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AOL Files First Spim Lawsuit
Iphtashu Fitz writes "CNet News is reporting that 4 major internet providers - AOL, Earthlink, Microsoft, and Yahoo, have filed another bunch of lawsuits against spammers. What makes this round interesting is that AOL has filed the first ever lawsuit against against spam that targets Instant Messenger clients, or spim. So far spim has only affected relatively small numbers of users but the problem is growing, which is why AOL is targeting it now."
Is that Italian Spam?
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
It's kind of a cool MIPS emulator, but maybe AOL just couldn't figure out how to work it. :-)
~ I am logged on, therefore I am.
Is Spim the low fat version of Spam?
When *@aol.com first started appearing on newsgroups I thought AOL would just be a minor nuisance, like a hangnail. Then I got *@aol.com in my email box like there was no tomorrow, and nuisance turned into genuine pain in the neck, like a cancer.
... and I can't help but think that they've affected the genre tenor of the Internet as a whole in the process.
But slowly and surely, AOL has done much to both transform themselves and the user populace into better Internet citizens
So now that they're taking a pre-emptive strike against spim, I have to applaud.
All I have to say is THANK GOD. ICQ was destroyed by spam for many people, and AIM is heading down that path.
the real problem lies in the fact that spammers have an incentive to send spam. if nobody would buy penis enlargement pills, accept online mortgages, and order medicine online, we wouldn't have this problem.
one way to combat this problem is look from the other end, we should educate the public and discourage people from doing any business with online sellers. consumers should be suspicious when such emails appear. i personally think this would help reduce spam
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
spim is instant messenger spam for anyone confused.
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
Wow, I was totally clueless to the worldwide spim problem. The large corporations must have been putting so much span on this story that we weren't even aware of the real truth!
Technology industry pioneer (Genuity, mailorder.com) Rodney Joffe talked about filing a class-action suit against an SMS spammer way back in 2001 article 1 | article 2 -- search for "Joffe". Very similar.
I don't know whether he ever actually filed papers, or what became of it. Anyone?
Tom Geller
Spim, Spim, Spim, Spim, ...
My God it's called spell checker run it every now and then!!!!
"If it has screws, it was meant to be taken apart."
OK, you didn't read the article, but it's described in the post. I know it might be too much to expect people to RTFA before responding, but at least read the post!
Here's a screenie for when they fix it:
Clicky!
If you had bothered to read the blurb, you probably wouldn't have made a fool of yourself like this...
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Hard enough digging through the signal to noise ratio in here with people not reading the article before uttering their pronouncements, but fully 75% of the comments in here reveal people didn't even read the article header. Sad.
junk? How SPAM/SPIM/SPEM/SPOM/SPUM (and sometimes SPYM) much different than them sending millions of AOL CDs in the mail every year?
This is AOL's stats, so far today - and it's only 3PM here on the west coast.
SPAM Blocked Today:
846,170,968
This month:
33,661,697,872
Instant Messages
Sent Today:
1,151,202,297
Members Online Now:
2,410,612
You can watch the numbers on http://www.corp.aol.com/
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
imSpam, spam i am
i'd like to sell you
c1al1s and a s3x cam
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
fools, r-t-f-a.
I've never seen more people correcting a mistake that never happened here on
yes, an idiot. read the post again. It describes why it's spim and not spam. Geesh, some people.
You don't even need to RTFA, just RTF-Summary, fer-the-luv-o-pete...
SPIM = IM (Instant Messaging) SPAM.
It's not a typo... You just can't/won't read any more than the friggin' article title before commenting.
Filthy savages...
if any of you read the full artical you would note that are the bottom of the artical it defined spim as "spam that targets Instant Messenger clients" not a spelling error, and he didnt make a mistake, stop griping.
what about the damn spam on /. submissions
i'm seeing the same crap that still leaks through with the mail
Do not look into LASER with remaining eye!
Idiots.
Anyone who accuses the authors of misspelling spam is officially a fool and deserves to lose their geek license. Spim is a word, people. Look it up.
Don't you hate meta-sigs?
By which they mean anyone who ever goes into an AIM chatroom. It's so bad almost noone uses them anymore, even with pyboticide
Stip siying spim!
vicious, untreated political sewage...niche entertainment for the spiritually unattractive...worshipless pap
read the motherfucking article ... at least the blurb ....
why do we have to make up nicknames for everything? can't we just call it instant messenger spam? jeez.
They are a lot closer together if you're using a Dvorak layout. And yes, the parent should have at least RTFB (read the fucking blurb).
Another gratuitious buzzword. Utterly pointless.
I havnt used aim chats in ~3years, but I still get spammed. I wouldnt be suprised if they didnt harvest them off profile sites, messageboards with a contact button, or worst of all, those subprofile links that log your screenname (for the host company to sell later, or if they list it on the subpro like most do, to be harvested by bots)
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
What makes this round interesting is that AOL has filed the first ever lawsuit against against spam
Okay - against against spam? Are we in Newspeak now where it is double-plus ungood instant messenging? Is it for spamming now?
It's AOL, so I'm not sure which side of the marketing wagon I should be riding on.
This space for rent.
Slashdotters complain or make jokes that SPIM is a typo, without even reading the summary:
What makes this round interesting is that AOL has filed the first ever lawsuit against against spam that targets Instant Messenger clients, or spim.
Of course, they are all over looking "against against."
AC
But can't you just set your IM profile so that only people on your buddy list can contact you? ? ? ? I wouldn't have it set any other way. If they want my IM they can email and ask.
That is hilarious.
AOL will not sue themselves. After all AIM is loaded with their own unwanted advertising and popups.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
That is, unless the rest of us get caught up in collateral damage resulting from reduced privacy or cloggage of internet.
..ehr, wait..
Point:
So you're telling me that with all the access control features in IM - warnings and blocks in AOL, and the user acceptance feature in Yahoo - there are not effective user level tools for combating spim already?
I used to receive spim on ICQ all the time, to the point where I had to get a new address and stop using my old one on public lists. That was bad.
The fact that I have received no spim to date on any other medium testifies to the fact this would be a hard adoption.
Counterpoint:
It would suck to be receiving IMs for Viagra while I am trying to type an email. The threat of that alone should be justification for absolute prejudice in dealing with these spim dudes.
M
Free Flat Screen HERE!
[searches for -1 'f-ing moron' mod]
Crap. Oh well. I guess I'll just have to go with something slightly less descriptive.
The way I see it, spam in email causes such a problem because SMTP is an antequated technology that has very little security. (I know SPA, yada yada yada...) However, SPIM *shouldn't* be a problem. Seems like AOL could implement a whilelisting system. Since they're a propriety network, there should be a solution they could implement. Be it more strict checking on account creation or something like that. And since the network is proprietary, they wouldn't have to get buy-in from any other company for the solution they implement. I do think that they should keep pushing the lawsuit, but seems like they could do more on the technology end too. Just my $0.02
one way to combat this problem is look from the other end, we should educate the public and discourage people from doing any business with online sellers.
I wouldn't want to discourage online business - after all, that is proving to be a more and more common business practice. What I would like to teach people is the difference between going to a serious store like e.g. amazon.com, bhphotovideo.com or similar that you know from real life, brand or web ad, compared to spamvertized products.
Getting spam is the online equivalent of a door-to-door salesman, with a virtual suitcase which happens to be a website. You're not going to them, they're coming to you. They waste your time, sell crap, can't be reached for complaints, there's no store, no refund, no nothing. There's never a reason to do business with someone that stuffs your mailbox/im client with ads. That must be the message. If you want something, go out on the net and get it. Those who contact you are the bottom of the barrel. Go on google, sites regarding the topic, consumer reviews, something, anything, search and find someone better.
Actually, this won't cure the problem - stupidity or bad deals. That can't be done. But it would greatly reduce the crap flowing in, if you know better than to go out looking, you won't have to deal with it.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It is on a Dvorak keyboard.
Now who's the fool.
It's redundant because it's in both the post and the article. No matter how fast you typed your reply, you didn't beat either one of them. Nice spam in your sig too.
Man: Well, what've you got? ...spim spim spim egg and spim; spim spim spim spim spim spim baked beans spim spim spim... ...or Lobster Thermidor a Crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spim.
Waitress: Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spim; egg bacon and spim; egg bacon sausage and spim; spim bacon sausage and spim; spim egg spim spim bacon and spim; spim sausage spim spim bacon spim tomato and spim;
Vikings: spim spim spim spim...
Waitress:
Vikings: spim! Lovely spim! Lovely spim!
Waitress:
Yes, but this is something different -- You check someones profile and theres a link that says, for example, "Click here to see my subprofile!", and is a link to some random subprofile website that ends in ?username=%N which aim turns into your screenname, where your = the person clicking the link.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
Free Flat Screen HERE!
Nah, it's the Atkins friendly version ;)
Now THAT'S funny!
Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'.
These people deserve to be sued, they force spam down your throat even if you have paid for the software. Also waste precious bandwith automatically downloading crap:
"Steam, Valve's new content delivery program, is the only program you will need in order to play Counter-Strike and any Valve game available. Steam will automatically install and keep all of your favorite Valve games up to date. So what are you waiting for? Grab Steam and start playing Counter-Strike!"
ARTHUR: Old crone! [rewr!][music stops] Is there anywhere in this town where we could buy a shrubbery?[dramatic chord]
OLD CRONE: Who sent you?
ARTHUR: The Corporations Who Say 'Spim'.
[...]
ARTHUR: Spim!
CRONE:[cough]
BEDEVERE: Spam!
ARTHUR: No, no, no, no, i--
BEDEVERE: Spam!
ARTHUR: No, it's not that. It's 'Spim'.
BEDEVERE: Spam!
ARTHUR: No, no. 'Spim'. You're not doing it properly. No.
BEDEVERE: Spim!
ARTHUR and BEDEVERE: Spim!
ARTHUR: That's it. That's it. You've got it.
[...]
ROGER THE SHRUBBER: Are you saying 'Spim' to that old woman?
ARTHUR: Erm,... yes.
ROGER: Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say 'spim' at will to old ladies. There is a pestilence upon this land. Nothing is sacred. Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Ha, the irony!
This'll probably get me modded down, but I was once asked to create a spim Perl script for somebody (for money) and here's the source:
/; $key =~ tr/+/ /; /; $value =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C",g ; .= ", $value";e ep 1;
#!usr/bin/perl
if ($ENV{'REQUEST_METHOD'} eq 'GET')
{
@pairs = split(/&/, $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'});
}
elsif ($ENV{'REQUEST_METHOD'} eq 'POST')
{
read (STDIN, $buffer, $ENV{'CONTENT_LENGTH'});
@pairs = split(/&/, $buffer);
if ($ENV{'QUERY_STRING'})
{
@getpairs = split(/&/, $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'});
push(@pairs,@getpairs);
}
}
else
{
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
print "Use the POST or GET methods."; }
foreach $pair (@pairs) { ($key, $value) = split (/=/, $pair);
$key =~ tr/+/
$key =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C", hex($1))/eg;
$value =~ tr/+/
hex($1))/e
$value =~ s///g; if ($formdata{$key}) { $formdata{$key}
}
else { $formdata{$key} = $value; } } 1;
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
print "Sent message from $formdata{'sendername'}, to
$formdata{'recipient'}!";
use lib '.';
use Net::AIM;
$aim = new Net::AIM;
$conn = $aim->newconn (Screenname => $formdata{'sendername'},
Password => $formdata{'password'});
foreach my $i (0..4) {
$aim->do_one_loop || last;
sleep 1;
}
$aim->send_im ( $formdata{'recipient'},$formdata{'message'});
sl
print "";
It takes the following variables:
$sendername, $password (for AOL login), $recipient and $message by either POST or GET.
I kinda regret doing it now but it paid the rent at the time...
Of course not! It's the low-carb version!
Best. Webhost. Ever. Dreamhost.
It's answered in the summary:
"against against spam that targets Instant Messenger clients, or spim"
There you go, problem solved.
And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
You would think AOL would rather it be called it SPAIM.
Nothing like Brand recognition when your talking about Spam.
Oh wait... Hormel's already got that one cornered.
Heil Sig! -Rob
Next time a new word like "spim" is introduced, don't put quotations around it. That way it's easier for the moderators to mod down 20 people who commented without reading the fucking article.
It's just saves us all time so the rest of us don't have to read comments by these people.
Why do we need "spam"? Can't we just call it "unsolicited email" and "unsolicited instant messages"?
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
one way to combat this problem is look from the other end, we should educate the public and discourage people from doing any business with online sellers.
This sort of educational can prevent rational adults being taken in by spam, but what about the rest of the customers? What about naive teenagers, non-computer savvy old people, the mentally handicapped, the insane, people from a non-English speaking background who may have trouble distinguishing well-written spam from legit email, people with a low IQ etc?
Con artists have been around for a lot longer than the internet, and there's never been a shortage of suckers. If we're going to beat spam, I suspect the solution will be technological for the most part.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
Or to be more precise, "unsolicited electronic mail".
But I see that you still have not responded to the accusation of "Free Flat Screen HERE!" SPAM in your sig.
Spammers make money spamming, regardless of outcome. They just have to convince someone to pay them to spam.
Look at MLMs (Amway), they don't work either, and they don't go away. Spam is exactly the same, it runs on false hope.
You won't kill spam just by not responding.
Been using AIM for around six years now, and I've been on Spim lists about a dozen times. My blocklist is around 340 names long. I don't put my aim handle on boards anymore because it only happens when I've done that in the past. The fact we have to be so secretive with our contact information is mildly irritating sometimes. =/ Glad to see it's being taken care of... but not by lawsuit. I'd much prefer a law that could take care of it, and a more effective warning system in addition... rather than more lawsuits. Perhaps one that targetted an IP so the bots couldn't just switch names and spim more.
AOL has a spam folder but nobody ever checks it. This has become a problem because on two separate occasions I have sent online birthday cards that went straight to the spam box. Then I ended up with a couple angry friends that figured I forgot about them. AOL needs to learn that @hallmark.com DOES NOT equal spam.
...not that the 99% of the spamers lose money, i suspect most of them make money. They charge a company to spam for them, profit for the service of spaming. What you mean is that you think it only increases the buisness of 1% of the people that use spam to advertise.
This is just a theory.
Linux Works
Good point. I am not sure why those sigs bother me but they do. They are disingenuous at best. If you think about what you have to do get a "Free" whatever, it's not free. You have to annoy the hell out of five to eight people who may, unwittingly, find themselves getting charged every month for whatever they signed up for. The typical pitch is that you can cancel before you get billed but now these folks make you call an 800# to cancel and they often just don't so you get billed forever on a monthly basis. Yuck. >> >>
I was getting occasion spim, but it bothered me enough to setup my AIM as a whitelist of just people i knew could contact me...anybody else? how often are all of you talking to strangers on AIM?
It's always a hand full of people that make things more difficult for the rest of us. AOL incorporated image verification in their account creation process, which cut the amount of spammers down tremendously. Why don't they incorporate it in every initial IM? This way a user has to pass the image verification to send an instant message, but the person on the other end doesn't and both will be able to talk freely, until the IM window is closed. Something a bot obviously can't do.
Next Fox and Bill O'Reilly will be suing them for breaching their "No Spim Zone" Trademark...
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Well, still the original poster since it wasn't an issue of keyboard layout. Also, 'A' and 'I' on a Dvorak keyboard still have 3 keys between them.
Spim is patented software by GNAA.
This may work sometimes but often the source of spam/spim is from outside of the US. What are they going to do then. Put in filters to block all international traffic because its impossible to sue.
Perhapse we will get lobby.aol.com as a US lobby group with an emphasis on porting American Antispam/antispim laws to other countries.
The writeup clearly says "spam that targets Instant Messenger clients, or spim". If someone reads that and still thinks it is a typo then they are a fucking idiot. Like you.
Oh and for fucks sake, will you actually put your pyramiad scam link in your fucking signature like every normal person?
I've had the same AIM nick for 5 years now and the same ICQ uin for even longer (it's 6 digits but I can't remeber what year I got it) and I've never once gotten an IM spam. How you might ask? I have all my IM programs set to never accept messages from people not on my list. Easy! Real people ask to be added, and I never see spam. Maybe this is a good plan for email?
I suspect that if the people on AOL tried another service, they'd happily switch, price being lower and all that, but as it is, they never get the chance.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
I think AOL is doing the right thing and tackling the issue before it gets out of hand. Spam is already spreading like crazy. I sure wouldn't want to get Spims too.
Subzerorz
More Articles
And here I was thinking AOL was the biggest commercial supporter of spam. I guess they finally started to form a clue in their tiny little minds?
(A)bort, (R)etry, (I)gnore?_
What is SPIM anyways? Spelling Problems of Immature Moderator's (SPIM)?
At least that is a lot more than you can do to some spammer working out of their trailer in central Arkansas and relaying their spam through a Korean proxy.
Directory of IP Based Blacklists
I found this site rather by accident, I'm glad I did.
If the proxy list there is reasonably accurate, one could block a good deal of proxied email spam.
I kinda regret doing it now but it paid the rent at the time...
This is a possible antidote to unchecked capitalism which has lead to greed and inflation which led this programmer to write a questionable piece of software in order to keep a roof over his head.
Perhaps if he were in a financially better position at the time, he would have passed this project by.
When money is more important than people you get all sorts of societal ills. I haven't seen any real lasting good come of the unchecked preoccupation with wealth--there is always a downside no matter how small or insignificant.
That is the CAPTCHA method of doing things which help to an extent.
The thing is, the spammers, in league with pornographers have circumvented this approach. I don't have the Slashdot link handy for this but I remember reading about that process here. Basically an elaborate software 'network' is set up so that all the following can occur all in real time.
1) Spammer signs up for a throwaway email account and encounter's a CAPTCHA image during the account creation process.
2) The image is delivered in real time to a visitor of a porn site ala 'DECODE THIS PIC TO GET YOUR FREE 1-DAY PASS TO HOT XXX ACTION NOW!!!!'
3) The image is decoded, the porn site visitor gets access to their porn and the decode results are fed back to the email account signup site.
4) If correct, the spammer has a new throwaway account to spam from.
I should add that steps 3 and 4 are simplified for clarity. In real life, I'd expect the pornospammers to give the CAPTCHA response back to the email site first and if successful THEN give access to the pornosurfer as a reward for decoding the image.
Since the spammers can't decode these CAPTCHA images in bulk in a reasonable amount of time, why not distribute the workload like they do for SETI@home, Folding@home, and the GIMPS project?
At the way things are going, the day may come where you have to do just about everything account-related online now in an offline fashion via mail, phone, fax, or in person somewhere just to cut down on all the spam and whatnot.
Shut up, you subhuman spamming garbage.