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Gates 'World's Most-Spammed Man'

acehole writes "Bill Gates receives up to four million emails a day, and is probably the most spammed person in the world. But unlike ordinary users, he has an entire department to filter unsolicited " At least now I know why he never replies to my requests for an interview ;)

51 of 424 comments (clear)

  1. Why not release it? by FortKnox · · Score: 5, Funny

    Since he DOES have an entire department creating software to filter out spam, why doesn't he RELEASE said filters and help the rest of the world out? Hell, its MS... why not at least sell it and try to make that department profitable??

    --
    Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
    1. Re:Why not release it? by RazzleFrog · · Score: 5, Funny

      Probably because it is based on something open-source like SpamAssassin.

    2. Re:Why not release it? by daves · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Since he DOES have an entire department creating software to filter out spam, why doesn't he RELEASE said filters and help the rest of the world out?

      In his case, I suspect the filters are human.

      --
      People who disagree with you are not automatically evil, greedy, or stupid.
    3. Re:Why not release it? by frugle · · Score: 5, Funny

      Of over 30 billion e-mails being sent daily, some experts estimate that over 40% is Spam.

      Google informs me that 40% of 30 billion = 12 000 000 000

      and (4 000 000 / 12 000 000 000) * 100 = 0.0333333333

      That gives Bill Gates a measly 0.03% Market share of Spam. I think we should help Microsoft grow by forwarding all our unwanted spam to Bill.

      --
      http://www.frugle.co.uk/
    4. Re:Why not release it? by Pad-Lok · · Score: 4, Funny

      Maybe they think Bill needs viagra or he wants to help some nigerian millionare to transfer some funds?

      --

      -- Sauer
    5. Re:Why not release it? by Otter · · Score: 5, Insightful
      More likely, this was an off-the-cuff semi-joke from Ballmer that everyone here is reading way too closely. I very much doubt that there is in actuality either a "department" or "special technology" handling Gates' email. Ballmer is saying "Yes, we know this is a problem. Given the mail we get, we could hardly not know."

      By the way, note that the top three stories in the Australian news are "Wallaby escapes police action", "Bat swoops to bite woman" and "Passengers save bus from plunge". Gotta love Australia!

    6. Re:Why not release it? by Singletoned · · Score: 5, Funny

      He should get a GMail account and scrap the department.

    7. Re:Why not release it? by Jason+R · · Score: 4, Informative

      I think it's 46 days actually.
      4e6 / 60 = 66.6e3 mins
      66e3 mins / 60 = 1111hrs
      1111hrs / 24 = 46 days.

    8. Re:Why not release it? by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 4, Funny

      In his case, I suspect the filters are human.

      Or possibly Morlocks.

    9. Re:Why not release it? by Elminst · · Score: 4, Funny

      Nah... they're obviously Mentats.
      They have a whole office chanting, "It is by will alone that I set my mind in motion."

      --
      No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
    10. Re:Why not release it? by joto · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Well, in a manner of speaking the human species is open-source.

      Yeah, in the same manner of speaking that Microsoft Word is open source. Let's face it, raw DNA is not the preferred way to modify the human genome. Neither is a binary executable the preferred way to modify a word-processor.

      It's just that reading the source (i.e. the DNA) is something we haven't quite mastered yet.

      Ok, that's a possibility too. But I can't really see any plausible reason for nature to make it easy for us to decode DNA. It's meant for execution by cells, not for easy comprehension (or modification) by genetic engineers.

      And just like open-source software the human being is constantly being developed upon, albeit so very slowly that we cannot see it for ourselves. But each new baby that's born (the nightlies, hahaha) is a little different than the previous generation. Sometimes this backfires on the whole community *cough*georgewbush*cough* but in general there's improvement.

      Actually, there's no good reason to believe human evolution is for the better. Ever since humans discovered farming, we no longer need to be intelligent enough to outwit our prey, or strong enough to kill it, or fast enough to catch it, or having a good enough immune system to eat rotten food, or being able to care for our children in this environment for umpteen years, etc...

      In fact, in modern society it's even worse. Due to the fact that the state will take care of you and your children even if you can't do it yourself, the only skill you need to create surviving offspring is to have low enough demands to get laid by someone (no matter how stupid, annoying, ugly, etc), and to be stupid enough not to wear condoms.

      Humans have probably "devolved" ever since the neanderthals, and as the society gets "better", the individuals detoriate at an ever increasing rate.

      An interesting side-note (just to be politically correct), is that those who advocate racial purity (e.g. nazis), seems to prefer those who have lived in modern society for the longest period of time. They probably should prefer bushmen instead.

  2. I think I see the problem by MoxCamel · · Score: 5, Funny
    At least now I know why he never replies to my requests for an interview ;)

    Here's a tip:

    When asking for an interview, do not also offer to enlarge his penis. Mox

    1. Re:I think I see the problem by peterprior · · Score: 5, Funny

      Tip? Penis? Reminds me of the good old leper joke.

      What did the leper say to the prostitute?
      You can keep the tip..

    2. Re:I think I see the problem by david.given · · Score: 4, Funny
      Reminds me of the good old leper joke.

      This is obviously some strange new meaning of the word 'good' that I wasn't previously aware of...

    3. Re:I think I see the problem by Cougem · · Score: 3, Funny

      Reminds me of the good old leper joke.

      No no no, that's the mediocre leper joke. The funny leper joke is:

      What's green and melts in the mouth?
      A leper's penis.

  3. Email Required by kb0pin · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm comforted to know that when I use billgates@microsoft.com when signing up for something stupid, or for those sites that require an email for download, he actually gets those emails.

    1. Re:Email Required by emc · · Score: 5, Informative

      it's billg@microsoft.com

    2. Re:Email Required by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Parent lies.

      That fucker still hasn't coughed up the $2 per mail I forwarded for Microsoft's tracking experiment a few years ago.

    3. Re:Email Required by peterprior · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Ooops.. sounds like postmaster@microsoft.com might get even more :)

    4. Re:Email Required by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Funny

      anyone know Ballmer's?

      developersdevelopersdevelopersdevelopers@microsoft .com

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    5. Re:Email Required by mattbelcher · · Score: 5, Funny

      Back when I was still in school, a MS recruiter came and gave a talk to our ACM. His name was also Bill Gates. His email address was bgates@microsoft.com, which caused all sorts of confusion. Apparently, he would get invitations to dinners and speaking engagements.

      --

      Shockwave Flash movies are the greatest thing to happen to non-sequitur humor since Japan.

  4. Only 4 million per day? by lukateake · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hmmm, I would have thought more considering all the unpatched Windows boxes out there.

  5. XP OEM CH33p!\@ by RyanP · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wonder if he gets spam about discounted copies of XP?

  6. Well.. by Savant-Ben · · Score: 3, Funny

    I can't say that it breaks my heart.. Maybe Bill should get a gmail account. what is his email anyway, I heard it was billg@microsoft.com..

    1. Re:Well.. by PetoskeyGuy · · Score: 4, Funny

      You shouldn't put his email address online! Spammers have bots that can harvest links like billg@microsoft.com. so make sure you never do that.

  7. My earlier (rejected) story submission... by GillBates0 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Bill Gates world's most spammed man
    CNN and Rediff are reporting that Bill Gates gets 4 million e-mails a day, making him world's most spammed person. However, unlike lesser mortals, he has an entire department dedicated to filter unsolicited e-mails and only a few of them actually get through to his inbox, said Steve Ballmer at a Microsoft Research event in Singapore. Other sources are also reporting the breaking news story.

    --
    An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
    1. Re:My earlier (rejected) story submission... by Peyna · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The "entire department" thing sounded quite a bit like an exageration, especially since he said, "Literally, there's a whole department, almost, that takes care of it."

      In other words, "We pay two kids $5/hr to sit in the basement and sift through this crap."

      Or more likely, "We've got a couple network admins that implemented SpamAssassin for us."

      --
      What?
  8. Thank you spammers by digitalgimpus · · Score: 5, Funny

    For *once* I have to thank spammers for a job well done.

    Now any chance on taking on SCO?

  9. Exchange by peterprior · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hmm.. 4,000,000 / 86400 (seconds in a day) = ~ 46 emails a second.

    I didn't even know exchange could handle that amount of traffic. And thats just for him..

    1. Re:Exchange by Tassach · · Score: 4, Funny

      Ha. He probably secretly uses Postfix on FreeBSD :-)

      --
      Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
  10. Huh... by z1d0v · · Score: 3, Funny

    Aren't these just angry clients? :P

  11. most spammed man by Washizu · · Score: 5, Funny

    What does he expect when he keeps sending out those email tracking programs?

    --
    OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
  12. Test suite... by gmuslera · · Score: 4, Funny

    he could try to forward his daily mail to a gmail account to really test spam/virus protection, label classification and how much space is 1gb for that kind of traffic. Even if it works, a good promotion of whatever future service of hotmail is "it performed better than gmail with my mail".

    1. Re:Test suite... by worst_name_ever · · Score: 5, Interesting
      he could try to forward his daily mail to a gmail account to really test spam/virus protection

      Right, and he could also forward his daily mail to the DOJ, so there aren't any more losses of that pesky incriminating evidence...

      --

      In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
  13. Re:Umm.. by emc · · Score: 3, Funny

    I thought president@whitehouse.gov was just an alias to vice-president@whitehouse.gov :)

    Anyone else having a problem imagining Little Bush actually using a computer?

  14. Story a weak troll. by Saeed+al-Sahaf · · Score: 4, Informative
    Nowhere does it say Bill Gates has an entire department to filter his email (though I don't see why he should not, considering he can afford it). It says they have "special technology", and "almost" a whole department (which probably means two or three secretarial types vetting the junk that doesn't get filtered with the "special technology".

    And to all of this, I say "big deal". I would say "nice M$ troll" but it's actually kind of weak.

    --
    "Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
  15. Hate Mail by datadriven · · Score: 4, Funny

    They must have hate mail confused with spam.

  16. News for Nerds indeed. by lottameez · · Score: 5, Funny

    I know I was wondering just this morning, just after breakfast, how much spam Bill Gates was getting. "Self", I said, "How many unsolicited emails does Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, get, do you think? Two hundred fifty thousand? A million? What DO you think?"

    I had no answer.
    Until now.

    Thank you slashdot.

    --
    Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
  17. It's not a question of spam by yog · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Undoubtedly Gates is just like thousands of other executives; he has assistants who read his email for him. An executive of a company as large and powerful as Microsoft hardly would have time to read and respond to the typical 300-500 emails one gets in a day, let alone the thousands or millions he gets from being famous. I feel sorry for the guy, in a way; he used to be a computer geek just like so many others and he's cut off from part of the internet just by virtue of his success.

    It does sound like an excellent opportunity to leverage some of that computer brainpower they have and create some first class spam filtering technology. With a test base of 4 million spams a day they have all the sample data they will ever need.

    --
    it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
    1. Re:It's not a question of spam by uglyduckling · · Score: 3, Insightful
      I feel sorry for the guy, in a way; he used to be a computer geek just like so many others and he's cut off from part of the internet just by virtue of his success.

      He'll have any number of different e-mail addresses for different purposes, inluding ones that only friends and family know - I'm sure he's not shut off from a part of the internet just because every idiot puts billg@microsoft.com in forms when they don't want to give their own address.

  18. Your Job Sucks When by nuintari · · Score: 4, Funny

    Your job must suck ass if it, in its entirety, involves sorting through another man's porn/real estate/penis enlargment/cum filled panty spam.

    I can see it now, job description:

    Must be able to sort legitimate email from mass unsolicited email. Ability to tolerate apes a plus, as you will be working a team of them. In fact, your department manager is a chimp. Requires opposable thumbs and general image recognition abilities.

    --

    --Nuintari

    slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.

  19. 640 emails.... by underworld · · Score: 5, Funny

    ....ought to be about enough for anyone. ;-)

  20. Another incomplete article by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Like most "news" today, the article says Bill Gates is probably the most spammed person in the world - but gives no frame of reference.

    For example, how much spam does the Whitehouse get?

    Do they cite the number of spams the average person gets? There is nothing other than the obvious in that article.

    The article might have well said it is probably cold in Antartica too.

    --
    This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
  21. Gates: use Mozilla Thunderbird's Junk Mail feature by otisg · · Score: 4, Funny

    Somebody should tell him to install Thunderbird.

    --
    Simpy
  22. Unfiltered by Flamesplash · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's rumoured that if you email billg from inside MS it goes directly to him, the idea being if you're stupid enough to send him a stupid email directly then maybe you should be fired for wasting his time.

    That said, after going to an intern dinner at his house I wrote him afterwards asking a question I was sure no one else care about if I acked it at the dinner, I got a relatively quick if not short response.

    Another intern friend of mine emailed him asking if he wanted to go to lunch sometime and never got a response.

    I've also had some other funny run ins with Bill Gates while interning at MS that I wrote up a while ago in my journal

    --
    "Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
    1. Re:Unfiltered by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I used to work for Oracle. I once sent Larry a rather critical email. I didn;t get sacked or a reply, either, so I don't know if he got it.

      Oracle internal email system used to be so crap that it got confused if people had the same first name and sent them each others email. I shared the same first name with the VP of Consulting for EMEA (I was working in Hamburg at the time). I once received an email from Big Man's secretary to him asking if he wanted to confirm his meeting with some IBM execs. I replied to her saying that she should tell IBM to Bugger Off and to get on the phone to the head of consulting in Hamburg and to give that Phil guy a large pay rise.

      A couple of days later my boss called me into his office and told me "Please don't do that again"

  23. Condolences Card by mysticgoat · · Score: 3, Funny

    This is so sad.

    I thought I'd send Mr William Gates a brief cheer-up note:

    Dear Bill,
    I just heard that you are the most spammed person in the world and I thought I'd send you a cheering-up note. Since that must really suck.

    I mean I know he's rich and everything, but even rich guys must get the blues sometimes over things like spam. I'm sure he'd appreciate it if a few of us sent him our condolences.

    Does anybody know his address?

  24. Back in 1994... by dapyx · · Score: 4, Informative
    --
    I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and dial again.
  25. It's not billg@microsoft.com by robnauta · · Score: 4, Interesting

    See this article, billg@microsoft.com did exist and in 1993 you could email him and get a reply, but even back then it wasn't Bill Gates.

  26. Or ... This is NOT a joke! by gosand · · Score: 3, Funny
    I wonder if he gets spam about discounted copies of XP?

    I wonder if he gets any of those "Bill Gates will send you money" chain letters.

    --

    My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.

  27. Re:Enlarge your penis with Gillette Venus by nadadogg · · Score: 3, Funny

    Good plan, but whatever you do, do NOT use Nair. It began as a semi-pleasant tingle, then it felt like the fires of hell combined with the ice of the south pole, all fighting for delivering the maximum amount of pain to my scrotum.

    --
    i use linux and windows oh god how can i have an opinion