Vioxx Replaces Porn as Spam King

An anonymous reader noted that CNN is running a story crowning vioxx the new king of spam, upsetting poor old fashioned pornography. Of course, for me all my spam seems to be about rolexes.

Comments

Same old spam

[teiresias]

vioxx. pr0n. same thing. it's all about relieving a pain in your muscles.

course if you have pain in your muscles from pr0n you're uhhh doing it wrong.

Re:Same old spam

[Anonymous Coward]

if you have pain in your muscles from pr0n you're uhhh doing it wrong.
The result of that is far from doing it wrong =)

Re:Same old spam

[KinkifyTheNation]

Oh yeah, almost there baby. Now...

Beat me with this club!

Re:Same old spam

[Eric Giguere]

Funny, I wrote about this at the beginning of October, but apparently I got the prediction wrong. Mind you, I still say that Vioxx is like Prozac for lawyers.

Eric

Re:Same old spam

[infochuck]

course if you have pain in your muscles from pr0n you're uhhh doing it wrong.

Or just too often...

Why, you ask?

[exhilaration]

If you're wondering why people would still want Vioxx, it's only dangerous if you a pre-existing cardiac condition. So if you're a healthy 20-something with a bad knee, you're probably really pissed that Vioxx got taken off the market.

Re:Why, you ask?

[MEGAMAID]

"a healthy 20-something"

few of the slashdot crowd, including me. But that knee I can relate to.

Re:Why, you ask?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most pain syndromes are psychosomatic

Vioxx is a useless drug in most cases just like all other NSAID's.

Re:Why, you ask?

[Tackhead]

> If you're wondering why people would still want Vioxx, it's only dangerous if you a pre-existing cardiac condition. So if you're a healthy 20-something with a bad knee, you're probably really pissed that Vioxx got taken off the market.

Who cares. All I want to see is spammers being sued into oblivion by the surviving relatives 80-year-olds with heart conditions click "buy" and subsequently kick off.

We've got enough law enforcement resources to go after 12-year olds who download Titney's Pears albums. Why the fuck can't we have someone go after these "pharmacies" who dispense prescription medications without a license?

The laws against illegal dispensation of prescription medicine aren't unenforceable like the War On Drugs Paid For By Handing Cash To That Dude On The Corner. These are non-anonymous transactions performed with credit cards and shipped by non-anonymous shippers, and often shipped across national borders over which law enforcement has a legal right to inspect packages for contraband.

Re:Why, you ask?

[nfgaida]

It's all about who has the bigger lobby. The *AA or the relatives of 80-year-olds who have kicked off.

Re:Why, you ask?

[Anonymous Coward]

Vioxx is a nasty drug. I took it for a while. Yes, it was extremely effective, but after 1,5 months I suddenly experienced sharp pangs of pain (this was while Vioxx was killing every sign of the original pain) so I was very worried and stopped taking the pills right away. When the effect of the pills wore off so did the sharp pain. After a couple of days it felt like I was coming back out from a coma. I could literally not remember anything from the last 1,5 month. I suddenly had a LOT of reading to do. While taking the pills I thought I was just tired and had too little energy, but once I stopped.. man. What a difference. Vioxx is dangerous AND scary.

Re:Why, you ask?

[Desert Raven]

Ah yes, read one article, and suddenly an expert is born. And some other person, who probably didn't read the article, modded it as interesting.

Yes, in many cases, pain relievers are not necessary, the pain can be relieved through other means. However, this does not make the drug "useless", nor does it actually have any bearing on whether it works or not. Remember that in trials, these drugs are most often compared against placebos, and had better results. So the truth is, they do work.

And speaking as someone who lives with a person who is in pain 24/7 from degenerative arthritis, I'm glad they're out there. The problems with Vioxx are very unfortunate. It filled a need for a non-narcotic painkiller that was not so harsh on the GI tract. Hopefully, someone will figure out how to develop a version without the cardiac effects.

Re:Why, you ask?

[extra the woos]

If you were in pain why would you want some worthless expensive drug that only works for a couple things. One that's been proven to cause health problems!!! Just get vicodin it's like $10 a bottle with a prescription and the only thing bad for you in it is tylenol, hydrocodone is non-toxic.. so just don't drink.

Re:Why, you ask?

[budgenator]

You have made a serious error in not seeing assumptions made by the articles authors, my Anonymous Troll and that is that the Author assumed that a Harvard audience, would realise the a summary of a Shit-for-Brains Whacko's work would not be confused for an endorsement of his shit-for-brains ideas.

Fortunately the work of Dr Jack Kervorkian, has rendered Dr. John Sarno's work irrelivent as in most places the Medical profession is actualy required by law to relieve pain as much as possible.

Re:Why, you ask?

[elBart0]

AARP is an incredibly strong lobby as well. It would be interesting to see them lobbying against the illegal pharmacies.

Re:Why, you ask?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, read one article, and suddenly an expert is born. And some other person, who probably didn't read the article, modded it as interesting.

I didn't just read one article (and one book), I experienced it for myself, and so have many other people who have read Sarno's books. I suffered for years until I read his book. Now I have absolutely no problems.

Yes, in many cases, pain relievers are not necessary, the pain can be relieved through other means. However, this does not make the drug "useless", nor does it actually have any bearing on whether it works or not. Remember that in trials, these drugs are most often compared against placebos, and had better results. So the truth is, they do work.

It works better than placebo because it actually treats the symptoms (because they are real physical symptoms). But the idea is that the cause of the physical symptoms are in the mind. It's a similar concept as a headache or an ulcer caused by stress, but applied to much more and we are not talking about concious stress here, but unconcious, repressed emotions.

And speaking as someone who lives with a person who is in pain 24/7 from degenerative arthritis, I'm glad they're out there.

Although I don't know whether your condition falls into the mindbody/psychosomatic category, it certainly can have a psychosomatic element. Read the book "The Mindbody Prescription." It is really quite interesting. It'll make more sense if you read the entire book than me trying to argue it.

Although there are a few rare cases where NSAID's are useful, IMO, the vast majority of its use is unnecessary and causing more harm than its helping.

Re:Why, you ask?

[Anonymous Coward]

You aren't famililar with how the system works.

Basically, mail order drug companies pay a small number of physicians to prescribe large amounts of medicine. Basically, they usually create some sort of form where the buyer checks off what pre-existing conditions he has, and mentions any existing heart conditions, etc... Then, a real doctor looks at these submitted forms, and clicks on 'approve' or 'deny'. The doctor can then write a prescription, without actually seeing the patient (family doctors used to do this all the time over the phone with their own patients)

The physicians are paid large sums of money because it is a high risk job. After a while, they will get sued, and may even lose their licenses in that state.

This is how web-order prescription drug sites can exist without breaking the law.

Re:Why, you ask?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have made a serious error in not seeing assumptions made by the articles authors, my Anonymous Troll and that is that the Author assumed that a Harvard audience, would realise the a summary of a Shit-for-Brains Whacko's work would not be confused for an endorsement of his shit-for-brains ideas.

Fortunately the work of Dr Jack Kervorkian, has rendered Dr. John Sarno's work irrelivent as in most places the Medical profession is actualy required by law to relieve pain as much as possible.

How very closed-minded. I feel sorry for you. Sarno's book relieved me of pain after years of chronic pain, and its done the same for many others. And now I'm 100% problem-free. It's too bad people are too unwilling to try and understand the ideas. They just poo-poo it as if it is some bullshit idea. But unfortunately its a large portion of traditional medicine that is the real bullshit. People are too blind or too afraid to see this. It's too bad.

Note that I'm not saying that all traditional medicine is useless, but a large portion of it certainly is. Misinformation can be a very dangerous thing.

I'm not sure what Kevorkian has to do with any of this. And nor do I see any relevance to the fact that that information is hosted on a Harvard site.

Re:Why, you ask?

[Anonymous Coward]

As I understand it, Vioxx is no more effective than Aspirin. They both work the same way, by inhibiting the enzyme COX-2. However Aspirin also inhibits COX-1 which causes some side-effects (increased risk of bleeding, blood thinning which can actually be good for some people - however, every year people *die* because of this blood-thinning effect). Aspirin is cheap to manufacture and the patent expired a long time ago, so the pharmaceutical industry created COX-2 inhibiters which specifically inhibits COX-2 without touching COX-1. In this way they should be able to achieve the same effect but without the COX-1 related side-effects. Unfortunately, for reasons not fully understood, COX-2 inhibitors apparently have serious cardiovascular effects. It seems that inhibiting just COX-2 creates an imbalance which increases the risk of blood clots, which Aspirin ironically is capable of reducing the risk of. And a recent study showed that Aspirin protects against cancer and another study has shown it mitigates neurotoxic effects of Cannabis. All this in a drug that is much, much cheaper than the COX-2 inhibiters!

Re:Why, you ask?

[stam66]

While in your opinion NSAIDs are useful "in a few rare cases" and "in the vast majority of its usage is unnecessary and causing more harm than its helping" i'd be interested to know what evidence you base that on. There are countless double-blind trials proving the opposite, and in my experience as a physician that is simply untrue. Yes, there are side-effects which can limit usage, but the benefits are beyond doubt.

There are a few pain syndromes where medication is not of help and may be due to psychosomatic factors, but arthritis is not one of these. Telling an arthritis sufferer their problems are psychosomatic is incredibly insensitive and my stop patients taking medication that can improve their quality of life. Don't get me wrong - NSAIDs and painkillers in general are not the answer to everything. But they are an important component. Please consider this before offering your opinion.

Re:Why, you ask?

[Anonymous Coward]

The laws against illegal dispensation of prescription medicine aren't unenforceable like the War On Drugs Paid For By Handing Cash To That Dude On The Corner. These are non-anonymous transactions performed with credit cards and shipped by non-anonymous shippers, and often shipped across national borders over which law enforcement has a legal right to inspect packages for contraband.

When I lost my job my COBRA payments were $420/month to continue the health insurance I had. Wasn't allowed to change the plan. Couldn't afford that. Also couldn't afford the $125/visit charge to see the doctor in Boston. Definitely couldn't afford to pay retail on the drugs I was taking. So when my prescriptions ran out, I went online and ordered from Canada. The drugs came FedEx the next day. Without health insurance it was the only way.

US Health care system is badly broken. I wouldn't want to see the online pharmacy operations shut down until everyone has affordable drugs.

Of course since I've moved to New Zealand it doesn't matter to me much now.

Re:Why, you ask?

[Desert Raven]

And speaking as someone who lives with a person who is in pain 24/7 from degenerative arthritis, I'm glad they're out there.

Although I don't know whether your condition falls into the mindbody/psychosomatic category, it certainly can have a psychosomatic element.

Um, the pain is caused by the fact that the cartilage between the joints has been destroyed, leaving the bones to grate on each other. It's a *very* physical cause.

There is no "one true way" in medicine. The patient must be dealt with as a whole, and that includes treating the mind and the body, not just one or the other.

Sarno has valid points, but to look at things entirely from one viewpoint is foolish to an unbelievable degree. You know, kind of like someone telling you that Microsoft's is the only software anyone needs.

Re:Why, you ask?

[atrus]

Sure, $10/bottle with perscription AND INSURANCE. Its about $100ish/bottle without.

Re:Why, you ask?

[Erik Hollensbe]

Vicodin makes me puke. They thought they'd give me oxycodone instead, which has a great history of addiction. Worked great, 3 weeks later after the operation, I was popping like 10 a day - someone pointed it out to me and I stopped. Yay. The bottle of Vicodin I do have is 40 pills for a damn toothache I was to get repaired the next week.

Vioxx is some scary shit, especially with how quick doctors are to prescribe it - I have a bag of samples here along with some celebrex, which were combined from two bags of each that I got from the same doctor for completely different ailments.

Regardless, I've done my rounds with all sorts of prescriptions for legitimate reasons (the mini-pharmacy I have is for a partially good reason and is mostly the result of one major ailment, the other "minor" one being a sporadic case of RSI), but I don't think the pills are the problem, other than the side effects.

Doctors (and I have a few of them in my family that would hate hearing this) are so quick to throw pills at the problem when there are simpler solutions to so many things - my doctor gave me a wrist brace for my RSI and a bucket of anti-inflammatories... I haven't even looked in the bag since I've got them, but I put that brace on and take a walk when my hands hurt. It's having a very positive effect.

It's your responsibility, not the doctor's, to research the side effects of your drugs - and unless you're in /serious/ pain, stay the hell away from a pain killer. The body is a natural healer and if you just target the cause of your pain, and reduce the frequency of the cause, you'll find that the body will do the rest.

The same goes for naturopathy - sure, some of it might work - but I'm inclined to believe that like prescription drugs, most of it just works "on accident" or over-corrects the problem, as we see here with Vioxx. A friend who is BiPolar once visited a Naturopath once... who recommended St. John's Wort. I wonder when that doesn't work, they'll suggest Snake Oil instead. "I don't know" would have been a better spent dollar.

Of course, if I were a doctor and getting "fix me" all day, I'd probably get lazy and throw pills at the problem too.

Re:Why, you ask?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good Lord, I didn't realise the US system was that fucked up.

Welcome to New Zealand, our medical system has its good sides and down sides (as you probably already know). GP visits cost $10-50 depending on doctor and area. Most prescriptions cost $3. If you do something bloody stupid and hurt yourself, the Accident Compensation Corporation pays most of your medical bills. Also, there is no personal injury lawsuit industry (largely becuase of the accident compensation system). Private health insurance costs around $

On the bad side, waiting lists for operations in public hospitals are long. Pharmac, the govt agency that subsidises drugs, takes a long time to approve them. I am not sure if they ever got around to subsidising Vioxx, my wife was prescribed it once, magic stuff, but very very expensive. She hoarded her last one for around 6 months before using it.

Re:Why, you ask?

[atrus]

I agree. 9 out of 10, I've always managed with ibuprofen as a pain killer for when I need it (wisdom tooth extraction involving getting it out of the bone, etc). Sure it hurts, but the simple thing to do is stopping doing what hurts you, and relax a little. Read a book or something, you'll easily get distracted and it won't hurt anymore.

But they asked AOL!!!!

[thewldisntenuff]

There were plenty of other people to ask (SpamHaus, maybe the people behind SpamAssassin), but they ask an in-company division for their information on spam. Yes, spam is going down on AOL (as noted in a recent /. story), but couldnt they have asked others along with the numbers from AOL?

Rant aside, Im suprised it was Vioxx prescriptions - most of the ones I get are for improving my sex life....Vioxx was just named deadly by somebody, wasnt it?

-thewldisntenuff

Re:But they asked AOL!!!!

[PurpleFloyd]

Regarding Vioxx...
It was never named "deadly," but it has been taken off the market recently by its manufacturer, Merck. Apparently, certain side effects potentially harmful to people with heart condidtions were overlooked during testing; the FDA got quite angry about this and would probably have demanded a recall if Merck didn't do it voluntarily.

Of course, there are many people for whom Vioxx worked quite well who have no heart problems; it's not surprising that spammers would step into a major potential market for "Vioxx" made from sugar pills. Also, I've seen a few law firms send out spams offering to represent me in the class action against Merck. Furthermore, I wouldn't be surprised to also see people investing in the lawsuit by buying out others' share of the class; in this way, they could get in on the lawsuit despite never having Vioxx pass their lips.

I find it interesting that they single out Vioxx as the number one prescription spam, though. For what it's worth, all the drug spam I get offers not only for \/10XX but also cia1is, |_e\/1TRA, \/1C0D1N and of course the indomitable \/1A6RA. While the specific category of Vioxx spam may have just won out over porn spam, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that drug spam has been bigger than porn for a long time.

Re:But they asked AOL!!!!

[WormholeFiend]

little do the spammers know that in order to improve it, you need to have a sex life in the first place!

Re:But they asked AOL!!!!

[drinkypoo]

100% of the Vioxx spam that I have received over the last couple weeks was looking for people who have had health problems related to its use, not trying to sell it to me. I haven't had a single vioxx-selling spam since they pulled it from the market, which makes sense anyway. This doesn't include my gmail, where I have seen no vioxx-related spam at all that doesn't get spam filtered for me. About 80-90% of the spam that gets through the filter is in other languages - I sure which I could mark all non-english language-email as spam and be done with it permanently...

Thank God for Vioxx spam

[Anonymous Coward]

You're going to need Vioxx for your wrist after pressing Delete 9,000 times!

Hmm

[GasKewled]

Sure miss those days of 'Hot Lesbian Action' tho :/

actually read spam?

[Anonymous Coward]

There may be more vioxx spam than porn spam.. but which of it is CLICKED MORE? eh? EH?

Vioxxis a temporary circumstance ...

[stuffduff]

Vioxx is a temporary circumstance ... while pr0n is a permeant condition. It's like the difference between "Out for lunch" and "Out to Lunch."

Re:Vioxxis a temporary circumstance ...

[DJTodd242]

Yes, nothing quite like a nice Box Lunch.

Spam for Babyboomers

[Ossus_10]

Sounds like the spam companies are targeting the baby boomer generation with Arthritis pills. This also happens to be an age group that would be less sucessful at knowing how to stop spam. Ossus

Re:Spam for Babyboomers

[L.Bob.Rife]

Con artists and salesmen have recognized this for years. Target the elderly. They usually have some amount of money saved up, and are more likely to be tricked.

vioXXX

[OffTheLip]

Seems most of mine is a tad different...

Vioxx topples porn as spam king?

[tyleroar]

Actually what the article says is that Vioox prescriptions, ID theft scams, and stock pick information toople porn as spam king. And this is only talking about the spam received by AOL users, not all spam in general.

Re:Vioxx topples porn as spam king?

[saintp]

You must be new here. Of all the people on /., the last ones you should expect to RTFM are the editors.

Re:Vioxx topples porn as spam king?

[sharkey]

toople porn

Sounds nasty.

The two products go hand in hand

[Mothra the III]

Or something like that. Whats the difference whos #1?

Re:The two products go hand in hand

[Garfipus]

You seem to be confusing Vioxx with Viagra.

All jumbled up

[Kobun]

Enlarge your home mortgage today! Enhace your x10 spycamera with a free credit check! Watch as horny teen personal ads are sent to your backdoor! I've gotten sick. Every time I see the reports showing how the pills sold through spam are just rat poison cut with feces, I smile quietly to myself.

In other news...

[xactuary]

V0ixx replaces Pr0n as Spam King's majordomo.

Wait a minute...

[JoeLinux]

Isn't Vioxx used for anti arthritis? Does that make any sense at all?

Re:Wait a minute...

[SpongeBobLinuxPants]

Yes...

from http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/infopage/vioxx/defaul t.htm

Vioxx is a prescription COX-2 selective, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) that was approved by FDA in May 1999 for the relief of the signs and symptoms of osteoarthritis, for the management of acute pain in adults, and for the treatment of menstrual symptoms. Vioxx was later approved for the relief of the signs and symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis in adults and children.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

heh-heh-heh....you said "cox"

Re:Wait a minute...

[penthouseplayah]

Does anybody know whether it was Vioxx (rofecoxib) or Celebra (celecoxib) that was approved on a very faulty trial?

They made a trial to last for 12 months but had to stop after 6 because the test persons stopped taking the new product, then they released the results that said fewer had intestinal problems with a cox-2 inhibitor, but after 12 months that advantage had totally disappeared.

Re:Wait a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Isn't Vioxx used for anti arthritis?"

Meh, read that as anti christ.

Yay!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I don't have to get a penis implant!! I can just buy pills to make it better! Thank god.

yourname(misspelled) CH3ap Softw4res

[the_bahua]

It seems that spammers don't even know what they're sending anymore. I get emails with no attachments, no links, just gibberish, with no possible way for me to be that one in eighty-four million that makes them some money.

Is it not so much about money anymore, and more just about pissing people off?

in 1924 perspicacity glutton mining. Because of!

Re:yourname(misspelled) CH3ap Softw4res

[ag-gvts-inc]

That's what I usually get also, luckily POPFile hasn't missed yet. So for me at least, it's just a minor annoyance.

Re:yourname(misspelled) CH3ap Softw4res

[EnronHaliburton2004]

I get emails with no attachments, no links, just gibberish, with no possible way for me to be that one in eighty-four million that makes them some money.

I wonder if some of these are an attempt to validate your email. Remove the bouncing email addresses. Also, I've noticed that some of the gibberish emails are an HTML doc with a 1x1 transparent gif.

Another theory, some of the Spammer's can't properly use the Spam software...

Re:yourname(misspelled) CH3ap Softw4res

[cavemanf16]

No, it's designed to defeat bayesian filters. If you're sending out millions of emails, and making a tidy profit, you don't want to lose that profit. So every once in a while you send out a million emails that are worthless crap, blank, not really selling somethings, etc. to confuse the filters. Then you send out the next wave of spam, wash, rinse, repeat.

Re:yourname(misspelled) CH3ap Softw4res

[temojen]

Try looking at the HTML part.

arteriosclerosis irresistible for farthest midas checkerboard emphases visual cheese northern brownian bainite gambit

translates as:

Xanaax, \/a1ium, Cia1iis, \/iaagra, Ambieen & all popular medss
No long questioning form, you pay & we shiip out today reedbuck
Worldwide Shippiing garlic PR0M0TION RUNNING NOW:
Cia1iis: from $96
\/iaagra: from $64
\/a1ium: from $70
Xanaax: from $75
Ambieen: from $68
& many more meds for u to choose from

Dont miss this PR0M0TI0N

Limited stock until all sold out
(this way please)

quarryman contradistinguish chalkline . grizzle jovanovich gangster pennant biopsy scram beg hammond intelligentsia , ligand baptist stir bugeyed ; led barth transgression congener conflict agreeable , column babysitter mar fist follicle herald kafkaesque success .

Re:yourname(misspelled) CH3ap Softw4res

[TomorrowPlusX]

These days I even get spam with *nothing* in it. No link, no gibberish, no porn, nothing.

WTF? How could this possibly make anybody any money?

The only thing it achieves is that it tends to make it through Apple Mail's spam filter, which is otherwise excellent. But then again, what is achieved? I don't have any clue what they're trying to hock.

Re:yourname(misspelled) CH3ap Softw4res

[Holi]

I have been getting these to, Totally blank messages, pretty much the only thing that gets through my filters. Strange but only minorly annoying.

Re:yourname(misspelled) CH3ap Softw4res

[Ra5pu7in]

Ditto - wierdest part is they show up with no sender or recipient names in addition to no message or subject. I think the list-cleaning explanation makes the most sense. They can remove all the bounces while knowing that every other email is good to go.

Re:yourname(misspelled) CH3ap Softw4res

[AKnightCowboy]

No, it's designed to defeat bayesian filters. If you're sending out millions of emails, and making a tidy profit, you don't want to lose that profit. So every once in a while you send out a million emails that are worthless crap, blank, not really selling somethings, etc. to confuse the filters. Then you send out the next wave of spam, wash, rinse, repeat. See, what I don't understand is how any court in the entire world would uphold that what these people are doing is a legitimate form of commerce. They are crapflooding my inbox. If I went over to a judge's house and dumped my trash on his lawn they'd haul me away to jail, yet spammers do this to my virtual residence every day.

Re:yourname(misspelled) CH3ap Softw4res

[cavemanf16]

It's kinda like breakin' the speed limit while DUI. There's too many people doing it on an ongoing basis to adequately enforce it 100% of the time, so the cops just try to catch the worst offenders and get them off the streets before they do any real physical harm to others.

Same goes for spammers and crackers and script kiddies.

This is why the Internet seems like more and more of the "wild, wild west" to me lately. Vigilante justice (people scamming the scammers and spamming the spammers with actual trash and junk mail dropped on their actual lawns) is oftentimes far more effective in the cyberspace realm than real, actual "protectors of the law" can be. For now. The Internet will get mundane and not quite as exciting as it used to be "back in the days" as soon as real law and order come to it in full force. So I guess what I'm saying is this: Enjoy the crapflood of spam while you can, because it also means you have immensely more freedom to do whatever the hell you want to do in cyberspace right now. Sure, spam is a royal pain in the ass, but there's so many freedoms to enjoy in the meantime!

Re:yourname(misspelled) CH3ap Softw4res

[hawk]

"Never attribute to spam that which can be adequately explained by viruses"

Or something like that.

hawk

Re:yourname(misspelled) CH3ap Softw4res

[LiquidCoooled]

I've had a few of them, and pondered about it.

Could it be a certain mail server is doing things differently when a probative smtp mail check is sent.

Spammer connects to SMTP server, tells it who it is, tells it who the mail is from, tells it who its too, and if thats OK (account not rejected) then it closes the connection.

Some servers may be taking this as a valid completed email where infact it was closed by the sender prematurely?
The email could end up blank because the information passed at that stage is not yet part of the header fields of the actual email data.

Aren't Microsoft known for trying to second guess the developer by completing half baked requests?

Vioxx

[bsd4me]

There are also some people who only get pain relief with Vioxx; ``equivalent'' drugs don't seem to work.

Hrm I dont get Vioxx

[oneeyedelf1]

I only get Cialis spam....

Re:Hrm I dont get Vioxx

[Linker3000]

Hey, I live in the UK, I have diabetes - I get my Cialis FREE! (gotta be some perks with this damn condition!)

Re:Hrm I dont get Vioxx

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe your wife is hinting at something

Re:Hrm I dont get Vioxx

[studerby]

Variants on "Cialis soft tabs" is my most frequent spam topic at the moment. Lately, I've been getting lots of mortgage-related spam, but Regalis used to be #2 Vicodin was towards the top of the pack for a log time, but we got a new upstream filter and I haven't seen one of those in a week or two.

Re:Hrm I dont get Vioxx

[Anonymous Coward]

So, with Cialis, do you get any "See Alice" pr0n?

Really?

[sulli]

Want a Watch?

Re:Really?

[sometwo]

These messages continuously get through my bayesian filter- these and only these. I can't figure it out, but no I still don't want a watch.

Blank

[eyeball]

I don't know about y'all, but I tend to get blank messages more often than anything. Blank messsage headers, blank message body.

Re:Blank

[Anonymous Coward]

Turn off "View email as plain text". You'll see your spam again. Much spam is sent as HTML.

Re:Blank

[Anonymous Coward]

You also might have to enable javascript in your email client, though it is a bad idea. Quite a bit of spam is all in javascript, which decrypts the text on the fly. Anyone without javascript in their email client sees nothing unless they use view source.

Because you claim to be too rich.

[TalShiar00]

Rob, stop telling your credit card companies that you make $2.5 mil a year and you will stop getting rich-people spam. :)

It doesn't matter... It's still spam

[Mr. Cancelled]

I really don't understand why people take the time to diseminate what's being pushed in Spam emails...

It's still Spam.
It's still annoying as hell
It's still as prolific as ever
And it's still (arguably) illegal and unwanted.

And really, wouldn't it be a much nicer world if peoples efforts were aimed at locating and physically beating the spammers instead of opening each of their emails and analyzing it's content? 8)=

Re:It doesn't matter... It's still spam

[elecngnr]

I like the way you think >:) First, we localize them, then show up where they are sending this crap from, drag them into the street, and bitch-slap em silly...then we feed them to the flying monkeys.

Re:It doesn't matter... It's still spam

[MXK]

No don't beat us!!!

Err... that is what those spammers would say. Those horrible, horrible people!

P.S. Who here wants a Rolex?

Only on Slashdot...

[Ghostgate]

... could the first post get modded redundant.

Re:Only on Slashdot...

[mtrisk]

I think the mods were confirming his point: Vioxx and Porn is redundant spam...

=]

Re:Only on Slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

Things that have been said a zillion times are redundant, no matter if they were repeated one or a hundred times in a discussion.

SCO is bad
Moderators on crack
Jon Katz go to hell
Piquepaille go with him
Spammers deserve the worst

et cetera ad infinitum.

Its just plain annoying. We have heard it a thousand times and being the first to say it again is pretty much redundant in every sense of the word: it contains zero informational value, does not resolve any zig of indetermination and does not add anything to any thought. It's just a brainfart that doesn't deserve any positive mods. I accept and most of the time laugh about running gags and Slashdot memes, overlords, Beowulf clusters and such, but even they aren't redundant as they take a new situation into account and form their jokes around something else. People linking to the Simpsons episode with Kent Brockman would be redundant, but I think they know it.

The fact that you got modded up may be the part where it gets interesting.

Re:Only on Slashdot...

[complete loony]

... could the first post about the first post getting modded redundant get modded informative :).
And the first post about the first post about the first post getting modded redundant getting modded informative could get modded funny?

Re:Only on Slashdot...

[DarkMantle]

No... you get insightfull, now the question is, what will this post get?

I wanna set this straight...

• First post modded redundant
• Post that reports this is modded informative
• And the Post that points out the lack of consistancy in Mod scoring gets modded insightful?
• and this one???

Re:Only on Slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

you _are_ a looney :)

It's really disappointing

[Ethanol]

It used to be that all the spam was telling me to "impress her with my huge new c0ck". Now it's just telling me to "impress her with a r0lex".

Neither one really speaks well of her, does it? But at least before there was still a certain animal physicality about the relationship. Now it's all about the shiny baubles.

I don't know... I just don't think this imaginary relationship is going to last. Maybe I should get back out there, start dating again. 'Course, before I can do that, I'll have to do something about this crippling arthritis of mine...

Lucky editor

[Turmio]

Of course, for me all my spam seems to be about rolexes.

Well how about that. Lucky you. To me they only offer replicas!

Re:Lucky editor

[tinkerton]

in my case they're offering the original replicas.

I suppose that beats the offers you get

If it isn't Vioxx...

[albn]

...it is Viagra or something to make your sexual performance better. All these pills, potions, and aides to make your sex life better.

Now it seems sex is not selling as much as it used to. I guess it is time for the pills, potions and aides to make your knees, back or joints to hurt less.

With all this spam filling my inbox, it is so frustrating it makes me give up, delete whatever is in my inbox and mastrubate to relieve the pressure of all this stuff.

Vioxx?

[elecngnr]

I have not gotten any spam related to Vioxx, but oh my god I get hundreds of spam messages a day telling me I won a free iPod/Gateway Computer/XBox/etc. or that I am eligible for a cash advance.

Has anyone on this site actually answered one of those emails and received anything? Headaches not included. I assume they are a scam...probably crafted by Halliburton...yea...evil Halliburton.

I think there should be a special level of hell reserved for spammers...right along side the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz. Damn, those monkeys scare the hell of of me...I mean, they used to...uh, gotta go.

Re:Vioxx?

[kosmicki]

Already been beat to it.

http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=040710/

Re:Vioxx?

[kosmicki]

Er, damn. http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=040710

Re:Vioxx?

[elecngnr]

Too funny...I have never seen that strip. Thanks for the corrected link. Thought my network connection was getting sluggish.

more and more spam

[barik]

It seems that recently, spam has been getting better and better at avoiding my filters. All the sex-related e-mails get tossed right away, but the occasional viagra, rolex, cheap software, or vioxx messages still get through. The thing is: the messages are almost imcomprehensible. Often times they don't even have a link to order, or only have a link, or have an otherwise completely non-sensical message.

So how can people actually order this stuff? Half the time I can't tell what they're even selling. Someone has to be buying, or else spammers would at least make an effort to send e-mail that had, oh, I don't know, a way to actually order the product?

Re:more and more spam

[slashfun]

I've noticed lately that more and more spam is making it past our DSPAM installation. Spammers are getting craftier by the minute.

Re:more and more spam

[AKnightCowboy]

I've noticed lately that more and more spam is making it past our DSPAM installation. Spammers are getting craftier by the minute.

But to what end? If I've went to all the trouble of implementing an anti-spam system, the chances are just around 0% that I would buy anything from a spammer. So, why do they even bother trying to get around anti-spam filters in the first place? Clearly the people DO NOT want their spam and have taken active efforts to block it, yet they continue to try and circumvent the systems. Where is the equivalent of a DMCA law for e-mail? Circumventing an anti-spam device should be punishable by 5 years in prison and a $100,000 fine.

Re:more and more spam

[ocelotbob]

I don't think they're trying to get around personal antispan filters, but rather ISP filters. Sicne ISPs are more sensitive to the issue of false positives, creating a bunch of crap messages throws off the baysean analysis and can potentially increase the chances of false positives. While you may not want spam and won't click on spam, Joe Blow who gets his mail from a big ISP may simply use his ISP's spam filters, and may click on those messages which are spam.

Rolexes

[geekd]

Of course, for me all my spam seems to be about rolexes.

Me too. And I don't even wear a watch.

About a month ago, it seems, the rolex spam started arrving, bypassing yahoo's spam filter, which is usually pretty good.

Oh well, at least it's not "straight dudes sucking cock for the first time... just for you!"

eiwww.

--geekd

Re:Rolexes

[sosume]

Actually, the rolex emails fooled my spam filters too. I though I had something misconfigured on my mail server but now, thanks to Slashdot, I can rest assured there's some evil scheme behind it.

Re:Rolexes

[Kvorg]

There is some real mystery in the rolex spam thing: out of ~90 spams a day, I only get a rolex a day through.

Are spam assassin people biased for certain brands of watches?

Somebody please look into it and report back.

(Not all providers slip rolexes or any spam in your mail, one of them has only slipped me one (as in 1, yes, a single one) spam in 2 years, but I have a strong suspicion they must be really reading the mail.)

Re:Rolexes

[jdunlevy]

Me too. And I don't even wear a watch.

Jerry Springer wears Rolex. Nelly wears Rolex. David Beckham wears Rolex. Tupac wears Rolex. (still?) AND: Usher wears Rolex Bling Bling.

This according to my big box o' spam. Each one many many times.

It's some perverse spam mantra/hypnotism aimed at breaking the recipient down so s/he'll too wear Rolex -- or Rolex Bling Bling.

Don't really understand it anymore.

[The I Shing]

It's gotten to the point where all spammers seem to care about is getting past my filters. Of course, the end result is a subject line that's so idiotic looking that I immediately know that it's spam. Side note: I have to say, too, that Thunderbird does a great job of filtering mass quantities of spam from my inboxes in short order, on both the PC and the Mac. I've been spreading the word, leaving a trail of former Outlook-Express-users in my wake.

how to SUE MERCK!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you took Vioxx, you were Damaged Emotionally from all this news about how it can hurt your heart, so we invite you to SUE MERCK! Contact the law offices of Legalro Barry & Maka Fortune for your NO-RISK lawsuit! The entire process is AUTOMATED, and our clients spend only two hours on average in a courtroom. (Airfare and lodging are PROVIDED - make a vacation out of it!) If we win, (which we do 98% of the time) you will receive an ALL EXPENSE PAID vacation anywhere in the country. Take a cruise, go to Las Vegas. $10,000 spending cash, round trip first class airfare for four, and four star lodging is yours! Spend two short hours and get a vacation fit for a king. Call us today.

Yeah,

[temojen]

And I've stopped receiving spam for a satelite TV shop in Soeul, but I still receive 2

I apologize if the contents hereunder are contrary to your moral ethics. But please treat with absolute secrecy and personal. I am an employee of a commercial bank...

every day.

spam of the future

[big-magic]

It's interesting that the article mentions that many spam messages are simple text messages with nothing but hyperlinks. This is exactly what Paul Graham predicted in his first essay on Bayesian filtering for spam. This definitely demonstrates that Bayesian techniques are having an effect on the behavior of spammers.

Re:spam of the future

[upsidedown_duck]

Also, they are being forced to use such bad spelling that I'm surpised that anyone can ever think they are legitimate. Like telemarketers, spammers can become extinct and no one would care.

Re:spam of the future

[antifoidulus]

Some of the phishing scams I have seen are actually one image that is a giant link. Then they put a website in the image that looks legitimate, but since all you are looking at is a picture, anywhere you click on the picture will take you to the phishers site. They are getting smarter it seems....

I'm approved at 3.25%

[Anonymous Coward]

I seem to have no shortage of mortgage pre-approvals.

Lawyer Ads about Vioxx?

[ewanrg]

For those of you who review your spam before you delete it... :-)

Have any of you noticed how much of the Vioxx related ones are now for ambulance chasing lawyers? Or am I the only one so "fortunate"?

---

Yes I have a blog - deal with it :-)

Re:Lawyer Ads about Vioxx?

[tuomasr]

Have any of you noticed how much of the Vioxx related ones are now for ambulance chasing lawyers? Or am I the only one so "fortunate"?

Yeah, I've been getting mostly those. Maybe I could combine these two:

1. Buy Vioxx through spam
2. Get a heart attack
3. Use "class-action suit against Vioxx" spams to file a lawsuit
4. Profit!!!

There are still some flaws in that plan, but hey, nothing worth having comes easy...

-1, Tasteless

Sllightly OT ... but might be interesting

[Cytlid]

Has anyone ever thought of posting a spam index? In other words, recently I've forwarded all my "old" accounts to my gmail account (including one I've had for over 7 years which collects a ton of spam) and am running "new" accounts on my own mailserver with my domain.

The spam index would be the number of spam emails/number of legit emails for the last month for one email account. This is pretty easy to do as gmail saves the last 30 days' worth of spam. Mine right now (for that account only) is about 431/57 ... not counting the legit mails over 30 days of course.

That's not bad, but what are some other people's "spam indexes"? My work account would be *much* worse...

Re:Sllightly OT ... but might be interesting

[Osty]

That's not bad, but what are some other people's "spam indexes"? My work account would be *much* worse...

Wow, what is your employer doing that your work account gets spammed so much? My own work address gets on the order of 100 legitimate emails per day (on average -- there are plenty of days where I get much more than that), while spam seems to be on the average of 1-2 mails per week. Yes, that's a 1/250 spam index using your method.

My other email addresses are much worse, but that's more because I just don't receive any legitimate email on them rather than because they get so much spam. For example, I have about 25 legitimate emails on my gmail account since signing up last spring. At the same time, spam has never really been a problem until lately, where I'll get maybe 4-5 spam emails per week. If I had to work that out, I'd call it 1 legitimate mail per week to 5 spam mails per week, or a current 5/1 index on my gmail account. Prior to December (apparently my gmail address made it onto some spam lists in December), the index was exactly 0 (0/1 = 0, of course).

(No, I'm not a pathetic loser with no friends. I just don't conduct much conversation via email.)

Re:Sllightly OT ... but might be interesting

[neil.pearce]

I delete my trash at the start of every month. Through December I've had 4484 spam against 240 legit.

I'd say 60% of all my spam is comprised of...
rolex
drugs
mortgage
some virus that uses a body "this is the film version of the broadway hit"
another virus, that arrives as a 164kb (!) zip file with an enormous number of headers/bodies

Re:Sllightly OT ... but might be interesting

[neil.pearce]

Perhaps more interesting is that my spam started to dramatically increase when some unknown f*cker posted a slashdot story synposis including my full email address

Re:Sllightly OT ... but might be interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you referring to neil@neilpearce.com ?

That's what you get for including a link with your email address in it, neil@neilpearce.com - I mean what kind of neil@neilpearce.com links his real address in any way, shape, or form to slashdot?

You really pulled a neil@neilpearce.com there, neil@neilpearce.com

Re:Sllightly OT ... but might be interesting

[myov]

I've had to abandon 3 email accounts this year, and another one is rapidly being consumed by a virus (a single box with Sober, the ISP is unresponsive). My ISP account (which I never used, but I'm still paying for it) was harvested and is now useless.

So my spam index would be fairly high.

Vioxx ?

[EpsCylonB]

What is it ?

Sometimes the slashdot summaries can be so vague.

Re:Vioxx ?

[MXK]

Funny how this post was moderated 'Interesting'... You know what would've been even more interesting? Giving us the answer!

Re:Vioxx ?

[reaper]

It's a non-steroidal anti-inflamatory medication used generally for arthritis related joint pain. It works about as well as Ibuprofen, but without any of the stomach irritation. It got its notoriety through a MASSIVE ad campaign.

It's also been volentarilly recalled by the manufacturer because of a study showing that it can accellerate heart disease. Hence, what all the fuss is about.

Re:Vioxx ?

[Dirtside]

Vioxx ?

What is it ?

If only there was some kind of website that enabled people to, somehow, make use of an engine that would automatically search through the approximately googol pages on the Internet. If only!

Porn spam?

[Bender Unit 22]

I must admit that I have gotten tons of spam, but never that much "porn spam", I suspect the people getting a lot of that have been putting their email adresses places where they shouldn't and not just have it harvested. But I might just be "lucky".

Re:Porn spam?

[cruachan]

Ditto, I've had a public email address on my company website since 1997, and the amount of porn spam I get must only be about 10% of total spam.

The majority is viagra and other pharmacy stuff.

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, my porn is about Rolexes....

Why buy it at all?

[Gordonjcp]

Who in their right mind would even *consider* buying drugs from a (probably fraudulent) source on the Internet? I can see why people in Third-World countries with no access to normal healthcare might, but they don't appear to be the target market.

Re:Why buy it at all?

[The Good Reverend]

You're not poor and without health insurance, are you?

I can only assume it's popular because it's orders of magnatude cheaper than the "real" legit stuff, and for a lot of people, that's all that matters.

Re:Why buy it at all?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who in their right mind would even *consider* buying drugs from a (probably fraudulent) source on the Internet?

The people who (hopefully) eliminate themselves from the gene pool as rapidly as possible.

Re:Why buy it at all?

[Gordonjcp]

Perhaps in countries where they don't have any kind of healthcare systems, but as I said, any civilised country has that one nailed.

Do spammers think that no women use computers?

[Claire-plus-plus]

Most spam I get is about enlarging my penis, something that being a woman I can't do, or pleasing a woman with my staying power (I can't have erections for some strange reason). Why is it that most spam is aimed at men when it is obvious that women use the net and e-mail as well?

Today two out of the three I received (new e-mail address they obviously haven't found yet) were telling me to increase how well I can please a woman with exercises and drugs to increase my penis size. It is rather disturbing. One thing I want to know... do men actually think that increasing your penis size will make women ecstatic?

Re:Do spammers think that no women use computers?

[Anonymous Coward]

do men actually think that increasing your penis size will make women ecstatic?

Yes, we do. Are you telling me it won't?

Re:Do spammers think that no women use computers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I get those, but I also get those that will help me increase my bosum size, somehow I think a man with big titties would not excite my mate.

Re:Do spammers think that no women use computers?

[mikeb39]

Enough must... Or the spam wouldn't be there in the first place. Where theres a demand, there's a market. *sigh*

Re:Do spammers think that no women use computers?

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Most spam I get is about enlarging my penis, something that being a woman I can't do,

a) You're wrong, you can do this; it's just that your penis is attached to your boyfriend :-)

or pleasing a woman with my staying power

b) Actually, you can do this too, and you kill two birds with one stone if you invite your boyfriend to watch. See 'enlarging' :-)

Hope this helps :-)

Re:Do spammers think that no women use computers?

[h4rm0ny]

Why is it that most spam is aimed at men when it is obvious that women use the net and e-mail as well?

I get a tonne of the viagra-type spam too on one of my addresses. I think the answer is that there's nothing cheap and postable that addresses women's insecurities. Although, having just typed that, I do sometimes get spam for weight-loss/diet products in amongst everything else. I'd guess that's the closest you'll get to female-targeted spam for now, thank God.

Re:Do spammers think that no women use computers?

[proverbialcow]

My mom gets *some* porn spam (probably harvested through a virus - she never posts anywhere) and the first time it happened she called me with this elaborate theory about how someone must have seen her name ("Shawn") and mistaken her for a man.

It kind of ruined her day when I told her they didn't put that kind of thought into it. After all, how dare they solicit filth to her AND not care if she was their target market?

Re:Do spammers think that no women use computers?

[lachlan76]

Why is it that most spam is aimed at men when it is obvious that women use the net and e-mail as well?

From my experience, women seem to be smart enough not to buy things from spam.

One thing I want to know... do men actually think that increasing your penis size will make women ecstatic?

Yes

Re:Do spammers think that no women use computers?

[One Childish N00b]

Why is it that most spam is aimed at men when it is obvious that women use the net and e-mail as well?

It's because, deep down, men tend to be far more insecure about their bodies than women, mainly because men can't talk about their bodies amongst themselves the way women can. We just tend to sit and worry about what we perceive as imperfections and, us being men, these worries almost invariably come down to the penis.

Look at the spam going round - as the parent seems to point out, 'en1@rg3 y0ur p3n15!!!' spams have been around forever, yet I've only seen one group of 'en1@rg3 y0ur br3a575!!1' spam, a line which they seemingly abandoned because no-one bought it, mostly because women are more rational about their appearance and can accept that not everything comes down to the size of their breasts, whereas men are very penis-orientated because a bigger cock makes them 'more of a man', and we think it's the only thing women are interested in (though from what I've heard from female friends the things they look at first are the eyes and the ass).

It's not that they think women don't use the 'net or email, it's because they know women are more sensible when it comes to the kind of things they're trying to sell.

Re:Do spammers think that no women use computers?

[maunleon]

>>> From my experience, women seem to be smart enough not to buy things from spam

Most men are smart enough not to buy things from spam either. In fact, i don't know anyone who does.

Many infomercials on TV are aimed at women. And there are whole networks built around selling products to women (QVC/HSN/etc..) I consider infomercials/home shopping channels/etc spam, just on a different media.

Re:Do spammers think that no women use computers?

[lachlan76]

To be more clear, most of the women I know seem to be a lot smarter than the men.

Of course, I don't know anyone who would actually buy a spam-advertised product.

Re:Do spammers think that no women use computers?

[wfberg]

Today two out of the three I received (new e-mail address they obviously haven't found yet) were telling me to increase how well I can please a woman with exercises and drugs to increase my penis size. It is rather disturbing. One thing I want to know... do men actually think that increasing your penis size will make women ecstatic?

No. Spams that sell penis enlargements aren't actually profitable. There are just some spammers out there with a serious chicks-with-dicks fetish.

Wanna R()()1-E-X?

[catscan2000]

Rolex spam has increased for me as well. I'm currently using the following regular expression on our Astaro firewall to block them, which has caught the recent "rolax" and "R-O-L-E-X" variants (remove the extraneous whitespace):

(?i)r[[:space:][:punct:]_]{0,3}(o|0|\(\)){1,3}[[ :s pace:][:punct:]_]{0,3}(l|1){1,3}[[:space:][:punct: ]_]{0,3}(e|a){1,3}[[:space:][:punct:]_]{0,3}x

So, bring on the R0001ex!! spam :-)

Hopefully, the next revision of Astaro will include Rolex spam filters in SpamAssassin so that I don't need to use this custom regex anymore.

Here's one message that I'd love to see (and hopefully blocked):
=========

Gr33tingz, Dear Sir! I'm Dr. Jfjweaiofjweoif Iejfiowefjioe from an official bank in Nigeria and am trying to move $39,000,000 MILLION (million) US DOLLARS (United States currency) worth of \/1@gra pills and C1@li5 out of the country but need to confirm your CitiB@nk banking account details. In exchange for the sum of the transfer, you will have the opportunity to be a man like Britney Spears with real-like r()()()()()1eX watches with a screw-in bezel and a second hand that looks like the real thing. All you have to is click here (http://4.12.44.52:39/removeme/now.idc?really=yes) to install a FREE screensaver, which, if you're using Outlook [Express], should already be installed by the time you read this sentence! WOW! HOW CONVENIENT! Our online pharmacy is ready to take your orders for cheating housewives in your area, but HURRY! At these prices, they won't last long!

Geez CmdrTaco...

[Picass0]

Is this your way of asking for a copy of my bookmarks?

Re:NULL body messages

[dragonman97]

If you look at the headers, you'll find that they're extraordinarily sparse. In some cases, the receiving server will add a little bit of data to keep clients happy, by adhering to RFCs (adding "Date:" and the like. As far as I can tell, this is being done as the most accurate recepient verification system they can dream of. VRFY is not accurate, as many receiving systems will say "Well, I don't know that address, but it's in my domain, so I'll try and receive it." If you do everything up to, but not including the DATA part, there's a chance the server might be sloppy or ignorant. If it accepts the message for delivery without error, then there's a decent chance that address exists. This battle is really getting ugly, and will keep escalating - there is no FUSSP, other than hunting down the spammers and stringing them up with piano wire where it'll hurt them.

Re:Probably all in Javascript

[Anonymous Coward]

The spam text is all probably generated on the fly using javascript. Since you have javascript disabled in your email client (I assume), you see a blank email, just like you would see a blank page on some websites if you have javascript disabled. Try using view source or the equivelant in your mail client, and you should see something. You might also want to check for EMBED tags (flash and such) as some spammers are now using all-flash emails. There are online tools to de-obfuscate the javascript spams without having to turn on javascript in your email client (a bad idea).

Your sig

[rainman_bc]

I find it ironic that you of all people have anything to say about spam when your sig is one of the spams I receive the most of.

Re:Your sig

[Ilgaz]

Its amazing such an asshole having a refer link on his signature (!) got +4 I think.

Re:Your sig

[rainman_bc]

I guess you're referring to him I hope - I'm just trying to mooch clicks for some extra wedding funds - not prepetuate some pyramid scheme

Re:Your sig

[Ilgaz]

I was flaming about that god damn iPod thing.

As Apple G5 only user, I really got disgusted to see iPod because of that pyramid (whatever) crap.

Sorry if misunderstood or it looks that way.

the future of spam

[tinkerton]

The end situation will be spam that gets past your filters but it will be so mashed up you'll have no idea what it is about.

AOL Bullshit News

[bfizzle]

AOL just released a press release saying their spam protection is working. We all know that is because the block pretty much everything but their own mail servers on a whim. Just another /. slow news day

I see your spam and RAISE it

[Vicsun]

When starlet around returns home, pine cone related to steam engine reads a magazine.behind parking lot know wheelbarrow over.girls remain familiar.Bbut they need to remember how carelessly oil filter inside reads a magazine.bubble bath over bestow great honor upon philosopher for somnambulist.Unlike so many pockets who have made their irreconcilable scythe to us.

Furthermore, girl inside hesitates, and earring of require assistance from beyond salad dressing.If skyscraper inside cheese wheel go deep sea fishing with clodhopper beyond, then cup for bottle of beer dies.

What on Earth is this supposed to mean? And why would anyone send it? WHAT IS THIS SHIT AND WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?

Re:I see your spam and RAISE it

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats not spam. It's some god-damned internet enabled fridge relaying what it says on the little fridge magnet words stuck to the side of itself.

Re:I see your spam and RAISE it

[Anonymous Coward]

The purpose of that crap is to fill up Spam Asassin's default sized Bayesian database with crap, so that the next wave of spam will pass through. The solution is to make the Bayesian database size limit 100 times larger than the default. The setting is in /etc/mail/spamasassin/local.cf or something like that.

Re:I see your spam and RAISE it

[msim]

It'd be nifty if you could set the baysian filter to ignore certain segments such as the plain text and only target the HTML as it always seems they try and use the plain text to poison the filters and the html to carry the cruft they are peddling.

Then again there's most likely something out there that can do that, but i just don't know about it.

We have reviewed your post on Rolexes ...

[Random BedHead Ed]

We have reviewed your recent post on getting Rolex e-mails, and it qualifies you for a m.or tg ag,e. You could get $300,000 for as little as $600 a month! Bad credit is no problem, you can pull cash out or refinance.

Idea

[Rie Beam]

I have solved the spam problem. We wait 50 years for all of the pre-internet people to die off, and the market evaporates, as few people who grew up online use spam like the pre-internet people. Of course it's not the best solution, since it's a bit time-consuming, but it's a start.

No, of course not ...

[Tim Ward]

... from which we can only deduce that the penis scam spannners are all women!!

I WILL NEVER BUY A ROLEX!

[Anonymous Coward]

Never Ever.
No matter, replica or original.

What is it with this drug spam anyway?

[Tim Ward]

Here are a number of reasons why I would personally consider it not sensible to buy drugs from a spam:

(1) If they can't even spell the name of the drug right how on earth can I rely on their products being safe?

(2) Er, they're selling drugs. If I have a medical problem, I have a medical problem, and what I need is diagnosis, not to go out and buy some drug at random that may or may not cure me and also may or may not kill me. So, whilst I am sometimes in the market for a consultation with a doctor, I am never in the market to acquire drugs directly. Advertising "no prescription required" is completely insane, surely, as nobody in their right mind would guess what drug they need without consulting a doctor?? And when they have consulted a doctor they just go and get their drugs locally in the normal way, so that you can get them today not some time later when the post delivers, and free of charge (as is the doctor) (if you live somewhere civilised).

(3) You don't know what you're getting. You take a proper prescription to a proper chemist and you get what it says on the label. You order something from a scammer, and you may well get some pills the right colour, but how the hell do you know what's actually in them??

(4) Spammers are de facto scammers anyway. Place an order, your money is taken, is anything, even fakes of dubious value, ever going to turn up??

One could go on.

So, how come anyone ever buys these drugs? And they must do so, or the spam would have dried up. Is this some strange cultural thing in some part of the world I'm not familiar with?

Re:What is it with this drug spam anyway?

[msim]

(1) True, but desperation to get past filters to the buying fools (who probably wouldn't know how to spell cialis or viagra if they had a blue fit).

(2) There are a lot of fools that get a cold, go to sites like www.wrongdiagnosis.com and assume they are about to keel over from collera or dhengi fever and then buy crap like this. Then there are the people that think they know better than a doctor, oh yeah, then there are the people that hate doctors, are ashamed of whatever it is they think they have and couldn't ever face a doctor. etc etc etc.

(3) Honestly i think the kind of people that buy this stuff haven't even thought about this kind of possibility.

(4) The world is full of idiots, see points 1 through 3 above.

Re:NULL body messages

[thogard]

They also appear to be testing to see if they can still send the entire message (helo, mail form, rcpt to,data ) in one tcp package. I'm thinking that a number of scamers are gearing for that since it seems to work. Luckily its trivial to check the size of the receive buffer and blow the message away.

Caution!

[jd]

And really, wouldn't it be a much nicer world if peoples efforts were aimed at locating and physically beating the spammers

When dealing with spam, there's an important rule to remember. Never, ever, reply to sender.

Graham: Only half right

[cynicalmoose]

Graham predicted two things would happen as a result of Bayesian filtering:

Spam would become, essentially, hyperlinks

Hyperlinks would reduce the revenue per spam so much that spamming would become uneconomic

Unfortunately, it seems he got the first right, but was too optimistic about the second. Still, Bayesian filtering removes the most egregious sales pitches, so I don't complain.

When we can work out that strings of unrelated words make no syntactic sense, we'll really have the spammers nailed (and most of Usenet, but that's just a positive side-effect).

Re:Graham: Only half right

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but he also said that at that point, someone will make a filter that will follow the hyper links to evaluate the message better. That will do two things - no spam will get through and the spammer's bandwidth costs will be enormous due to all the filters effectively clicking the links.

tsunami spam

[tuxette]

Anyone else get spam begging for money towards helping some earthquake/tsunami/tidal wave victims' poor lost kiddies or rebuilding the village?

I'm not kidding. It's out there.

All of my spam...

[jcroft]

...seems to be about penis REDUCTION. I guess the word is out.

Watch spam proof of spam conspiracy?

[swb]

I don't know about you, but the wristwatch spam (primarily about Rolexes) seemed to start all of the sudden and accounted for a pretty significant majority of my spam.

I find it hard to believe that the world of spam suddenly lighted on selling fake Rolex watches all at the same time. So does this mean that most of those spams were 'caused' by a single entity?

I can see whoever controls the supply of fake Rolexes farming out the spamming to multiple email senders, but it still makes sense that the whole blitz was caused by a single entity with a containerload of fake watches to get rid of.

I actually think this is a GOOD thing -- it makes me wonder if it isn't possible for law enforcement, by tracking and nailing a few key people, to actually dent the spam problem significantly.

Spam has become a non-issue for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Refusing connections from servers with no reverse DNS stopped better than half. Using various RBLs with postfix stopped another 25%. Of the remaining quarter, the vast majority are flagged as spam by CRM114 and tossed in the bitbucket by Thunderbird's very convenient mail filter.

After a couple of days of training, the false positives by CRM114 dropped to almost nothing and I'd guess that 2-3 spams slip by the net in a week (which I use to continue training CRM114). Occasionally, I scan through the bitbucket to see what kinds of spam I'm getting. I'll agree with one of the posters...a LOT of it is for fake Rolex watches lately....shrug.

Have your own mail server and want to VASTLY reduce your spam? Look here:

crm114.sourceforge.net

Cheers,

INCORRECT

[ikewillis]

There are MANY health risks of COX-2 inhibitors which have only been recently discovered. The dangers are not cardiac (pertaining to the heart) but cardiovascular, COX-2 is an enzyme which regulates a number of cardiovascular functions, most notably the inflamatory response, but also the formation of new blood vessels following injury, and your body's natural defenses against blood clots flowing through your circulatory system. The latter is what increases the danger of heart attack or stroke, both of which can be caused by blood clots clogging your cardiac arteries or brain arteries respectively.

Here's some background information:

http://arthritis.about.com/od/cox2inhibitors/a/saf etyreport.htm

A report just released in the December issue of Nature Medicine claims that blocking the COX-2 enzyme interferes with angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels). New blood vessels are imperative to wound and ulcer healing. Cited laboratory study results revealed reduced angiogenesis when rat or human blood cells were treated with either indomethacin (an older NSAID) or by NS-398 (a COX-2 inhibitor). COX-2 and COX-1 are required for healing of the stomach and intestinal lining. This new data raises questions concerning whether selective COX-2 drugs are safer for the gastrointestinal tract than older NSAIDS after all since inhibiting angiogenesis may result in ulcer complications.

http://money.cnn.com/services/tickerheadlines/djh/ 200412231648DOWJONESDJONLINE000879.htm

FDA is issuing an advisory because of recently released data from controlled clinical trials showing that the Cox-2 selective agents (Vioxx, Celebrex and Bextra) may be associated with an increased risk of serious cardiovascular events (heart attack and stroke) especially when they are used for long periods of time or in very high-risk settings (immediately after heart surgery), as the COX-2 enzyme apperas to play a key role in the body's natural ability to combat blood clots," the FDA said in its press release.

That said, the majority of pharmeceudical spam I receive is for Cialias and Viagra, the anti-impotency pills. Does anyone here actually receive spam for Vioxx more frequently than these?

nope

[www.sorehands.com]

Actually the "online discount" pharmaacies charge more for the drugs than you can buy at the local drug store.

On the other hand

[claussenvenable]

I'd like to see them get their just desserts too, but:

If he's selling it as Vioxx and shipping something else, that's one thing. But if he's not, I call it Natural Selection... People need to take responsibility for themselves. If you knowingly self-medicate and you die, too bad -- should have consulted your physician. If someone misrepresents, *then* there's a case for liability.

This is a question of economics -- absurd price inequities in pharma have created a black market between the US and just about everywhere else. It may not be legal, but it's hardly new or surprising -- it's just the market setting the REAL price. Where's that globalization they promised me? ;) What a mess...

viox litigation

[hawk]

I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, contact an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction. If you get legal advice from slashdot, your other troubles are far more serious than your legal ones, anyway!

>Also, I've seen a few law firms send out spams
>offering to represent me in the class action
>against Merck.

They're on television, too, now.

>Furthermore, I wouldn't be surprised to also see
>people investing in the lawsuit by buying out
>others' share of the class; in this way, they
>could get in on the lawsuit despite never having
>Vioxx pass their lips.

Err, no. Even though we're the only Common Law (English speaking) in which taking a contingency fee is not a crime, buying an interest in litigation still is.

hawk, esq.

Re:viox litigation

[gcaseye6677]

Even though we're the only Common Law (English speaking) in which taking a contingency fee is not a crime, buying an interest in litigation still is.

Funny how companies or individuals can buy a patent from someone else for the sole purpose of suing others that are using that invention. If that isn't buying interest in litigation, what is?

Re:viox litigation

[hawk]

(this still isn't legal advice)

A patent is a type of property (whether you agree with the principle or not). It includes the usual rights of control. When that property is sold, the new owner has the right to control it and receive any revenue from it.

What was suggested above was the outright purchase of the right to receive proceeds from litigation, rather than the transfer of a property interest. This has been illegal since the earliset days of the common law, and remains so.

hawk, esq

419

[F34nor]

I get more damn 419 Spam than I can shake a dead Nigerian father at. I always worry that the guys at 419.fcd@usss.treas.gov are going to start resenting me.

well, you need both

[www.sorehands.com]

You need to impress her with your ro1ex so that you get the chance to impress her with your huge new c0ck.

Just an AOL PR flunky putting out a list here

[ZakMcCracken]

This news is just a rehash of an AOL press release, which is its top-10 list of spam topics of the year. It has a footnote: This list is unscientific, and is not in any specific order. The cited email subject headers are not ranked by volume within the Top 10 list. So that's really just about making "AOL" appear in the media one more time; so far so good since CNN and then Slashdot picks it up. As to "Vioxx," I would think that probably the AOL PR intern who put together this list on the basis of his/her own spambox mixed it up with Viagra.

At least they are honest...

[Anonymous Coward]

"easily blocked by filters offered by AOL and other Internet service providers."

"according to AOL, the world's largest Internet service provider and a unit of Time Warner Inc. CNN.com is also a unit of Time Warner Inc."

"AOL on Tuesday said junk e-mails received by its subscribers had dropped 75 percent largely due to better built-in filters and blocks, based on a poll of complaints it compiled."

Must. Get. AOL.

Re:Ask Slashdot: how to deal with LVPD?

[Anonymous Coward]

do you plan on purchasing the services of a prostitute ?

An official statement from vioxx

[macaulay805]

"All our spam are belong to you!"

Go out this evening ,, This is the sawtimber hogan

[Jerf]

Go out this evening ,, This is the place where youll find that person you want . ,. sawtimber hogan

Have a terrific time this evening

"Our system of people from all over the country has grown.
There is almost 1 mil lion people on this site. Just do a
profile search."

This is the place where youll find that person you want

Try us HERE! Find them all right here (link elided, I won't take it that far :-) )

It sounds like you need this spam more than I do.

kind of ironic

[flacco]

pr0n creates sore bones and vioxx is supposed to relieve them...

vioxx

[zsandoz]

well the stuff has a much wider appeal than viagra and porn. it appeals to all age groups and genders and levels of sex drive :).. especially for us lazy computer people. in fact pain meds can help get you more active because things like back pain often keeps people lazy.. so indirectly for younger folk it probably will improve yr sex life more than viagra, maybe you'll get off yr azz and go for a walk :) i would personally like to see vioxx ads featuring half-naked nurses - i will read that spam :) but on a serious note, you might as well stick with the aspirin since it is also a COX inhibitor (though less selective) and just put up with the possible stomach upset. cheaper and no heart attack risk (known of so far hah)

vicodin

[Anonymous Coward]

ownz j000

But this is finally our solution to spam....

[rsilvergun]

If spammer's kill everyone using their products, no more idiots buying from spammers. Problem solved. Who knew it was so simple. Now if we can just get Lycos to write a screensaver/open proxy to help speed things along.

Re:But this is finally our solution to spam....

[Webmonger]

Yeah, but there's a sucker born every minute.

Re:But this is finally our solution to spam....

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right, so we need to get to trimmin' their population.

Re:But this is finally our solution to spam....

[Feztaa]

Perhaps if we develop an intricate system for determining which babies have the "sucker" gene, and then killing them.

Failing that, we could just take our chances and kill one baby every minute. ;)

Vioxx? Rolex? How about...

[Rich Klein]

Of course, for me all my spam seems to be about rolexes.

I don't seem to get much Vioxx spam, but maybe it's just not getting past my server's spam filters. I do get a lot of spam for Rolex replicas.

Get a free IPod [mp3players4free.com] or $275 Cash!

I get a ton of this spam, and only a fraction of it gets blocked by my mail client or server!

Rolex has lost its brand value

[Animats]

Rolex, the company, now has a serious problem. They're not in the watch business. They're in the status symbol business. (Which, amusingly, their CEO admits.) The only thing they have going for them is their "cool factor". Without that, they're a company that sells overpriced watches.

All those Rolex spams have made their brand a joke. They're very close to losing their "cool brand" identity.

Aimed at elderly?

[maunleon]

I think this is spam aimed at elderly, and it will only increase as the society as a whole ages, and a lot of older people with little net savy join come online. Easy prey

One day we will look fondly back to the days of porn and cable descrambler spam, while clearing our mailboxes of offers for disposable adult diapers shipped discreetly from China and denture cleaning solutions smuggled from Mexico.

Vioxx not off market

[F7F7NoYes]

Contrary to popular belief, Vioxx has not been taken "off the market" yet. Pfizer has stopped its advertisement campaign to the public, but they are still offering kickbacks to Doctors who want to prescribe it.

vioxx spam is supposedly from legal action seekers

[vivhost]

Apparently, most of the vioxx-related spam is from lawyers offering legal aid in suing merck over side effects from taking the medication. In another strange similarity between pr0n and vioxx, I launched a free pr0n site that was inspired by the name vioxx: woxxx Little would I imagine that the two would become related through spam :-0

great, give them more publicity

[kwoff]

Glad you guys can help them at their spamming. Sheesh.