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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, Spim, Spim, Spim, ...
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
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?
why do we have to make up nicknames for everything? can't we just call it instant messenger spam? jeez.
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.
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!"
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...