigeria's personal bank account...
How does a guy earning $40k per year have a 2 bedroom apartment in Midtown Manhattan?
There is one thing that makes this article incredibly redeeming: the artist's rendering of Mr. Soto. http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/Soto _Orlando-GE05203142004203138.gif
What good are these email harvesters? I have never bought anyhting from a spam message and I get 100s. This guy is a serial buyer and gets 17!?! Somebody isn't doing a very good job and supplying useful email addresses!!
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
According to the article it takes one buyer out of 15,000 e-mails sent in order to break even. If more people would buy from spam, they'd have to send out fewer e-mails to break even, right?
I'd be interested to see how often he pays for something he never receives...
I have discovered a truly marvelous
_45_ year old, _smoking_, _grandfathers_ with more discretionary income than sence.
Will make MILLIONS, boys! MILLIONS!
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
The stupid thing about this article is you can buy all that crap and find all of those deals on the internet without having to wade through piles of spam.
So basically all this guy needs to do is google for aromatherapy or cheap newports and he will probably get better prices than he is getting now.
For Orlando Soto,
No Day Is Complete
Without Some Spam
Lovers of Unsolicited E-Mail
Keep Industry Afloat;
'It's Like a Treasure Hunt'
By MYLENE MANGALINDAN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
NEW YORK -- Orlando Soto looks forward each evening to spending time on his home computer after work. But when he logged on one Wednesday night last month, he was disappointed: There were 17 spam e-mail messages waiting for him.
"Only 17," he lamented, scrolling through them. "That's a very light day."
Mr. Soto routinely comes home to some 150 e-mail pitches, and he loves getting them all. The 45-year-old grandfather opens most of them. He answers spam questionnaires. And he buys stuff pitched in spam e-mail -- again and again. "Everyday people call it spam," says Mr. Soto, who prefers calling it "unsolicited" e-mail. "But I'm open to everything."
If everyone hated spam, it would disappear. But like the traditional direct-mail marketers and telemarketers who came before them, spammers survive public outrage, filters, lawsuits and regulations because innumerable times a day, somebody, somewhere responds with money.
One such somebody is Mr. Soto. He buys spam-pitched aromatherapy oils for his wife and pharmaceuticals for himself. His bookcases are lined with first-edition mystery novels he bought via spam. In a corner of his two-bedroom midtown-Manhattan apartment stands an antique pinball machine bought via spam. He plays Internet bingo at five cents a game on a Web site pitched to him by spam a few weeks ago. He buys stuff via spam for himself and to resell on Web sites he sets up -- a business idea he got from a spam pitch.
Spam helps him "unwind" and "lose the stress of the day," Mr. Soto says.
He's the kind of person spammers love: a serial buyer. He says that he sometimes spends hundreds of dollars a week buying via spam. Most spam responders are one-time customers, e-mail marketers say, so repeaters make all the difference. Scott Richter, who runs a mass e-mailing company called Optinrealbig.com LLC in Westminster, Colo., says about a fifth of those who order his vitamins and other products buy again. "Those repeat buyers help generate a bulk of the revenue," he says.
There must be a lot of Mr. Sotos out there. In a survey by MailShell, a San Francisco antispam company, 8% of respondents said they have bought products via spam. Spammers say that percentage is probably low because many people are too embarrassed to admit responding to spam.
Spammers say they typically need just one buyer per 10,000 spam messages to break even. Mr. Soto recently spent more than $100 on vitamins from a spam pitch that touted: "Buy 1, get 2 free, plus free shipping!" If this particular solicitation was typical, spam experts say, the spammer probably sent it to about five million people with a commission of about 30%. If 500 buyers averaged spending what Mr. Soto spent on the vitamins, the spammer would bring in about $15,000 in revenue from the mailing.
Mr. Soto's daily spamfest starts after he gets home from his $40,000-a-year job as a building supervisor at NYRE Management, a real-estate firm that runs Manhattan apartment buildings. After dinner with his wife, he sits down in the leather chair in his home office and starts opening spam. He typically goes through 50 spam pitches before he finds one that's enticing, he says. He then pores over the pitches he has culled, winnowing them down to the must-haves.
On the recent Wednesday evening, Mr. Soto quickly reviewed the contents of his six e-mail accounts. "See, this is unsolicited," he said, pointing his cursor at a pitch aimed at mom-and-pop companies: "AOL Small Business News." He gave it some thought but decided it was from too big a company; he prefers spam from smaller purveyors. "No," he pronounced, skipping to the next spam: "Hi, Date Number 868." A boring adult-related pitch, he decided before moving on. The next was a pitch for mortgages, which he doesn't need.
"
This guy likes to save money, and he reads his unsolicited email and then selectively buys from it. SO FUCKING WHAT? I like looking for used cds and books on amazon and for bargins on ebay. It's not like this guy is a hacker or a child pornographer or something. Why don't you people get a job and leave honest, hard working people be!
"It offered Newports -- his brand -- for $2.85 a pack, about a third of what he pays at a corner store near his home."
The man is paying $8.50 for a pack of Newports. I think that pretty much sums it up.
Please, someone introduce this guy to ebay.
Apprarently it's his substitute for "rummage sales" which he no longer goes to after injuring his back. I'm sure there are better online alternatives.
Right, but what was their n value? Where did they conduct the survey? Did they include a variable mix of people? Were their surveys limited to a particular geographic region or cultural group?
I can't seem to find the survey on MailShell...anybody having better luck? I did a domain search through Google but no luck.
Not challenging the accuracy of the survey outright, but it would certainly help to have a link.
i'm growing a pony tail now, and trying to imitate his ways. and i would urge everybody else to do the same. maybe some day we will all be as great as He is.
thank you.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
It sounds like he's got his hands full.
Orlando Soto, today you've made Corporate America proud. Ease away those spoon-fed-by-our-marketing-firm feelings of inadequacy by consuming. What's good for you, is good for the economy!
Whose economy?
--"Economists need to learn how to subtract."
HAD
...but he's listed:
Soto, Orlando
325 W 43rd St
New York, NY 10036-6444
(212) 399-0626
I believe the parent is referring to the "Make Penis Fast!" email, for those that haven't read it yet.
He's a 45-year old grandfather? Now I can see my fiancee's grandparents reading every spam, but they're 70+.
he works during the day, what would it be if not? On the other hand maybe he works for a spam agency and its his way to stay updated on the latest selling techniques.
we wonder if he knows what he's .contributing to?
Did a little... searching, and got his phone number... He's gonna need a second phone line soon. I can't wait to see how much ink toner this guy is gonna get...
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
FREAK!!!
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Seriously, he forwards spam for everything from natural viagra to radar jammers. And this guy has over 8 figures in assetts. It's insane. I think he's finally starting to notice that he's getting less of it though. He wants to know whereh is ads are.
Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...
A 45 year old grandfather who spends his day waiting for junk mail and buying endless crap?
This guy is official "Desperately Lonely White Trash"
maybe he'll start to see my point of view
Just goes to show you that a certain percentage of the consumer market prefers to make their online buying decisions based on "PUSH" marketing on the internet....(SPAM). While the majority claim or prefer the "PULL" method when purchasing online.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
He's 45 years old and a GRANDFATHER?! No wonder he likes spam. Poor judgement in both having kids and his kid(s)having kids at such a young age invariably leads to poor judgements in other aspects.
Spam can't possibly be as funny as this
Repeal the DMCA!
He may be buying vitamins but he obviously isn't taking them. He is clearly half-blind and his mental powers are failing.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
He buys from spam? He consumes even those V*I*A*G*R*A products? And he does business with those Lads from Lagos offering $48,000,000 per transaction? Gee, I prefer to believe in Santa Claus than in this hoax.
See this post on news.admin.net-abuse.email: Orlando Soto sells spamming tools to desperate webmasters. Funny he didn't mention that to the journalist...
So no, it's Canada that you are thinking of.
Mr. Soto used to haunt rummage sales, thrift shops and flea markets, but he hurt his back in the mid-1990s, so he turned to the Internet.
... These kinds of activities are like crack cocain to certain types of buyers. My aunt used to make crafts that she would sell at the 4H fairs and craft festivals, and she would take me an my cousins to flea markets and rummage sales.
That sentence, quoted from the article, describes his entire interest in spam. There are 10 types of people who shop... those who go to flea markets, and those who don't.
Flea markets, rummage sales, garage sales, yard sales, thrift stores, salvation army stores, craft festivals, 4H fairs, county fairs, state fairs
For those of you who aren't connected, it's a way of life for some people.
And this guy, because he hurt his back, is merely doing the online version....
Can I have his email so I can sell him a lart stick?
Mr. Soto says he also has bought some adult DVDs and videos via spam, but never got around to marketing them.
Never got around to marketing them. Thats wierd!
It's all good.
Its not as bad as junk snail mail. That stuff kills trees. Not to mention that I regularly get a fake check in the mail that looks very much like my real one.
He who knows not and knows he knows not is a wise man. He who knows not and knows not he knows not is a fool.
The Internet, and spam, is just providing an unfortunately convenient way for him to acquire these purchases.
The article explains that he used to hunt rummage sales, thift stores, and flea markets, then turned to the Internet after hurting his back. He buys on eBay, and via spam. Spam is just one part of his disease, and it made an interesting story. From the tour his wife gave of their apartment, it sounds like he doesn't need most of the stuff he buys--a typical symptom of hoarding.
Another symptom will be that he is unable to throw away things that he has purchased (like those boxes of vitamins), even if he doesn't need them or they are no longer of value.
OCD medication is usually ineffective for hoarding, but counseling can help.
At any rate, he does not respresent a typical email user, but at the same time, he is not alone. It is unfortunate, but there are people with these kinds of disorders out there, and they play right into the hands of spammers and telemarketers. The sad thing is when people take advantage of them.
It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
I don't care how much spam he responds to.... it's still cheaper than a Ferrari
-Adam C. Greenfield
Unfortunately, since it said he's a grandfather, that means he's already reproduced and passed on his stupidity genes. :-(
This is what I truly feared would happen with spam. Every Sunday my grandmother actually looks forward to sifting through the hord of junk snail mail that comes to her house. Not that she doesn't have a life, just that her life is somehow enhanced by it :-(
Everyone, here's his contact info compliments of Superpages...
Orlando Soto
325 W 43rd St
New York, NY 10036
(212) 399 - 0626
I'm surprised there was no discussion on how many times this guy's been scammed by spammers online? I know a lot of spammers aren't the most legit businessmen.
- tom -
Reminded me of those stories of old people buying hundreds of magazines in order win a million dollars from Ed McMahn. Lonely people do look forward to any sort of contact.
In fact, is even harder to convince spam consumers that they are doing a bad thing, because spam is considered harmless: there is no violence involved, no family breakdowns, no deaths. For all the Sotos in the world, it will always be thought as just another hobbie.
I'll make one exception: if they add the "ADV: " to the subject line, then I may give them the benefit of the doubt.
It's a form of obsession. They have drugs now that can treat this (I'm serious). He needs help. No doubt in a few years he'll be declaring personal bankruptcy.
Do the two photographs look similar:
Orland Soto
Richard Reid
If this isn't the same guy as in the article, I feel sorry for him!
. jhtml?F rom=50stateswp&wpsearch=1&fname=orlando&lname=soto &CityZipAC=Manhattan&State=NY
13 listed living at 325 W 32rd St (apartment?), in Manhattan NY, including one Orlando Soto.
http://www.smartpages.com/whitepages/index
Maybe he will buy himself a blow up doll and that will keep his lonely ass preocupied.
You know, like those "vitamin" injections JFK's "doctor" used to give him.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
In other news, some people are dumb. This is news?
He was way off - totally underestimated both the volume and frequency. People like this are proof.
"The bigger the lie, the more they believe." - Det. Bunk
"If everyone hated spam, it would disappear"
Yea, and I'm the queen of england.
How stupid does one get!?! This guy needs to get his head out of his arse and find a better hobby
It's almost a given that one day soon SPAM will be pretty much eliminated, or at the least, significantly diminished.
Now, go back in time to: Life Magazines and to older comic books - could there be one day in the future that sellers on eBay pay collector dollar for old Spamvertisements - just like they do for Wrigley's Gum ads, Coke ads, Life magazines, comic book ads?
I saw in someone's journal that they were collecting SPAM just for posterity sake - to get some good laughs when they were 75. Another was collecting them as a reference database for creating filters.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Offtopic? WTF? The parent is right!
I'm sorry, but people like "Mr Soto" are the ones holding the dicks of the spammers pissing in the collective Internet swimming pool. He should stay away from the Internet, and probably has more spyshit than anyone else.
"Oooh, these nice people want me to have a purple monkey that TALKS! So cool!"
"Oooh, they want me to take a survey! I like surveys! And they have a statue! Better help them help me!"
It's dumb fucks who take the whole Internet advertising thing (or even the whole Internet) as being for their benefit and their benefit only who are destroying it piece by piece.
Screw him.
I'm amazing. You aren't. SUCK IT
If you're buying from Spam, in reality, you would be buying the same garbage over and over again.
I read this topic, and thought some heroin addict liked processed meat by-products. O_o
Karma: Terrible
He's probably the only guy we know that uses Spambayes BACKWARDS. His corpus floats up messages that contain such hot words as mortgage, savings, viagra, etc.
Mr Soto buys products from the spammers then resells them by sending spam!
This was on the front page of WSJ yesterday so I assume they did some fact checking on it. It wasn't buried in the back of the paper.
.NET co-workers to move to Java. I don't think so.
That said, my first reaction, is one I always have: why when an interesting topic comes up: why do I find only sarcastic/hopefully humorous comments get through my level 4 filter? Still waiting for an answer on that.
I read the article in paper and my reaction was that they did everyone a service by writing about such people. I have no idea why anyone would buy this stuff but the fact of the matter is that spammers wouldn't spam if they didn't make money from it. MS will only change the type of software they make when they don't make money from it. It's a simple, though perhaps unlikeable fact. For every piece of junk that clutters your tv screen, your mailbox or whatever there is a reason for it other than just to bother you (and me!). It's there because someone is making money from it and because someone, like the guy in article, actually buys it.
I don't think educating such buyers is a reasonable option. Sort of like educating the user of one OS to choose to go to another one. This afternoon I'm going to educate my
But the only way to solve a problem is to understand it. The more we understand people like this guy the more likely it is that someone can find a way to direct spam/bad commercials to them and not the rest of us. Maybe a Do Call Me list.
I hear all about connections between SPAM and organized crime. However, I don't see how SPAM is much different from other forms of information pollution, e.g., ads. For cleaning up email, there's Bayesian filtering. For the web, there's pop-up blockers. For TV, there's Tivo. And in each case the info-polluters have their counter measures.
:w
"Mr. Soto says he also has bought some adult DVDs and videos via spam, but never got around to marketing them.
Yeah right! I wonder if his wife believes him.
Decode these
He's just setting up an insanity defense in advance for some super crime he's planning...
in seeing what his CORPSE looks like
If so much spam actually finds buyers, why don't any of these people honor opt-outs?
And if there's really people like Mr. Soto, what's the problem with actually having opt-in?
Stupid sexy Flanders.
They did mention that his wife has a work at home business. She probably brings in more cash than he does.
$40k/year in New York City isn't a whole lot of money. Heck, you can make $100k/yr in New York and just be considered middle class, based on the cost of living.
Just some random musing.
No man is an island, But if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie them together, they make a pretty good raft.
How many companies that use spam actually make a profit? Or more to the point, is it really those companies that try and use spam or other unsolicitied email (and the d0rks that buy the products) that keep them in business, or is it those companies that market in selling the addresses and such selling the illusion that it's a profitable business model/strategy?
Many people today keep saying "that if people stopped buying things from them they'd go away". Does anyone know if a majority or even any but a few of the people who generate spam make a profit? If the idiots buying those address lists, possibly even paying for dummy addresses to send them from and such could be shown that it most likely won't work at the best, maybe more will cut down on it.
Just a thought.
i hear those are quite popular in USA, email me for details, i only sell the genuine ones
Spammers employ many illegal methods. They forge headers, use other people's servers to send the spam, use other people's real addresses as the sender, they do brute force username dictionary attacks against mail servers, they lie about how they got your address or about your ability to be removed, and finally they sell fake and infringing products (Viagra is a trademark) and are full of frauds and scams. Those are all illegal, or at least they should be. Do you support those things? I doubt it. So how do you propose to only allow "good" spam while blocking this stuff?
sales@dduo.com
Seriously.
The article shows him refusing a number of emails that are presented to him. So, while I tend to agree with you on the hoarding part, I think either it is not to a pathological degree -or it's a different pathology entirely.
I wouldn't think so. The old mediums were precious and brought in some bucks because there were only so many of the originals printed. And half the game was how well that printed media has stood the test of time and how well it was preserved. With digital media you have an unlimited amount of originals and copies of the originals which are indistinguishable from the originals.
Now I do imagine there will be an Email Spam Museum site, showcasing the evolution of spam and so on.
*DrugCheese rants*
You're morally obligated to seperate a fool and his money. Particularly a fool of this magnitude. Now I just need to think up a good scam, er... product that he'll shell out the moola for!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
This guy's penis must be HUGE!!!!!!
He probably deletes his Inbox on a regular basis.
It offered Newports -- his brand -- for $2.85 a pack, about a third of what he pays at a corner store near his home. He saved the message for later consideration.
The only product they mentioned that he actually uses and he didn't buy them? What a doorknob.
"Write to Mylene Mangalindan at mylene.mangalindan@wsj.com". Shall we?
Yes he probably has the IQ of a geranium, but I don't mean that kind of plant. What I do mean: He's probably someone with a vested interest in sending spam who wants to establish that there is value to spam so that it can then become protected free speech.
Bush makes our troops prey...
Spam of course !
(I know it's a poor one but couldn't help)
There are tons of people out there who love spam. If no one ever responded or took interest in the spam, why would anyone spend so much money to send it?
I find it interesting to watch my roomates hurry to call into the home shopping networks because they put that phony timer on there, or say in a commercial that the offer is only valid if you call in the next ten minutes. "While supplies last" is the greatest of all!
It's just like the dihydrogen monoxide stunt. People are really, really dumb, and in the case of spam have small penises and lots of debt.
Spam software eh? What's the number of the BSA again? Or Symantec?
Hate me!
I personally beleive that this is somewhat clear proof that marketing by e-mail can work, but only if it is taken in hand by honest companies who do not deal through an nigh-on anonymous mass-mailing scheme. Take a look at the statistics, and you will notice 8% of the respondents to a survey conducted asking whether or not they had bought anything through spam replied affirmatively, though spammers say that this number is higher due to the fact that most people having bought products through spam can not bear the embarassment of admitting it. Now if you reflect on those numbers, and consider that a lot of people delete spam as soon as they see some in their inbox, or use some kind of spam filter, you could perhaps come to a conclusion which may not be so far off the truth.
Let's suppose the companies which now sell their products through mass-mailing could come to some sort of agreement with e-mail services. This agreement would involve allowing the user to choose whether or not they would like to receive some offers from the company that has come to the agreement with the service. The e-mail service could choose to impose limits to the company, such as the number of e-mails sent and the products offered in the e-mails. As this feature would be an opt-in option, the user would be responsible for what comes through their inboxes. I think this kind of feature would actually benefit every party involved, as the e-mail service could really control what would be coming through to their users' inboxes, the users would know what to expect in their inboxes, and the companies could actually make more profit from this system. What I mean by this is, as most e-mail users would be expecting to receive their offers by e-mail, they would be the people who would be actually expected to buy what comes through. There would be more sales than there would be complaints and deletion. Last of all, this would of course benefit the people who would like to receive some honest, discounted offers by e-mail. The whole system would be completely legal.
In my opinion, this is how marketing by e-mail could actually be something that works, and that, at the end of the day, leaves both the sales companies, the e-mail services and the e-mail users satisfied.
"Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect" -- Linus Torval
Maybe Taco can get him for Ask Slashdot so we can all berate him with "questions" like:
"What are you doing, stupid?" (5, Informative)
"Why are you such a jackass?" (5, Funny)
"How big is your penis now? Do the creams really work?" (5, Funny)
"when life gets complicated, I like to take a nap in a tree and wait for dinner" - Hobbes.
In the past, Mr. Soto says he has sent out spam himself, but he doesn't any more for fear of the increasing multitude of federal and state spam regulations now on the books.
He mades spam a profitable business.
I'd agree BUT how many people are keeping it, even if millions and billions are being distributed? SPAM may actually turn out to be THE most rare form of collectible advertising!
it says and ask yourself what sort of person would be selling such a package of dodgy software.
From the article:
and the domain registration:"One such somebody is Mr. Soto. He buys spam-pitched aromatherapy oils for his wife and pharmaceuticals for himself. "
So, from that we can deduce what? hmmm , He likes to give his wife a good rub-down, but needs "pharmaceuticals" for himself... (what kind of spam-advertised pharpaceuticals might that be)
Me thinks he cant get-it-up because he spends too much time online!
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Doing a little digging, I see that I was born at the same time, down to the minute, as Mr. Soto. Therefore, *I'm* not a sucker. :-)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Wouldn't it be funny if some day we find out that there's some small population of people, maybe a few hundred around the world, who make up the bulk of spammer revenue and have thusly single-handedly kept the spamming phenomenon alive? Given that there's a similarly small group of spammers that account for most of the spam traffic out there, it wouldn't surprise me.
Maybe we should track those people down, compile their name on a list, and sell that to the spammers for $0.01 on the condition -- no, with the extra added benefit for them -- that they not send to anyone else ever again. Why would they bother, if they can get the same revenue as before without all the overhead?
We now return you to your regularly programmed reality...
It's "There's an idiot born every minute." I think this is a much more realistic figure.
NR
People actually buy products advertised in spam! That's why spammers do it!
"he drew his sword Ringil that glittered like ice... and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds..."
Neo:
What are you trying to tell me that I can dodge traffic?
Morpheus:
No, Neo. I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready, you won't have to.
How 'bout forwarding spam he founds interesting?
Bugs Bunny, "What a maroon!"
Well, not directly. I got an ad for a small, table-top air cleaner/ionizer that sounded decent. I didn't buy from the spammer, but looked for the specific brand online, and found several vendors selling it. I got one for fifty bucks, and it's just a cheezy plastic thing with a 80mm case fan and an ionizing filament in it. I ran it for about a month before the fan started rattling and I had to shut it off. I don't know what I'm going to do with it; but I sure learned my lesson.
That's the first and last time I ever bought spam.
On a side note, Consumer Reports says the far-and-away best ionizing air cleaner is the Friedrich C-90A. I've seen it as low as $410. It's pricier than the Sharper Image Ionic Breeze, but way, way better. I want one.
3. Profit!
2. ???
1. On Soviet Slashdot, a Beowulf cluster of alien Natalie Portman overlords welcomes YOU!
He basically got instant publicity by claiming to love spam. How come I never come up with these stunts?
"he drew his sword Ringil that glittered like ice... and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds..."
You want to complain about bandwidth usage? What exactly is the difference between banner ads (such as ^^^^) and spam. Really.
Ohhh! Pay Dirt! A pair of half-eaten choco-pants!
Identity theft case in 3...2...1...
-R
How can we access WSJ articles directly? I thought all their material was for online subscribers only?
Almost all people I know who ordered something from spam emails have either never received anything or got a product so bad they had to throw it away or got their credit card info stolen. Unfortunately the later seems to happen more and more often.
just wait till this guy gets into a nigerian scam and loses everything.. i bet the wife will be thrilled.
He buys [snip] pharmaceuticals for himself.
I wonder what kind...
Mr. Soto says he also has bought some adult DVDs and videos via spam, but never got around to marketing them.
cUmc0\/ered h%0t dvdz!!! on1y u5ed 1nce!!! 51ightly 5t1cky.
Predictive text is shiv!
This guy is stealing my schtick!
I guess this proves that there really is something for everyone online.
I think it's more a case of there being someone for everything.
Bow, nigger. h
I did RTFA and I'm here to tell you this guy needs professional help. What a nutcase.
People that engage in this type of behavior on a regular basis have some sort of OCD problem.
I know a few people like this guy, they troll garage sales and flea markets and their houses are full to bursting with *shit*...
They have this vision that they are going to resell the crap at garage sales and flea markets and make a living. Truth is, they lose BIG every time they set up at a flea market. They spend ~$200 to set up a booth for the weekend and if they are really lucky they sell about $15 worth of the crap they collect.
At garage sales it just costs them the time to do it but they usually only bring in less than $50 for the trouble.
These people are chasing the brass ring but they never catch it. What a waste of time, effort and money..
(rules of spam, that is)
1. Spammers lie.
2. If in doubt, see rule 1.
plus he probably has 4 or 5 other deals on the table.
He really should get a life.
I have bought something from spam: a DVD+R/RW burner from TigerDirect. I don't know if they count as spam as not, but I don't ever recall signing up for their list. It's pretty easy to get off their list though (i.e. the unsubscribe link actually works), so it's not as bad as some of the spam out there.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
I am nuts for information-- as are we all, I suspect, most real men and women. I can't get enough of the stuff. When I'm clicking through the hundreds of E-mail messages that await me each morning, sometimes I imagine I'm a mighty information whale, sifting through thousands of tiny (but nutritious!) krill bits. Yum! Whether it's reading the cereal box or scanning the advertisment slide show some genius thought to project on the big screen at the movie theater, my appetite for information is unquenchable.
--Joshua Quittner
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
The whole thing stopped making sense when he complains of only getting 17 spams in one day.
The article then states, "He's the kind of person spammers love: a serial buyer."
If he were the kind of person spammers love, then why am I getting many times more spam and I've never bought anything via SPAM? I'm still just a potential sell, while he's the guaranteed one.
I call BS.
This is not my sig.
In the past, Mr. Soto says he has sent out spam himself, but he doesn't any more for fear of the increasing multitude of federal and state spam regulations now on the books.
The problem here is he doesn't comprehend and/or care that spam hurts consumers. This isn't just a hobby for him, it was a part-time business. People shouldn't dismiss him as some eccentric old man, there's no ambiguity here: he was previously an unlawful spammer and he encourages unlawful spammers. He is the problem.
Short of making it illegal to buy from unlawful spammers or public humiliation (I'm sure he will get plenty, now), I don't know of a way to get buyers to stop.
Someone asked if I had patched against MSBlast; I said yes, I installed Linux.
Staying away from the internet wouldn't help this poor sod. I'd suggest a nice bouncy rubber room.
:)
I'd love to see his credit card balances.
Be happy. Nothing else matters.
Good find! Now to the nitty gritty, slashdotters--here's a whois on dduo.com
A fellow receiver of 500-1000 spams a day, I think we should each email Paula and Mr. Soto and tell them how much we appreciate their support of the spammers.
Thanks Mr. Soto!
G-Force music visualization
The Journal started using stippled portraits, or hedcuts in 1979. Apparently, they remind readers of currency or engraved stock certificates. Although the style can be approximated with image filters, the WSJ's hedcuts are hand drawn.
I have no problems with spam as long as it is targeted towards people who may benefit from it. If somebody loves to receive spam and spend money on goods advertised through that method, more power to them; at least they keep some people employed and spend money. However, what bothers me is that according to WSJ, only a small fraction of people who receive spam buy their stuff that way. I would love to do more shopping through e-mail advertising if companies did not trash my inbox on a daily basis and send me stuff that I am interested in. For example, I have no problems if a legid company sends me a news letter once in two months telling me what they have for ME. If I receive 5-10 e-mails per month that contribute to my needs, I have no problems with it.
The thing is that I hate malls and shopping. I know what I want and what I need. I know my sizes and the styles that I like. I live in Boston and any trip to the mall will cost me whatever I spend on the goods plus at least two-fifty that I spend on transportation plus a couple of dollars that I normally spend on food. I do not know why women are so crazy about shopping; I think it is a waste of my time.
The solution to my problem comes in the mail; both standard and electronic. I signed up letters from several retailers (Green Mountain Coffe, J.Crew, etc). Now my coffee comes in the mail, same goes for clothing and accessories in case if I need them. If I do not need this crap, I simply delete stuff from my inbox and recycle the catalogs. Insted of wasting hours on shopping, I am relaxing, running, going to the gym. In fact, I am about to sign up for Pea-Pod, a delivery service provided by Stop-and-Shop. They can deliver food of my choice right to my door for $5. Pretty good, huh?
Spam isn't bad. I have to say I am delighted to receive spam and that it exists.
:)
If there wasn't spam, I wouldn't have a Bayesian filter..and nor would you. Im sure you would actually miss having one. I know I would, a Bayesian filter is a geeky thing to own. Do any of your non-PC literate friends have one? No. Of course not. They probably use hotmail.
So yeah, spam is great, I never actually read any, I just receieve it, in a nice packaged and quarantined form and it goes into my "spam" box.
long live Bayesian Spam Filters, and long live spam!
just my rather weird 0.02
I want more spam. I'm not kidding you, I seriously need to find a way to get more spam. I already post my address on USENET, slashdot, on web sites. And I use unsubscribe links in spam I receive.
Yet despite doing all this I still only receive about 150 spams/day. Any idea how I can get more? I bet this guy knows the secret... if only he could share!
I am surprised no one else has pointed this out.
Mr. Soto says he also has bought some adult DVDs and videos via spam, but never got around to marketing them.
Rrright... Why do I have a hard time believing that was his purpose for buying those tapes? :)
This guy responds to several messages per week and yet only receives 50-150 messages per day? One mail account I have kept open for some time is up to 300+ message per day and I have never responded to a spam. I would expect that someone who responds with any frequency to receive many hundreds (1000+?) of messages per day. /mike
I guess this proves that there really is something for everyone online.
And that there is someone for everything online.
- Ismo
While he probably is an active spammer, I definitely consider myself anti-spam. And I don't need anyone to attach that label for me.
In fact, if I weren't so damned lazy, I'd track this moron down and kill him. And his children. And the "proud" 45-year-old grandfather's grandchildren as well.
We complain about the quality of our television programs ("I'm a TV Star, Get Me Out Of Here!", "Joe Millionaire", etc.), but they stay on the air because Joe Denomenator watches them. He doesn't watch "Babylon 5" or anything that makes him think. (A producer of Andromeda is reported to have left the show because the network wanted less story line and more action. It was "too hard" for Joe Denomenator to follow multi-show stories. Andromeda has been a mashed-potato show ever since.)
Other mass media has followed. In the checkout line we get tabloids shouting "Lose ten pounds in a week without getting off your sorry ass", and "Have better sex with whomever it is you are banging this week". The venerable TV Guide has become TV Gossip instead of a programming guide.
Big box stores filled with cheap imports smother smaller, local stores until they go out of business, leaving nothing but cheap imports available. Joe Denomenator doesn't want to pay $20 for a radio that will last for years, he wants to pay $10 for one that he'll have to replace in a month, because it is too much effort to keep track of the one he has for more than a month anyway.
Why would anyone think that the Internet would be different, after using it became a "right" for Joe Denomenator?
Here is how to dissuade Mr. Soto from buying anymore from spams: 1) Pretend to be a spammer and once in a while send something to him, such as weight-loss pills (heck, he's a 45-year-old grandfather - I guess he is starting to expand horizontally). The rate he's going, he will bite eventually. 2) When he does respond, get his shipping (i.e. residential) address and phone number, and promise him that delivery is scheduled in the next week or two. 3) At this point, you have several options: You can either send him laxatives in disguise (and I do mean the maximum strength stuff, accompanied by directions to use it liberally everyday), or you can show up at his house with some psychos and just pelt his car/house/real estate with rotting spam. Or you can think of some other thing - if you are at his doorstep, the sky's the limit. 4) Repeat as desired, but with another line of product under another contact name.
If enough idiots like him are known to exist, perhaps it could strengthen the case for making smap legal only to people on opt-in lists, instead of forcing everyone to join opt-out lists like the Do-not-call lists.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion, It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, The hands acqui
Of the three Orlando Sotos in New York State, only one is in Manhattan, much less Midtown Manhattan.
Orlando Soto - (212) 399-0626 - 325 W 43rd St, New York, NY 10036 (public info via google)
This is a self-correcting problem, the guy smokes cigarettes.
If you forget about the future, the future will forget about you.
His penis must be so large that it touches the ground.
Now THAT is one hung dude...
So being able to respond to spam is his God-given right?
I think he should be devoured by snakes.
Sorry....
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
~jeff
Kaa-Ching. P. T. Barnum was right.
Meddle thou not in the affairs of Dragons, for thou art crunchy and with most anything.
Orlando Soto might have the looks of a donkey, but he also has the brains to back it up!
People - when asked "Please stand to the left to be handed a brain" when you are born, it's not something to challenge and think you're cool for doing so.
If the guy is doing this to "unwind", why not introduce him to blogs and online forums.
b almetalsmiths.com ... list your favorite
slashdot.com
boingboing.net
fark.com
neo-tri
if he is into the buying scene, eBay...
What is it he truely needs.
Soto, Orlando
325 W 43 St
MANHATTAN, NY 10036
212-399-0626
He's not in at the moment though.
superman runs linux
So in the name of freedom, we should suppress freedom?
Hmmm.... To bend the analogy in a devil's advocate sort of way, should we stop people from buying cigarettes to prevent second-hand smoke from hurting nonsmokers? To keep the inner city free of fear, should we restrict people from buying handguns? Does socialized healthcare make people more free because they no longer have to fear being without insurance if they try a job that fails them, or less free because they cannot fail? Is there a solution that allows freedom from all different points of view of what freedom is?
We have to fight spam from another angle, not by supressing people's rights to do stupid things.
Should people have the freedom to drive drunk? Why or why not?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Blockwars: free, multiplayer, teris like game
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
This character actually responds to and buys from spam.
This character, on the other hand, actually responds to spam, but doesn't buy from said spam, being 300 times funnier at the same time. I wonder why he haven't ever been mentioned on Slashdot. Probably because it's better to write about something stupid than something insightful... *sigh*
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Anyone would happen to have his Email address :-)
I have about 250,000 spam messages I can send him. I've always wanted to know where I can send this crap.
I'm sure he would appreciate the huge amount of stuff he can buy, provided he can even GET to his computer carrying his huge 'ding dong'.
maybe not politically-correct, but this person is breeding faster than most of you, and he probably VOTES TOO. Sigh...
me
You would have thought that if he really bought all those pills the Viagra alone should have kept him occupied and away from his computer!
It just shows that it doesn't work.
Kevin
"It's not the cough that carries you off, it's the coffin they carry you off in" O. Nash
Its people like that, ign'urnt, lazy-ass, lame-brained twits, that give me a pain u know where.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I'm amazed that he can relax. I mean, after all the porn, viagra, levitra, botox, talking on new cell phones, re-financing, and helping Nigerians launder money into the US, that he has any free time to read e-mail.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
... of something a computer science professor once told me. It went something like, "You can write the best code in the world; design the best user interface and implement the strictest error catching, but you still can't keep the end user from being stupid."
user@host:/usr/bin$ whatis
java: nothing appropriate.
"Act now! Supplies are limitied, guranteed cure for hording! xyzyzzYz"
"For $19.99 you too can get this amazing cure..."
"OCD medication is useless to combat this problem."
"But, our solusion! 398293 is sure to work."
"Act, now and get abillity to throw your trash out too..."
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
Isn't the obvious solution just to see what it is you like an a e-mail, and then try to find it at a legit source? Or at least go to it in a new browser so that there isn't a referrer ID or anything. That way they don't know it's from spam.
I guess.
This fool just needs to look at bargain forums. He would find better deals at fatwallet.com and other bargain forums then he will ever get from spam. And no, I have never bought anything from a spam email and I never will.
JUST KILL THE STUPID SOB
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
"Good spam, he says, leaves him feeling blessed and telling himself, "I can't believe this really came."
This perpetual motion machine Lisa made is a joke, it just keeps getting faster and faster. - Homer
This isn't a major cache cow for most business people
;)
Only a slashdotter would misspell "cash" ($$$) as "cache" (cache memory, I suppose, knowing this crowd).
Why did they only include a sketch of Mr. Soto? Is this really a real person? I don't doubt there are people like this, but maybe they couldn't find one in time for the article? Heh...
Thespamletters site has been mentioned before here on / ... way back when he was much more prolific in his writings but has fallen off. Still, the book might make for a great addition to the bookshelf [nope, I'm not associated with our humorous Mr. Land].
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand". -Milton F.
... when I clicked on the link above, Mozilla showed me whether I wanted to accept the cookie from the above website and I clicked 'Allow'.
Now I will be tracked and this tracking can be used to target people with similar interests as me !
I feel dirty...
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
To be fair this isn't Joe Denomenator at work it's Kevin-Sorbo is a complete retard at work.
And calling Wolfe just the producer is wrong, he's more the creator than Roddenberry. He was just a producer of DS9.
Mashed potatoes are way way better than Andromeda.
Scifi screwed entry for Andromeda
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
of a satirical act a friend of mine once did in high school.
We should send him an e-mail saying he could lose 12 pounds instantly. All he has to do is cut off his head.
What? That we can cure ignorance? This is news?
There will always be a percentage of people who are just stupid and unreasonably impressionable. One needs to only look at about half the crap that's advertised these days, whether it's spam-related or not, and see that there's a lot of useless junk that some people are buying. How does calling attention this do anything other than troll and promote more abusive marketing?
Does this mean he has a short penis, erectile disfunction, baldness, and enjoys spying on his teenage babysitters with remote cameras?
Fast machines, powerfull AI, impulsive invention,... All I lack is a good espresso machine!
Err.. I wouldn't want to mess with him. Nowadays he probably has like three-foot d*ck which has a viagra-overdose-induced permanent hard-on.
Besides, after collecting money from dozens of african dictators and their families and staff, he probably has more money than Bill Gates.
(or he has serious health problems due to low-quality and misused drugs and has been mugged and/or kidnapped for ransom a number of times.)
We can set up some standard place for people like this guy -- say, a specific domain (gimmespam.com? ibuyeverything.com?). Anyone could get an email account there; maybe it would even be a Yahoo! Mail-like webmail service. It would have an associated website listing everyone's email address on it, made optimally machine-readable (say, a CSV file). Maybe even associated interests listed ("crafts, cigarettes, and drugs, please") so spammers can target even better.
Think about it: everyone wins.
- The spammers can concentrate on those who will likely buy, thus dramatically increasing sales-to-spams-sent ratios (and decreasing costs, hence increasing profits)
- The spam-lovers get tons more spam to play with (hey, knock yerself out, buddy!)
- The rest of us get left alone (why bother sending email out to the wilderness where there's slim pickin's, when you can just raid the chicken coop?)
Only issue is seeing if there are enough people like this guy around who will join in.I say let's do it!
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
From the article: Good spam, he says, leaves him feeling blessed and telling himself, "I can't believe this really came."
That's psychological. The guy paid $150 for a METAL DETECTOR and he has a bad back.
Tripod link is dead already.
this manner.
I read this article yesterday and was planning to post it to slashdot but
read this
"REMINDER: This service is for personal, non-commercial use only. For commercial reprints, Web links , e-mailings and other permission types, please visit our copyright and reprint center here."(reprints.dowjones.com).
Reprint permission for this story would cost 350 $ for 3 months.
See this:
Think about it.
And also, what is the average air speed of an unladen swallow?
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
I found that here
Here's his email: osoto52493@aol.com
Eventually, spam prompted Mr. Soto to dabble in Internet entrepreneurship himself. He's bought fancy knives, leather jackets, stuffed animals, party supplies and software, all via spam, and then created Web sites to sell the items at a profit -- a skill he learned from another piece of spam. Mr. Soto says he also has bought some adult DVDs and videos via spam, but never got around to marketing them. He says he purchased two pornography Web sites, again via spam, and ran them for a while, but then he decided they weren't worth the trouble and disabled them. Likewise, he says he procured some provocative domain names via spam. In the past, Mr. Soto says he has sent out spam himself, but he doesn't any more for fear of the increasing multitude of federal and state spam regulations now on the books.
I can see the Wall Street Journal running a troll like this, but Slashdot?
the legit smtp servers would eventually update, just make the pop3 (pop4?) server ask the (e)smtp server if it did actually send it, or if it was sent by some twat with an MTA running on their own computer, or from zombied spam relays. this would cut down on spam, and it could be slowly implemented, if it was backward compatible.
all it would take is a new port on smtp server's being open, and the pop3/4 server sending the smtp server an MD5 checksum of the email, and the smtp server replying with yes or no.
simple concept, probably a pain in the arse to make companies comply.
and if you owned a domain, you would know that every email that was sent to a pop4 server would definately not be from your domain, unless it was supposed to be. linux.org (i think it was them) had this problem a few months ago when some twatty spammers were using the linux.org domain for spamming - this would stop that.
would this work or am i just dreaming?
osoto52493@aol.com
After reading the article, I just want to ask this guy: WHY CAN'T YOU JUST USE EBAY LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE? They have cheap pinball machines and all of that.
Upstairs Dog, Downstairs People.
Subject: Dear Valued PayPal Customer
Dear Mr. Soto,
Our database which contained your credit card information was recently erased in a crash. Please click on the link below to verify that our backup record contains the correct information.
http://www.paypal.com/confirm/
Thank you for your patience. We at PayPal strive to bring you the best service possible.
[official PayPal logo here]
PayPal.com
the JoshMeister on Security
From the article: He's bought fancy knives, leather jackets, stuffed animals, party supplies and software, all via spam, and then created Web sites to sell the items at a profit -- a skill he learned from another piece of spam.
It doesn't say that he HAS sold them at a profit. Just that such was the intent.
Actually, this was a huge issue with the "Home Shopping Network" type shows on cable and satellite TV, long before Internet "spam" existed.
I recall reading stories of people who had homes filled from floor to ceiling with boxes, almost all still unopened, ordered from these TV networks. In fact, folks with this disorder probably account for a surprisingly large portion of these station's sales of goods - so it's little wonder the media hasn't done more to make people aware of it.
On the other hand, I've done my share of flea market sales, and I can assure you that the vast majority of these "bargain hunter" shoppers simply get a thrill out of finding a "deal" on items. It's almost a sport or hobby for them. Typically, they make decent money, or they're retired with plenty of income (investments, pensions, etc.), and the amount they spend on needless shopping doesn't put that much of a dent in their total income.
Just like some folks like to spend $50 or so at the bar on a weekend, or spend it on dinner and movie for entertainment value - these people like to blow a little cash on their flea market or online bargain hunts.
Mr. Soto's SPAM love can in no way justify indiscriminate delivery of SPAM to me or other citizens. The WSJ editors have become true space-cases to even present this as news (business) worthy. The WSJ was probably an early supporter of the "Opt-Out-Privacy-Slight OOPS" citizens' rights rape. The WSJ (of today) would probable present as business news worthy the personal satisfaction and financial benefits of a child pornographer. The WSJ is implying what is good for some must be good for everyone (I feel ... VFS[:(.
W.S.J. URSICK
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
I just had to read this again...
"Let me show you," she said, retrieving a shoebox filled with plastic containers of bee-pollen complex, betaine hydrochloride and something called Oxy-Gen.
...
Oxy-Gen...
He used spam... to buy.... Oxy-Gen...
This has been today's sign of the Apocalypse.
/.-,
The above post should not be taken literally, figuratively, or any other way. Why are you even reading it?
/.-,
If he is a spammer, by his own admission, then anything that he said with regards to "loving spam" is instantly suspect. Rule #1: Spammers LIE.
Of course, there is rule #3: Spammers are STOOPID.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
there is a case in point that bulk email would not die on the internet either. they would have to just focus a bit harder on data mining.
Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea including your photo in an article labeling you as a supporter of spam, in a culture that's a hair's breadth away from executing spammers on sight.
1. Set up spam business
2. Trick some desperate journalist into writing an article about how wonderful spam are.
3. Make it be read by everyone on slashdot
4. Profit
Spam are plural, right?
!rotinom siht ni kcuts mI
Either this guy is a spammer masquerading as a satisfied customer, or he's just a shrivel-dick who needs to buy Viagra anonymously ( pharmacutical products, indeed ... ) and makes the rest up.
Anyone who actually tried to buy as much as this guy claims would find that most spam set-ups are pure scams that will take your money and disappear.
So if there are so many buyers out there who respond to spam, then why is there a problem with me opting out of ALL spam? Because of the many buyers, the businesses should not have a problem with me opting out.
So why do they?
A little bit can be found here.
Apparently, they surveyed their 1,118 of their own customers.
This is how bad statistics are born, people. An anti-spamming company surveys their own clients to find out what they think defines Spam, casually asks if they brought this down upon themselves, and find out that a surprisingly large percentage deserve what they got. Then news agencies get hold of this, strip out the "customers of" part, and it has become truth about the human condition. Furthermore, 6-10% of those surveyed said that spam can come from someone you have purchased from before. And, at least according to the above link, they didn't have to buy the product through the spam, just that they bought what was advertised in the spam, like a new Cingular Wireless telephone or a John Deere tractor. Or, for that matter, buying a subscription to the Wall Street Journal after they spammed you from the free signup page.
So in other words, it's a pretty big stretch to say that 8% of all people (+-2%) have bought from spam.
Note to Journalists: Can we at least put survey methodology in a footnote? It is a form of integrity, true, but it's not as much of a hassle as fact checking or having an objective viewpoint of your subjects.
The ______ Agenda
There is someone for everything online.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Soto may be a off toward the end of the curve, but the general prevalence of his type of behavior is the basis for a multibillion dollar advertising industry, not just spam. If average, normal people didn't act this way, at least to some extent, modern advertising as we know it wouldn't exist.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
"If everyone hated spam, it would disappear. But like the traditional direct-mail marketers and telemarketers who came before them, spammers survive public outrage, filters, lawsuits and regulations because innumerable times a day, somebody, somewhere responds with money"
This may sound reasonable on the surface but may also be 100% false.
Spammers need money to survive personally which may or may not come from their spamming. Even that is suspect, how many people sink their life savings into going into a business and lose it all?
That said, all spammers really need are advertisers to pay them. Whether anyone ever responds to those ads is a different question.
There's a famous marketing saying: Only half of my advertising works, now if I could just figure out which half!
The point is businesses spend on lots of advertising that returns nothing. But whoever they're paying still makes money, there are no guarantees.
You'd think the marketeers would realize this and stop paying the spammers. But real life is not so simple. Maybe it will eventually start working? Or maybe it's worthwhile because it puts the product name or concept in front of people and they'll buy it through some other means.
It's not like every commercial on TV causes you to immediately run out and buy the product or has any feedback whatsoever as to its effectiveness. Yet billions are spent on getting those TV ads in front of you.
But more importantly, spam is CHEAP. So who cares, "give the trailer trash another $100 to send another 100M messages we're too busy to figure out if it's worth the lousy 100 bucks" you can imagine the advertiser saying.
And spamming is cheap because spammers sell stolen facilities: Open relays, hijacked PC zombies, open proxies, holes in CGI scripts, etc.
If they were making money they'd have their own facilities to spam from rather than basing their entire business on all this criminal behavior.
Finally, maybe it's because spam DOESN'T work that it's so virulent? Spammers have to charge a lousy $100 or so per customer to rope them in at the chump change price so need hundreds of customers to survive. And also have enormous churn as the advertisers find spamming doesn't work and worse cause them problems from irate victims so spammers have to keep finding new customers? That fits the facts also.
The Wall Street Journal should know better than to publish junk reasoning like this, or at least consider other possibilities in their article.
It was "too hard" for Joe Denomenator to follow multi-show stories.
Guess what, Buck-o... if you aren't a dedicated watcher of the show, multi-show stories are impossible to watch. If I had a choice between watching a single mid-season episode of Andromeda or a stupid reality show, at least the stupid reality show would be watchable as it's own entity.
The problem is with the medium of broadcast television, not with the viewers. It's near impossible to have a popular show with long storyline arcs because most people have lives that interfere with watching every single episode in the correct order week after week.
The rescue is here, however, because DVD sales for those types of shows have been very successful. I bet the DVD sales for an unpopular television show like Babylon 5 would outpace a DVD release of Joe Millionaire.
Today, shows like 24 and the Sopranos release the DVD editions pretty soon after the season has gone off the air, making the shows more financially successful and encouraging more of them to be made. It's a compromise that means that the shows you like can be more complicated and survive enough for financial success. I suggest you stop whining about what other people watch on TV and just be thankful that the next Babylon 5 will be able to get long story arcs thanks to DVD sales.
501 Not Implemented
I enabled Spam Trap http://www.spamtrap.net.au yesterday for the main email account at work.
Instead of 43 spams and 4 emails we got just 4 emails this morning.
Seems to work well although I'm not 100% sure yet.
Costs $33/year which is OK for an office environment.
Excellent! You said it the right way but unfortunately there is nothing we can do about it. Remeber, the United States of American is a country where people free to do what they want to do. I totally support you, unfortunately for one person like yourself there are 100 "denominators" that will disagree with you until they die.
Moreover, there are a lot of smart people who are interested in keeping people stupid because stupid and uneducated tend not to bitch about stuff as long as you keep on enterntaining them.
His email address is support@dduo.com Go ahead, send forward him ALL the spam you receive.
Opera Watch - An Opera browser blog.
Line's busy. Try again later.
From the article : Mr. Soto routinely comes home to some 150 e-mail pitches, and he loves getting them all.
It's been said before : "Spam is not a problem, just hit delete, it takes less than a second".
In this case, the guy takes the time to read the messages. Ok, it means he can handle more spams than most internet users. But everyone has a limit. And every mailbox has a limit. How would he react if he had 1500 emails a day ? 15000 ?
Spammers have no limits, they send billions of messages : This article says AOL blocked 500 billion messages in 2003 and it's increasing.
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
I have two accounts i stopped using due to spam, i was going to close them till last week all sorts of viruses started coming through. :)
Since i run linux and not swinedos i found it rather amusing and decided to leave the two account, seems like spam is also usefull
as a virus gathering tool heheheh.
I used to collect those i came across while working in it, now spammers send them to me
SPAM is marketing. It is a sales tool. Just because you have attached a label to it does not change its essential character of being a marketing tool.
:)
As long as it brings in more money than it cost it will be an effective selling tool.
So get over it!
Now you only get 2 rings, stupid d20 system
Damn those free-loading poor people!
Let's give the rich a break.
q.e.d.
They included a picture for us to give to the hitmen.
I guess this proves that there really is something for everyone online.
... there is still a sucker born every minute. As powerful a tool for enlightenment as the Internet has proven it can be, this just goes to show that, nothing, really, has changed.
No, it just proves that, after pulling ourselves out of the primordial ooze eons ago, achieving sentience, and then spending millenia working towards an advanced civilization, after all of that
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
How many African kings/presidents/nobles is he keeping millions for while their country keeps them in hiding?
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
Please don't harass him... he seems to have more than enough personal problems as it is.
Someone needs to kicks this guys and anyone else who buys stuff from spam ass's asap. Sooner or later he is going to get screwed on a spam scam and i hope its a big one a really really big one.
What's a "lowest common denominator"?
I know what a GREATEST common denominator is, and what a least common MULTIPLE is, but this term is foreign to me.
1. Spammers lie
2. ???
3. Spammers are STOOPID
Rule #2: When a spammer is telling you something, remember rule #1.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Awesome. I really must find out how he's managed to develop an encryption algorythm which is already understood by every browser including Netscape 1.1N but which is completely uncrackable by human beings!
Oh that's easy. Its called Microsoft Front Page!
Have you seen the nested tables belched by that thing? gross!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
According to the article, in order to break even, 1 in 10,000 spams need to be responded to. In this guy's case, they aren't breaking even, but making good money from him. So he's responsible for a multiple of 10,000 spam messages.
How does NYRE Management feel about an employee responsible for perhaps a 100,000 spam messages daily? And someone who spams himself?
NYRE Management corp. 332 East 95th street, NY, NY, 10128 tel : (212) 360 6030, fax : (212) 360 7479.
With the grandmother spammer story a couple months ago, and this grandfather spammer story now, I wonder if this is an organized effort to soften up possible jail sentences they are now worried about due to the Can Spam Act, and the fact that they aren't as technically knowledgeable as Richter and Barry Head & Family and Bernard Balan et al.
Hell's Kitchen. Figures.
This is likely a classic profile of a spammer, not even a nutty fringe consumer. This gives you insight into the type of temperament spammers have. He is a spammer by his own admission and he also admits he hasn't made any money at it.
So what we've learned here is:
1. Spammer's like spam (duh)
2. Spammer's don't make money, and now they have to stoop to showing this dork as an example of perhaps the 11 idiots (aside form spammers) on the planet who think spam is good.
3. Spammer's are unfocused and mentally unstable.
4. WSJ has lost the last sliver of journalistic integrity it ever had.
5. Slashdot has turned into a tabloid web site, calling attention to goofy freaks in order to generate more attention, regardless of whether the article is informative or newsworthy.
6. Spammers everywhere are laughing their asses off that they have so successfully manipulated the media, as everyone from the WSJ to TechTV picked up this stupid story and made it larger than life, as well as didn't call adequate attention to the fact that this guy is a spammer and has played the media for the gullible, sensationalistic fools that they are.
My point was, and remains to be, something that seems to be eluding you. The nature of the medium of broadcast television leads to simple shows that don't require much backstory or effort in order to understand what is going on. You call this the effect of the lowest common denominator, but in fact you are incorrect. DVD sales show that people actually want to watch the good shows that didn't perform on television, which nullifies your whinge about reality shows.
The internet is an altogther different medium and the same rules will not apply to it. If (when) the internet is used as a distribution vehicle for mass-media filmed entertainment the viewer may be able to watch shows in proper context, allowing for more complex plotlines to be constructed. This does not mean that Joe Millionairre of the Internet won't exist, something like that will exist, or more likely an even more stupid version of it. But it will also lead to a venue to provide even more intelligent programming than we can get today -- and quite likely someone will provide it.
I hope you are no longer confused. I'm here to help if you still have more problems or questions.
501 Not Implemented
Now, look for specially-marked packages: "No spammers were encouraged in the making of this product".
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
to all the spam I get, he'd be wearing a bra with size E cups and his male organ would be dragging on the floor!
He can spell: "Now Only $67 INITIAL and $12 Per Month Thereafter... Cancell anytime!"
He has fantastic grammer: "Please Note: These packages are available seperate."
This is funny too: "We Found the Best products & Values then Added even More to it!..." You added even more values? Really? Like how about some damn values like 'morality' and 'honour'...
What a disgrace.
DON'T harass this guy. If you do, you're certainly worse than any spammer.
Yes, he's contributing to the spam problem (probably without realizing it), but it's not like he's going around clubbing baby seals. He just has an unhealthy shopping addiction. Calling and harassing people is not going to solve anything. Instead, write an article on "why responding to SPAM is BAD" and get it printed. Do something constructive.
Editors: Please remove the post containing his phone number. This kind of crap is giving Slashdot a bad name.
"But it's the bargains that keep him devouring spam, including a $150 metal detector he recently bought."
is this a joke? Could a person this stupid really exist? There was a story about a guy who replaced $3000 worth of dual processor G5 Mac with $300 worth of PC parts that turned out to be a hoax so that's why I'm doubtful. Could this just be another prank to get hits? I mean the story did end up on slashdot, and I know it's the Wall Street Journal but I've learned no one is above scams for advertising dollars.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
USER: SPRINT RELAY 4126@ DIALING 212-399-0626 RINGING 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5 ... (F) HELLO UM CAN U HOLD ON FOR A SECOND.. (M) HELLO YEAH IM GONNA CALL U RIGHT BACK SIR YEAH GA
OPER: no i think that ill call you back, mr. soto you can count on it ga
USER: WHO IS THIS MIGHT I ASK QQ GA
OPER: we have powerful friends mr. soto and we dont fuck around you will be contacted later ga
USER: WONDERFUL TO ME STORY WAS MISQUOTED COMPLETELY IN WALL STREET JOURNAL GA
OPER: what ever just keep looking behnd your back sk sk
That's like saying your against junk *snail* mail.
How can people still not get it?
When you recieve an ad via snail-mail, the sender has paid the postage. He's paid for the paper it's printed on. When you receive spam, the spammer has stolen your bandwidth, your ISP's bandwidth, your ISP's storage, administrative costs, etc. And your ISP doesn't get to bill the spammer. The ISP passes the costs on to you. When the ISP has to upgrade add more bandwidth to handle the spam, who do you think pays for that? Spammers? What about when the ISP adds on three more mail servers or another four-drive SCSI RAID array to deal with the spam? Do you think the penis enlarger guys are going to chip in to pay the costs?
Who the hell moderated the parent post as insightful? Are they giving moderator points out at crack houses?
Thanks for the advertising moron. This is Mr Soto and i would like to explain that
I was misquoted in the srticle because i never spammed in my life nor do i have any intentions to. At one timme i used optin mail list to promote one site. I have hence called the writer of the article and she confirmed my wording optin and we are trying to retract it.I am just a sei handicapped grandfather looking to add additional income for mmy fammily so all the cruel things written in this forum only proves how fast people can assume things. My websites are legitimate entireprises hand built and offer
real value.
Don't you mean "Clinton"? ;)
The only reason why people like this are alive in the first place is because civilization protects those who would not otherwise be able to meet the challenge of survival. Ever wonder where the people on Jerry Springer come from? Now you know. If it wasn't for civilzation people like that wouldn't live long enough to breed, let alone proliferate into an army of the genetically challenged.
In a perfect world foolishness and stupidity would be fatal past a certain point.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
At one timme i used optin mail list to promote one site. ...
...My websites are legitimate entireprises hand built and offer real value.
Oh yeah... He's one of them.
Moe: We've got to kill him!
Number One: Take it easy, Moe. Let's hear from the Stonecutter world council before we act too rashly.
Orville: Kill him.
Nicholson: Kill him.
Mr. T: Kill the fool!
Bush: I'm afraid I have to disagree with Orville, Jack, and Mr. Can't we just do something to his voice box?
See my website (see sig) for more details.
My program has no need for CPU taxing Bayesian filtering in the traditional sense--it uses simple pattern-matching against two wordlists to quickly deem an email as spam.
Restricting unapproved email senders to only alphabetic characters and 'spaces' makes it
impossible for spammers to easily hawk their wares.
These are two of the cold, brutal, logical ideas implemented in my software email filter (see sig).
I get no spam this way. The 'false positives' I do get are deemed spam but that is because the unapproved sender doesn't yet know about my email policy and/or the program that implements it.
Find me somebody who pays more than half of a $40,000 gross income in taxes, and show me his tax returns. Methinks thou art full of it.
Republicans are idiots.
That is one of the things my program does that I use. To read more about it, go here.
Unfortunately, my program downloads an processes all email to avoid deleting a 'false positive' at the server level after email header analysis. To make up for that, all spam is routed to two files and all spam attachments are clearly identified so all the spam can be perused and deleted with ease.
I can't show you his tax returns becase as you know that is private information. However, we can make best case scenarios and run 40k through the tax code.
He's married and there's no mention of kids. That sets up the dependents. He's also a building super so he probably does not have a mortgage as his housing is provided. Which the fair market value of should count as income on his tax returns but we don't know what that is so that can't be considered. Also if he's the super he's probably not disabled and since he reads e-mail he's not blind. His wife's status on these points is unknown so in the absence of knowledge we'll go with the most likely case that she's not either.
Ok he pays 8.25 percent tax on everything he buys in the form of a sales tax. That is one of the highest sales taxes in the country. He is also supposed to fill out a form and pay that sales tax on purchases made from items shipped to his home address when that tax in not collected but I doubt this actually happens.
He also pays 7.25 percent state income tax and 7.25 city income tax. Generally state and in the rare city income tax schedule one gets the same deductions as the federal income tax. So he gets his personal decution and two boxes on the dependent chart. Now the IRS lest you deduct local and state income and property taxes but since 3.6k is less than the standard deduction of 9.5k he should use that instead. Combine that with his two deductions which total 6.1k and you 15.6k. Subtract 15.6k from 40k and you get 24.4k.
The city will want 1.8k
The state will want the same 1.8k
The IRS will want 3.14k
Let's see that brings the total to 6.74k.
Not as much as I thought orriginally but the state and city combined get more out of him than the feds do. ouch. Tack on his sales tax and other hidden taxes (attached to phone service, utilities, etc) I bet he pays about a 20-25% of his income in taxes.
World Leader's post addresses the core issue that drives spam: Desparation borne out of a insatiable desire to make a quick buck.
I, on the other hand, have decided to 'take the high road' and not resort to spamming in order to promote my solution to the spam problem (see sig).
I belive I have 'invented the better mousetrap' to deal with email spam and I have, for example, limited myself to sending clearly identified small emails for my online product press release to potentially interested parties in the media at large.
If my efforts above are construed as spamming, and an (internet) ad campaign is beyond my budget, and outright spamming (or any other such unsolicited email contact) is out of the question, then what can I do to tell large numbers of other people about my product?
Please do not suggest venture capitalism as a possible solution as I would then be subject to a Wall Street 'the profit is all' mentality. That is to say I've found a real need via firsthand experience and crafted an effective solution to that need to the best of my abilities. I leave it up to the public at large to decide for themselves if that is the case.
They are greedy, and definitely won't be satisfied even if everyone on earth buy the product from them! Maybe they will send some spams to Martian people as well, like this one:
---
From: goodgirl@penislarge.earth
To: poormartian@smallpenis.mars
Want a big penis? Take a trip to Earth and find out how!
Book your ticket at penislarge.earth
---