Slashdot Mirror
Pfizer and Microsoft go after Viagra Spammers
Weird_Hock writes "This story from Reuters
tells about the joint effort from Pfizer and Microsoft to go after illegal sellers of Viagra. Pfizer is going after the sellers and Microsoft after the spammers. Looks like they're targeting both sides of the money chain."
Spammers are selling V|agra you silly!
Microsoft should double-dip and file a parallel lawsuits against spammers who sell Full Version WinXP PRO for $35.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
but then where will i get my illicit viagra that i so desparately need, apparently??
Enjoy an e-piphany
First they go after my music... then they go after my drugs...
But they'll never get my... my... ohmigod, what do I have left??
{{{groan}}} How long until the first viagra/virus joke gets included? I mean really, Microsoft and Pfizer? It's like shooting fish in a con - I mean barrel...
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
..are predicting a long, hard battle.
Now I have to settle for my increase in girth, length and volume, since they will also go for v1agra and v!agra
Anyhow - if the big dogs are moving now - after the can-spam-act, it's interesting what kind of stable equilibruum the next generation spam will be. It won't go away - It'll just reach the next stage.
On the bottom of the first page are the stock qoutes von Pfizer and Microsoft. There is a horizontal movement of Pfizer and a slight downward movement of Microsoft. What does that suggest about the markets expectation of future distribution of vi4gra?
Microsoft want to be the biggest dicks around...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
There is the B0n3r vIRus exploiting a windows buffer over flow!
To reduce aggregate demand for the stuff?
Maybe they'll come up with a product that keeps my servers up.
No Nyarlathotep, No Chaos
Know Nyarlathotep, Know Chaos
Time for the scumbags to bend over and feel the wrath!
Someone is gonna be in a world of hurt.
MS and pfizer are going to spread some love around.
There will be swelling in some lawyers'...pockets.
No carrots for the spammers. Just some bloated, throbbing, heavy-handed...sticks.
is it just me or does it seem like microsoft and pfizer are going to be mutualy beneficial out of this one. pfizer's profits get to go back up and microsoft gets a ton of viagra. That should make the programmers happy. :)
"These guys think they can keep profits rising endlessly," complained a Pfizer spokesperson. "They are really beginning to poke us in the eye with their nonsense. We are a big company, and Viagra has helped up grow considerably. We won't let these crooks cut our profits off prematurely."
(Memo to editorial staff: Does the above sound right? Something seems a bit odd.)
Normal people in Slashdot? You mean there are sharks in lakes?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Looks like Microsoft is looking to take over the market.
...it's small-time criminals moochin' in on their racket.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
I forward all spams I get that offer Microsoft software on to MS.
I figure that I'll let MS spend their money on going after the spammers - after all, the enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy, and is useful to me.
I get a nice auto-ack from MS with a tracking number for each report. What does that mean? That I get a nice auto-ack from MS with a tracking number - I have no way of knowing for sure that they do anything with the reports.
But hey, it if nukes a spammer and/or costs MS money, then it's worth it.
www.eFax.com are spammers
We get average of at least one Washington Mutual phishing email per day and have absolutely no affiliation with the company. Its definitely the most popular phishing target (more popular than paypal or ebay in our little back water of the IP space). I don't know if WaMu is especially phish-easy, but they seem to be a strong target.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I worked on an ISP's helpdesk and I can tell you that the number 1 spam complaint I got was those adverts for having a bigger penis.
Why can't someone go after those spammers. At least viagra actually works.
Wouldn't one of the sides be the buyers?
If you are using Gentoo, then you should be getting all the ingredients and making the Viagra yourself.
(This is a joke - I have used Gentoo as well, thought mostly Debian and the BSDs, but I have nothing against it).
this means that for their due diligence, they actually have to look at the spam, doesn't it? yikes!
ed
I suppose since no-one yet has made this crack...
I wonder if Microsoft has an ulterior motive in this whole crackdown.
Thank you. I'm here all week.
Pfizer is actually working on Longhorn with hopes of keeping it up longer and giving it that spine-tingling performance
I really don't think it's going to change much. Let them try. Most of the spammers are outside the US. Pfizer might be a little more lucky. It sounds kinda useful, but in the end it probably won't change much to the 500+ spam messages I get a day.
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
While 80% of the spam I get is for knockoffs of their products. I also always wondered why these spammers are so hard to "find", I mean how hard it for an investigator to buy one, and follow the credit card trail? (Of course the credit card companies would have to be responsible and stop making money on transactions for illegal goods and services like spam and offshore casinos)
T.J. Schmitz - the man, the myth, the legend - o
When I first read that I saw. "Microsoft goes after viagra"
DarkMantle I been bored, so I started a blog.
Up until that point, I'd been getting spams for "pharmaceutical" (read: "quackery) products, like the usual "herbal penis pills", "natural apricot pits cancer cure!", "b00st your immune system", "legal pot substitute", and so on.
If I'd never heard of Viagra before, I'd have lumped it in along with phen-phen, ephedra, and laetrile as the quack medicines I'd historically been getting spams for: that is, substances of questionable efficacy, safety, and/or legality.
Quickly now, (off the top of your head, without googling and without being a pharmacist), which of the following - Effexor, Paxil, Viagra, Cialis, Phenteramine, Valium, Xanax, Soma, Lipitor, Zyban, Zantrex, Xenical, Meridia and Fioricet - are "real" medicines (that is, which have been approved by FDA for the treatment of medical conditions), and which are fake/quack/banned?
If you get even one false-positive (that is, a "real" drug that a reasonable person dismiss es as "quacky" due to its prevalence in spam), I'd say the manufacturer of that drug has a prima facie case for trademark dilution against every spammer who spammed for it.
Microsoft and Rolex?
The man who never alters his opinion is like the stagnant water and breeds Reptiles of the Mind -- William Blake
Since I had moderator points, I wanted to read all the crap that gets posted and see if there was anything that needed to be modded up. I was very dissapointed to hardly see *anything* relevant to the topic other than lame jokes.
I think that this will be good for users. Both companies have something to gain by there being less spam, and thus it will help both companies bottom lines to get rid of it.
What I hope they *don't* do (since both companies are large) is throw money at the problem and hope it gets fixed.
I think this is a good day for the internet in general!
Middle aged men who need pills to induce raging hard ons have enough problems as it is.
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
Because of Microsoft, I can't get my box to come up, and because of Pfizer, I can't get... oh, nevermind.
Non, je ne veux pas coucher avec toi ce soir.
I saw somewhere that Pfizer said that part of the reason they're doing this is that people think that it's Pfizer sending out the spam...
Huh?
I think that not only is that bullshit, that they're actually doing it to try to prevent reimportation (as well as the stopping of non-Pfizer sildenafil citrate).
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
I know we have discussed this before, but shouldn't someone go after Microsoft for a very insecure OS that happens to be a petri-dish for spamzombies everywhere? Isn't it negligent behaviour? It would be a lot easier for law enforcement if you could really say where a message originated instead of discovering that the spammer address is from an old lady who never updated her machine since her grandson installed it.
When taking over IT on a small advertising agency with lots of Macs at the creative dept and lots of Windows PCs on the rest of the office I had the firewall to deny and log all attempts to connect with SMTP servers outside. Guess what side of the net was infested?
It appears to me that most of _my_ problems with spam are due to spambots sending mail from ADSL or cable-modems (It's common to have companies whose IP addresses fall in blacklisted ranges and that have to send some or all of their e-mail over ISP servers - raising a lot of security/privacy issues)
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
This should be no suprise. After all the name
"Short-limp horn" is not nearly as compelling!
*narf!*
I hope this doesn't take away from my spamusement fun!
Pretty Pictures!
Slashdot: Microsoft and a large, powerful prescription drug manufacturer have teamed up to fight their mutual enemies.
Readers: Well...good for them.
Quick, someone take a picture of the page before a dominant theory emerges on why this is in fact a malevolent scheme on the part of Microsoft and Pfizer to take away our freedoms.
Will be the first to produce the Blue Pill of death? [Sorry, couldn't resist]
Man, they're coming hard against these guys!
Will they face stiff fines?
They've been soft on spammers for too long.
Viagra supporters, rise up! You don't have to take any more of this! (until you can't rise up at all anymore... then take some, then rise back up)
Pardon the already-posted ones. I'm posting before reading previous posts.
Now accepting PayPal donations!
That's great, but who is going to go after the Levitra couches?
You probably shouldn't click this.
... Microsoft announce that they are partnering with Pfizer to produce their own generic brand name of Viagra.
Critics point out that the first version of any product from Microsoft never stays up for long, and that users should wait for the second release, unless they are willing to accept permanent loss of data assets.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
It has been reported that market demand for
Pfizer's "Viagra" AD prescription has sagged.
Pfizer stock price plummets 05 percent.
Analysts conjecture that demand has stiffened
for the two competing AD prescription brands.
Stay tuned for more news...
In today's MarketWatch, software giant, Microsoft and Pfizer have formed a business alliance to combat spammers and illegal manufacture of Pfizer products. The new company name will be, "Macrohard".
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!
...what kind of defense the spammers are erecting?
Infuriate left and right
Those were the two words Bill Gates did not want to hear on his honeymoon ...
Infuriate left and right
Deep in the Gates compound...
"Honey! Come to bed, It's Wednesday and you know what that means!"
Bill: "Be right there dear - just trying out these - uh - vitamins I bought on-line"
20 minutes later
"Doh!"
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
MicroSoft + Viagra + Penis Enlargement Pills == HugeHard
:)
That doesn't sound good
Surely selling prescription drugs in any kind of a shady manner (phony perscriptions, no prescriptions, not the drug advertised, etc) across state lines is a serious Federal offense, at least as serious as this drug crime is and should warrant its own Federal task force, RICO prosecutions, and the like.
I wonder why we haven't seen this and it takes MS/Pfizer joining forces to make an issue out of it. Does this make any sense?
See, there's three kinds of people: dicks, pussies, and assholes. Pussies think everyone can get along, and dicks just want to fuck all the time without thinking it through. But then you got your assholes, Chuck. And all the assholes want us to shit all over everything! So, pussies may get mad at dicks once in a while because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes, Chuck. And if they didn't fuck the assholes, you know what you'd get? You'd get your dick and your pussy all covered in shit!
The Lake Nicaragua Shark:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=lake+nic
</pedantic>
"Pfizer and Microsoft rise to the challenge."
"Pfizer and Microsoft erect barriers to Viagra spam."
"Pfizer and Microsoft have the balls to go after Viagra spammers."
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Have they ever checked their inboxes? It is full of ads for cheap copies of XP i would guess. Or not?
And they expect Microsoft to help them when MS can't do a decent job on the piracy of its own stuff?
I have to say, this is probably the smartest thing M$ has done (ethically speaking).
... Why?
... well maybe that is it... I have to say if they are succesful my hat is off to them.
Now, my only question is
I don't see any gain in it for M$. It will get them good publicity in terms of positive responce but
~G
Minsc's hamster right?
Yes, However, that wasn't a hamster - It was a noble lemming - Much like myself.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
In related news, simultaneously Earthlink (in an anti-spam coalition with Microsoft) also announced filing numerous lawsuits to hopefully litigate some major spam operations into oblivion.
Winning these cases (and most importantly, many more) against the spammers would be much easier, of course, if the U.S. finally adopted an opt-in requirement as well, stating that there is no way you CAN SPAM, like in the EU where under a new agreement on anti-spam enforcement, one single complaint will now even suffice to send the authorities round to eradicate any remaining spammers' hideouts in 13 Member States at once.
No. Must not say it ... No ... No
GO MICROSOFT GO!
Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I said it !
Please excuse me while I go shoot myself on the head.
morcego
Particularly without a prescr|pti0n.
V1@gr4, C|al1$, 0xycOnt1n and the rest of those (the real ones) are PRESCRIPTION drugs - "Controlled Substances" - the distribution of which (without proper licensing & documentation) is a Big Federal Felony(tm). Anyone "selling" any of those things on the Internet is selling - at best - fakes, and is more likely a simple fraud.
Even if they're doing it from offshore, selling the REAL stuff (particularly narcotics like Oxyc0d0ne) is a big enough crime (in the US) to obtain action from Interpol resulting in extradition of the offenders. These are scams, every bit as much as Muhammed Al-Quedah, who wants to cut you in on the $22e6 which he skimmed out of Sadam's treasury, and now needs your (confidential) help to get it out of the Netherlands.
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
In a huge number of spams for products that people might actually theoretically *want*, there's actual crime involved, be it trademarks, copyright violation, passing fake goods off as the real thing - things like that. Sure, it won't stop the annoying mortgage spam, but if we can get rid of drug spam, counterfeit watch and software spam, then that's a heck of a good start. Looking at previous Slashdot Through The Keyhole escapades regarding the homes of spam kings, these guys have assets, which means they companies potentially have something to gain, and these big companies like Pfizer, Rolex, Microsoft et al have their army of caged lawyers... and basically infinite resources to sit on these people in the case of MS... If the theory that there's only a small number of spam kingpins out there, this will either severely limit the type of spam they can send out, or remove the profit motivation.
Or...
Pfizer and Microsoft rise to the challenge with barriers erect showing they have the balls to go down on these Viagra spammers.
The spammer will never cashout there spam-gotten cash before laundering it (at least the smart ones).
What needs to happen is they need to use existing laws to bust a few of these guys for "offering drugs to children within 100 yards of a school" and send them to jail for 100 years or whatever the law allows. The rules are on the books and they broke the law. Now make an example of them.
Microsoft has always been committed to finding a way to keep it up longer (their operating systems, that is).
Dan
Now this deserves mod points....
Karnal
Slashdot has been taken over by the kiddies. I think the best way to overcome this is by reducing the number of moderator points handed out and select additional appointed moderators. I've set my preferences to -1 the score of anything marked funny because it's usually overrated.
Much of what gets up-modded is often juvenile rantings or people restating the obvious, not thought-provoking discussion or insight. Perhaps my posting is obvious too but I don't see much of anyone who notices or cares.
How about granting moderator points to those who post articles which were up-modded by Slashdot appointed moderators (not those granted moderator points). In other words, if the appointed moderators think you have something relative to say, you are more likely to be a good judge of others.
signature pending slashdot approval
Does this partnership between Microsoft and Pfizer mean I'll be able to get OEM Pfizer Viagra bundled with my WinXP Pro?
The majority of my spam today is for Cialis instead. Anti-Viagra would've helped a couple of years ago....
Microsoft's traditional embrace and extent methodology in practice.
1) Threaten spammers
2) Buy out or eliminate
3) Pick up the spamming technology and patents
4) Bundle with windows
5) CTRL-ALT-DEL to log on and would you like some V1@gR@ with that?
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
..but all i get are offers for 3ff3x0r, p4x|l, v14gr4, C14l1s, ph3nt3r4m1n3, v4l1um, x4n4x, 50m4, l1p170r, zyb4n, z4n7r3x, x3n1c4l, m3r1d14 and f10r1c37
atb
Suchetha
learn from yesterday, plan for tomorrow, party tonight
or one out of three ain't bad
What good they did to me?
What bad they did for me:
Seriously, I can't separate that whiny lameass comedian from the word Viagra anymore.
JAY: Hey Kevin.. just read the newspaper..
KEVIN: What, Jay.. chortle, gahahaha..
JAY: and get this--true story!!--a train was derailed today--i'm not making this up here!
KEVIN: *laughs*
JAY: Apparently, Hillary Clinton Lewinsky Viagra William Hung Bush's Pretzel!!!
KEVIN: *laughs hysterically and strums a few nonsensical bass notes*
but then where will i get my illicit viagra that i so desparately need, apparently??
(Insert Windows uptime joke here)
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.