Interview with a Spampire

Bunch2 writes "In this article at OReillynet, a 'hacker' explains why he put his superior coding skills to use by writing a spam mailer called Fahrenheit. (Hint: $$$) Turns out his little creation is also being used by criminals to 'phish' bank account information from gullible folks. The article shows how talented but morally challenged techies are becoming stooges of 'spammers, con artists, and other criminals.'"

Comments

Dark Side

[mfh]

The article shows how talented but morally challenged techies are becoming stooges of 'spammers, con artists, and other criminals.'

My thoughts are that coders can become morally challenged when you examine what we're up against today. We are up against shady corporations who lack the motivation to really give us our fair due.

Obviously I don't support the notion of the dark side. I don't have to because I'm employed by a good company who respects me and treats me right. But I wouldn't even support the dark side if I was dead broke. It's a trap that some people fall into, like the numbskull interviewed.

Coders who lack the necessary financial or social rewards in their lives sometimes choose the dark side of the force.

Coders are often the last to be told the way a system needs to be, perhaps a week before the system is due, and yet they should be the first to know. Coders are often looked at with disdain from management because of FUD. I'm really glad the company I work for respects me, but good companies are not the standard today; my company is a lone gem in an disheartening desert of coal. Sure there are other gems out there, but who knows whether a company is a gem unless you have worked there for a little while?

Luck really is the only thing that determines whether programmers/designers get to work for a gem. Bad companies are good at snowing you during HR selection processes. For example, I went on a job interview to a well known video game company on the west coast of Canada. They told me the job was for 55-60k for level design. I was elated. My wife was elated. We hoped that I could get the job. But we also discussed that I should be watching out for bad practices in the company before we uprooted and moved to the other side of Canada. When I was flown out to meet with this company, they immediately asked me if I would take 40k instead of their original bait. I told the HR guy that I was interviewing his company too, because I was trying to feel out if their company was a fit for me or not, and that his company had lost a huge chunk of trust by shaving off a potential 20k from the starting salary they had quoted to me during the two month preselection process. Yes the company can decide what to hire you for, but this really seemed like a bait and switch to me. You know I bet they do that all the time and I bet every single level designer falls for it, until they get laid off after the project they were hired to complete goes gold. It's a cheap trick and likely the start of a very unpleasant relationship so I threw the interview. I didn't get the job, and I didn't want it. Many companies are like that -- sneaky.

The standard is a company that is in it for profit, and allows the egos of management to dictate system design and project management. If managements were forced to delegate systems design to those who will be responsible for doing the actual work, we would have better systems and far fewer coders would choose the dark side.

Some of these dark side of the force programmers are fed up with managements and they have lost faith. So all ye who own companies that hire us, please prove them wrong.

Re:Dark Side

[Anonymous Coward]

But I wouldn't even support the dark side if I was dead broke. It's a trap that some people fall into, like the numbskull interviewed.

Coders who lack the necessary financial or social rewards in their lives sometimes choose the dark side of the force.

It's hard to say what you will or won't do until you're faced with the tough decission. I know I would work for a spammer - because I almost did.

Like many, I got hit by the dot-boom. I didn't bounce too badly on the initial hit. But eventually savings, unemployment, and consulting gigs ran out. I couldn't get a crap job because I was over-qualified (apparently I lack the ability to undersell myself). I was down to the wire financially. And I have a family.

A contact of mine offered me a gig. The pay wasn't great - but it looked like some steady work. And at first I was elated that my consulting work was seeing an extension. Until I found out it was with a spammer. And while I hated to do it - I agreed to meet with the client.

Luckily for me, two days later, I ran in to an old friend who had another offer. A legitimate one for a real company with real pay doing real work. I cancelled the meeting with the spammer and never looked back.

It's important to stress that I hate spam. I have problems with the morality of spammers. And I definately didn't like what I was about to do. But I was prepared to do it, none the less. Because as wrong as it was, I was prepared to be a spammer if it meant supporting my family.

Somebody is reading this and has "hypocrit" ready to go in their paste buffer. And while I deserve the criticism, that individual would be missing the point. Spamming is wrong. And just because I was willing to do it in an act of desparation doesn't make it any more right. After all, I could turn to spamming at any given time now or in the past. But unlike most spammers, I both recognize it as wrong and will not do it if given any other choice. Hopefully I'll never be looking at that choice again. I'm not keen to be a spammer.

But I know that I would.

Re:Stake through the heart

[Anonymous Coward]

Kittridge says he overlooked one key feature in Fahrenheit: copy protection. That fact, combined with his three-day, money-back guarantee, has resulted in lots of unauthorized copying and lost revenue, he says.

The dumbass assumed that spammers would pay for something they could obtain for free illegally.

Moron.

Unwitting Accomplice

[l1nuxpunk]

But now, Kittridge finds himself an unwitting accomplice in a recent email scam that attempted to separate customers of US Bancorp from their account information.

Unwitting Accomplice, eh? Well, I'm pretty sure that when you write a program designed solely for spamming, you're smart enough to realize that a huge part of spamming nowadays is phishing. But he did have a good enough reason,

"[...]it's one of the only ways a hacker can make money."

Yeah... okay...

Article misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

But with computer programming jobs scarce, the eighteen-year-old Florida software whiz has joined the spam trade.

Aww.. the poor kid can't make any money any other way, so he has to resort to underhanded methods... hang on:

Kittridge said he created Fahrenheit, which runs on Unix-based computers, in early 2003. At the time, he was working as a system administrator for Evoclix

So he already had a job.

This is bad...

[dfiguero]

I might be going to extremes but he is basically saying:

"Ok so I can't find a girlfriend so I decided to rape one!"

If he is a so called "whiz kid" why can't he get a job? I thought brilliant people would actually find original ways to prove they are better when it comes to joining the workforce.

No, you suck. No, you suck. No, you suck.

US Bank Should Defend Its Name Better?

[nathan s]

When you see people in places like Venezuela registering "secure-usbank.com," it sorta makes you wonder whether there should be stricter controls over domain registration. People would probably be less likely to trust a domain if it didn't contain the name of their bank in it.

Of course, too much control would hurt people who have legitimate reasons for using a name, such as, perhaps, "usbank-sucks.com" or some other sort of personal-opinion type of thing.

And on the flip side, it sometimes feels like maybe there's already too much control from corporations in particular, who take things like mikerowesoft way too seriously.

Still, there's a nagging thought in the back of my head that spammers in Venezuela should have a slightly more difficult time getting secure-usbank.com. Maybe US Bank should've taken a cue from Microsoft and more vigorously defended the use of their name online.

Street Cred

[booyah]

the sad thing is, this kid is 18...

in 10 years when the market is better, his code will still be looked down upon because of things like this. at my last two positions i was told part of the reason I was hired was because of my positive google check.

Personally i havent had any problems paying rent in this economy with an honest job and hard work, it happens in nearly all lines of work where there are tough times. just stick it out, keep yourself honest, and you may be better off in the future, this guy has pretty much sealed his fate to a future of gray market applications

Re:Let he who has not sinned, throw the first ston

[way2trivial]

so many responses come to mind...

so, I can pimp out my kid? or else I'll starve?

so I can become a contract assasin?

Heroin dealer?

A lawyer?

Re:Stake through the heart

[Anonymous Coward]

Buffy: Why don't I just put a stake through her heart?

Giles: She's not a vampire.

Buffy: Mm, well, you'd be surprised how many things that'll kill.

Re:Let he who has not sinned, throw the first ston

[grasshoppa]

If your passion revolves around software and the jobs have dried up, and you have to make a living somehow... you're going to do what you have to.Ah, a person of questionable ethics.

Let's make this real clear for you: You are NOT entitled to work in your chosen field. Most of us do, because we fought hard to, but you are not guaranteed shit. If I had a passion for working with animals, but I couldn't get a job as a vet, do you think it'd be ok for me to go kill kittens and make money off of it? We do have an over population problem, after all.

Sure, selling spamware is unethical. But if it's that or starving to death...1. There are jobs to be had. Maybe not in your field, but there are jobs to be had.

2. When was the last time you heard of ANYBODY starving to death in the US?

Ahem:

[Saint Aardvark]

"Hackers are having a real hard time finding work in the U.S.," says Kittridge in explaining his decision to work for spammers. "Spamming is our last resort to pay rent," he says.

Sorry, you got that word wrong. It's not pronounced "HA-kurz", it's pronounced "LY-ing SO-sho-PA-thik THEEVZ". But no worries, it's an easy mistake to make.

Re:Same old story...

[Metteyya]

Sorry guys, but I don't see a lot of talent in writing mail-sending software that's just inserting proper e-mail adress and (not always) name in appropiate positions.

Same for e-mail extracting software. Damn, it's so popular and extremely easy with all these adresses written on public forums, it must take a 101 programming course attendant to make it challenging.

Excuses, excuses...saaaad excuses.

[JasonBee]

I'm in networking and administration. I got here via an athletic career (Track and field) and several jobs that had nothing to do with what I do now. I've done everything from shoe store management to construction to general labour.

Ultimately the "job" thing is whatever puts food on the table or helps yoru local community function (coo-op farming comes to mind).

My father started his career doing systems programming for the early generation IBM mainframes that ran the (Canadian) Bank of Montreal/Montreal Trust systems in the mid 1960's. He had a staff of 18 at one point, but barely made enough money to get a mortgage. He offered to quit unless he could get a raise matching the "private" sector offerings. Even with THAT salary he couldn't afford a mortgage, nor even qualify for one. Which is funny since he was essentially a "mortgage specialist" overseeing the punchcard systems and doing actuarial forensics when things got "lost".

To make this story short (hard to do), he quit afetr accepting a job aty a new bank. The new bank cancelled the job several days before he started and having just quit his prvious job he marched in to a Canada manpower office to see what was available there and then. By later that day he was tarring house foundations for almost as much as he made in his previous job. He was promoted very soon for offering to work for less with the expectation that he could learn from the master trades people. They gave him a raise and he began a 30+ year in the building trades...a job that has since taken him from the Arctic building early-warning radar installations to Brunei building housing complexes for big oil conttractors.

The lesson I'm projecting is the point where he was wearing a three piece suit applying for a construction labour job...remember that part. The 1930's weren't even that kind to people so be thankful that at the very least you could get a job at McDonald's to pay the rent if you had to.

Life is one big transition, and if this kid is good enough he'll stay in school, or work on something else and save for the day when he lucks into a good coding job or meets a connection that can find him an employer looking for his secific talents. Rueing the fact that he can only work for people who prey on others is a very weak argument. Someone else is spending their days and money trying to undo all that work he's enabled them to do

The only advice I can offer is good luck and happy adventures. My dad doesn't regret his career change one iota by the way.

Re:Same old story...

[Superfreaker]

I was in a similar situation as yourself as far as money and job scarcity. But I had to do something much worse than build a simple Adult web site...

I had to deploy Microsoft Windows Media DRM for one of the major record labels.

I still shudder to think of those days. I fondly look back on my days as a Las Vegas Crack Whore in comparison.