Spam Capital of the World

ermita2 writes "The South Florida Sun-Sentinel published this weekend a story about how South Florida is home to more spammers than any other place in the world according to Spamhaus. The reason for that seems to be Florida's long history and friendliness with dirty business from real estate speculation to the penny stock scammers. Among the interesting tidbits is anecdotal evidence that the amount of spam worldwide fell for a while after last year's hurricanes in Florida."

Comments

Great now we have a target.

[jellomizer]

So if we hit florada with some bombs then we should be spam free right?

Re:Great now we have a target.

[KiloByte]

I've heard some geologists talk about the Florida being in a risk of falling into the ocean soon. Hmm... if your bombs could trigger the fault... sounds like a plan.

The important problem is: does canned pork float?

Re:Great now we have a target.

[Anonymous Coward]

Only spammers and cockroaches will survive a nuclear war; poor roaches.

Re:Great now we have a target.

[kdark1701]

The Xindi already have that covered...in 150 years they'll oblierate florida...and spam forever.

Re:Great now we have a target.

[darkpixel2k]

Luther? Lex Luthor? Is that you?

Re:Great now we have a target.

[Andy Mitchell]

So if we hit florada with some bombs then we should be spam free right?

One nuke exploded at high altitude over Florida should be adequate. The EMP should blow just about everything electronic in the Sunshine State, or should that be the Spam State :-)

Re:Great now we have a target.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I've heard some geologists talk about the Florida being in a risk of falling into the ocean soon"

Please let it happen soon. There's more crap coming from that part of the World these days than I can stomach.

Re:Great now we have a target.

[killjoe]

If you bombed south florida you'd be doing the rest of the US a huge favor. For some reason florida seems to attract the sleazy and the corrupt. To quote Homer SImpson "florida? Why that's America's wang!"

Re:Great now we have a target.

[trurl7]

I thought you were going to say "Only two things come out of Florida: spammers and cockroaches. You don't look like a cochroach to me, boy, so you *must* be a spammer"

Re:Great now we have a target.

[Anonymous Coward]

"For some reason florida seems to attract the sleazy and the corrupt."

And the elderly! Could it be that our beloved elders are actually sleaze merchants?

Re:Great now we have a target.

[killjoe]

More likely they are easy prey.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

only one option

[djhack]

``I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.''

Re:only one option

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah ... right!

That will remove 356 of 542 spam I am getting on my account every day!

Hurricanes are evidence........

[ARRRLovin]

.....that even God hates spam.

Re:Hurricanes are evidence........

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Apparently he doesn't hate Spam as much as I do.

The spammers are still walking around, and still have their FINGERS.

Re:Hurricanes are evidence........

[cpghost]

...that even God hates spam.

God, being very lenient, didn't hate spam from the very beginning. Only after spammers discovered his secret e-mail address, and didn't stop spamming him after he repeatedly clicked on the dysfunctional "remove me" links, did he become upset and started complaining by raising big hurricanes.

Re:Hurricanes are evidence........

[Anonymous Coward]

> God, being very lenient, didn't hate spam from the very beginning.

Incorrect. "Thou Shalt Not Steal". You think I just thought that up last week?
- God.

Re:Hurricanes are evidence........

[drsquare]

That's blasphemy, God doesn't use e-mail. And he doesn't start hurricanes. God doesn't deliberately kill people, you're thinking of Allah.

Re:Hurricanes are evidence........

[JohnFluxx]

No, not hurricanes, but he does do floods :)

God Hates Spammers

[Jeremy.DeGroot]

South Florida is so notorious that some experts attributed a short-term decline in global spam after last year's hurricanes to the assumption that the storms disrupted spammers' operations.

There is a just and loving god after all!

Re:God Hates Spammers

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

It's got nothing to do with [Gg]od.

Increases in spam results in increases in usage of electricity and in tempers, both of which increase heat*. This leads to global warming causing adverse conditions such as last year's hurricanes.

*Left to reader as an exercise to prove the relation

Re:God Hates Spammers

[TOakes]

Just because you're a monotheist doesn't mean everyone else is.

Re:God Hates Spammers

[compwiz312]

Q (heat) = P (power) T (time) Raise power, raise heat! As for temper, temper increases blood flow which increases the speed of the heart, causing more glucose to be broken down to provide the body with energy and releasing heat. ...Just finished studying for hours for a physics final, so a little out of it.

solution

[cryptoz]

So...all we have to do is take away the right of everyone down there to use a computer and our spam problem will be solved!

Okay, seriously though. Spam exists for a reason. It exists because it works. So, why is there *so* much emphasis on trying to kill the spam from the source rather than educating people? Because if people just *knew* not to buy things from e-mail (have you EVER seen a legal warning that says "Caution: Buying products through e-mail is dangerous and stupid"? Didn't think so.).

I swear, if spam didn't make money, it wouldn't exist. So why don't we try to educate the population? It only takes a few stickers on PCs and a few lines of warning on hotmail.com...If MS cares at ALL about making the spam issue a small issue, they would do something about it.

Re:solution

[Jaiwithani]

Economics problem - spam is profitable as long as 0.01% of the spammed masses buy the pills. As long as there are just a few idiots buying into the crap, we all get spammed.

Re:solution

[Prof.Phreak]

Economics problem - spam is profitable as long as 0.01% of the spammed masses buy the pills. As long as there are just a few idiots buying into the crap, we all get spammed.

Or maybe it's just stupid wanna-be spammers who think that? So one spammer spams the world for a few weeks, doesn't make anything, and moves on. Then another spammer thinks ``wow, this is a great business model'', and spams the world for a few weeks, doesn't make anything, and moves on. And so the cycle repeats.

Re:solution

[azaris]

Economics problem - spam is profitable as long as 0.01% of the spammed masses buy the pills. As long as there are just a few idiots buying into the crap, we all get spammed.

The spammers aren't making a profit selling physical products, they're making a profit selling spamming services. The best ones usually have a huge network of contacts where small businesses buy "opt-in mailing campaigns" or some such rubbish from a third party, who then subcontract someone to harvest or buy a list from the Internet and then give it to a another spammer who sends the actual spam. The end result is that the product seller is inundated by angry e-mails but has no idea what happened (plausable deniability) and the only one who gets anything out of it is the spammer.

Re:solution

[Anonymous Coward]

See this piece from Wired:

http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,576 13,00.html

Spam is one big pyramid scheme.

Re:solution

[ximenes]

I don't think that the problem is really people buying spam-advertised products. In the last year, I have received about 30,000 spam messages.

Of these, I would estimate 80% are in a language other than English, so I can't buy anything from them (and who knows what they're even about). That leaves 6,000 messages.

About 75% of these don't have a product that I could actually purchase. Viagara e-mails with no URLs and that sort of thing (I have no idea why these message are even sent out in the first place).

That leaves about 1500 messages that I could actually buy things from if I wanted to, which I don't. If you figure that some incredibly small percentage of people might actually be ignorant enough to do so, that's not very many purchases.

But the important thing is that it doesn't matter! The cost to send out these spam messages is zero. Every ISP and IAP is paying for it instead. Every user that has to sort through spam messages instead of working or doing anything else is paying for it. You get the idea.

So I don't think that user education is the key to defeating spam. The key is to make sending spam messages difficult through elimination of unauthenticated SMTP servers (even ones that aren't open relays) and infected Windows hosts. In addition, spam should be refused rather than accepted and filtered (although this creates problems with false positives).

Re:solution

[wtarreau]

spam is profitable as long as 0.01% of the spammed masses buy the pills. As long as there are just a few idiots buying into the crap, we all get spammed

as long as there will be humans, there will be more than 0.01% of idiots. Either you kill the hundred millions of dump people to stop them from buying the pills, or you kill the hundred millions of smart people to be sure that all the spammers will be within them. There is no solution to this: smart people will always abuse the dumbest ones.

Re:solution

[koxkoxkox]

you have a strange definition of 'smart'. I don't think being a spammer is being smart

Re:solution

[Dominic Burns]

The best ones usually have a huge network of contacts where small businesses buy "opt-in mailing campaigns" or some such rubbish from a third party, who then subcontract someone to harvest or buy a list from the Internet and then give it to a another spammer who sends the actual spam.

How about someone figures out how to write an incremental list generator, searches for and finds an open relay and sets a bot loose?

There's more than one way to skin a cliche, so to speak.

Cheers,

D.

Re:solution

[Dominic Burns]

"Spam is one big pyramid scheme."

So's capitalism if you confine it to a single planet.

My point was, it's relatively simple to contact large numbers of people via email, with nothing much to stop that from happening.

Dunno what the answer is though...more's the pitty.

Then again, like the average hitch hiker, I'm not really sure what the question is either.

Re:solution

[dtungsten]

Not to contradict, but why then would the spammers spend the effort to actually send out the spam? It wouldn't be necessary once someone has been conned into purchasing their services. I suppose they could be using a different con on people (who end up spamming) by saying "here, use this program and get lots of money." I would be interested in seeing some real data on the phenomenon which could shed some light on it. Everything I've seen has been just someone's opinion. It would be unrealistic to expect to be able to devise a workable solution without knowing what is actually happening.

Re:solution

[jschottm]

Some spam is indeed like that. But if you look at the records/discussions of anti-spam groups, you'll see that a very large portion of the spam sent from people in .us comes from a relatively small number of individuals.

Re:solution

[drsquare]

Then the solution is obvious. Tax e-mail. It wouldn't be much, say 1p each. Less than the cost of a text-message by far. It wouldn't hurt normal users, but would make spamming non-profitable, thereby removing the problem. The tax money could be used to abolish the tax on alcohol and tobacco.

Re:solution

[azaris]

Not to contradict, but why then would the spammers spend the effort to actually send out the spam? It wouldn't be necessary once someone has been conned into purchasing their services.

Most spammmers seem to live in self-delusion. They believe (or at least have convinced themselves) that what they do is perfectly ethical and that sending spam is beneficial. In the world according to spammers, the only people who don't like spam are a small vocal group of "antis" that resort to criminal acts against the poor honest businessmen.

I suppose they could be using a different con on people (who end up spamming) by saying "here, use this program and get lots of money."

Many spammers have a side business selling spamware.

Re:solution

[mr_snarf]

Don't forget the number of anti-spam products sold. Why educate people if that would stop the flow of spam, you'd ruin the anti-spam industry! :)

Re:solution

[cheesybagel]

Doesn't seem to stop spam by snail-mail or telephone.

Re:solution

[Anonymous Coward]

and the Nigeria scam works. People falling for scams is a terrible reason to keep something legal.

So, my selling the Brooklyn Bridge scam should be legal if somebody falls for it?

Re:solution

[wilhelm]

So what you're saying, is that if we, uh, "take care of" that small number of in-duh-viduals (heh), that most of our spam will go away?

Only one possible response to that: get a rope.

So everything is fine, because ..

[RedLaggedTeut]

=>burning of fossile fuels(C+2O=CO2)
=>global warming
=>more hurricanes in Florida
=>less spammers
=>less spam

Re:So everything is fine, because ..

[jack_call]

=>Much spam =>Pressure on mail servers =>Need of electricity =>burning of fossile fuels(C+2O=CO2) ... =>less spam =>smaller need of power =>fewer hurricanes =>more spammers DAMN IT, it's self-regulatory. Perhaps if we started doing some late abortions and involuntary euthanasia ;-)

Is it too late

[The FooMiester]

Is it too late to sell them back to the Spanish?

Re:Is it too late

[Jozer99]

We could invoke the lemon law (pun intended)!

Re:Is it too late

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

List for me everything you bought from a company that sent you inconvenient, annoying advertising you didn't want, refused to stop sending it no matter how many times you asked, and made you pay for the privilege of receiving it.

Re:Is it too late

[MysteriousPreacher]

Spam is as necessary and useful as me standing in your street at night with a bullhorn shouting sales pitches at the sky.

There's a big difference between advertising and unwanted solicitation.

Re:Is it too late

[DrLex]

The products advertised for in spam mails are either non-existant or overpriced junk. Saying that advertising for them is useful, is like saying that it's useful to walk around in a crowded market place with a megaphone, shouting "BUY OGOBOGOWBOLGO!" But if you really want to, go ahead and buy your 'online meds' which may either have exactly the same effect as school chalk, or turn your bowels inside out. I however, prefer buying real stuff from real people who respect my privacy and actually pay for their advertising.

Nuclear option?

[platypibri]

I mean, come on. If ever there was justifiable collateral damage, wouldn't this be damn near it.

Re:Nuclear option?

[Anonymous Coward]

and social security would be solvent for another 50 years

Now you know why Fark...

[Nova Express]

...has a special tag just for Florida...

Re:Now you know why Fark...

[generationxyu]

Why, cause Drew Curtis isn't funny and his fanboys rip all their jokes off of Something Awful six months after they die? Fark still seems to think that Photoshopping Ackbar into an image is the pinnacle of comedy.

Florida is for business

[esconsult1]

If you ever lived in Florida, then you know that its one of those states that is so thoroughly corporate that residents don't have too many options than to toe the line of conformity.

All the building codes, regulations, and sundry laws seem to favor corporations above everything else. Its one of those places you'll find scammers, shady SEO consultants and search engines, and yes... spammers.

Re:Florida is for business

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just that, but if you go bankrupt in Florida and you've paid off your house, they won't take it... Lots of people like having houses in Florida for just that reason

Re:Florida is for business

[lowid (24) _________]

Funny story about conformity in Florida (I live there - Coral Gables, a miami suburb). Last week, one of my housemates' parents came into town to visit. They parked their pickup truck out in front of the house, and were surprised later on to see a ticket on their truck. As it turns out, you can't park a pickup truck in front of a residence in Coral Gables. Mind you, this is a pretty nice, 3 or 4 year old pickup truck, and we park some pretty nasty old cars out there that have never been fined. Doesn't matter - you could have a pimped-out, brand-new, $50,000 truck and you still couldn't park it in front of your house. These things are apparently the epitome of unsightliness. So they got a $100 ticket for having the audacity to park a truck out front. Heaven forbid they don't drive a range rover. :)

Anyway, that story doesn't have much to do with Florida's corporate nature, but it's a good example of residents having to do ridiculous things because the city says it must be so. Coral gables has so many stupid building codes that it'd take pages to list them all, but that's the most recent example I've encountered.

P.

Re:Florida is for business

[squatex]

Really this depends on where you choose to live in Florida. At least for the time being (its all changing pretty quickly) there are still some communities out there where the small guy can still have a chance. Lok in north and central florida mainly.
South Florida (where im typing from right now) is the worst in this respect. Its turned into New New York down here. Everything you can think of is regulated, licensed and manadated, all the way down to what color you can paint your house and who you can have cut your lawn.
I think the main problem is just the sheer amount of unethical and seedy people we have here. I was just talking about this with a guy I work with last week: he wants to get into the spam bussiness. He showed me a spam bot he wrote. I told him "Dont you know thats illeagal and wrong?" He expressed to me how little he cared.
We have alot of people like that around here.

Re:Florida is for business

[Stiletto]

I live in Broward county, and I can back that up, at least for southeast Florida. Retirees are moving farther up north, and to the gulf coast. Same sunny climate but fewer idiots. People move down here to southeast florida for one reason: To get their hands on as much money as they possibly can in any way possible, and not let go. And thanks to our (quite libertarian, economically) laws, this is the best place to do just that.

Not coincidentally, this is probably the most cosmopolitan place I've ever lived. There are folks here from all over the world looking to grab cash any way possible

More wealth disparity here too, than anywhere I've been. Where else but Miami can you be in the ghettoest of the ghettos and then cross the right street to find gated multi-million dollar mansions with 3mil yachts out back.

It's a capitalist slugfest at its finest, pitting wealth against uberwealth. Almost rivals Las Vegas for the sheer number of people looking out for only themselves and their bottom lines.

As you can see, it's a fun place to live, as long as you're at least employed. Loose your job though and you are ROYALLY SCREWED. I'll probably be leaving soon if I have kids. This is definitely no place to have a family and raise children.

Re:Florida is for business

[Stiletto]

oh, and for the spelling nazis out there (I'm one of them too), I meant lose, not loose.

Why do we tolerate these businesses?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, we do have some control over these people?

Why do we voters tolerate these businesses that bring nothing to the economy except for to the few only at the expense of the unwilling many and their time? Like telemarketers used to be such a PITA(got much less since the National Do-Not-Call lists), we should follow suit and push laws that shut down these people if they do it within the US.

If they want to yell Freedom of Speech, let them build a website I may or may not choose to go.

Re:Why do we tolerate these businesses?

[DuckofDeath87]

quite true, you are free to say what you want to say, but I dont have to listen!

Re:Why do we tolerate these businesses?

[remmelt]

that, good sir, is what we call Capitalism. happy? short term profit is better than long term happiness for the most. it makes money, so it's not a pain in the ass. these people have a right to make money. that is what the american dream boils down to in the year 2005.

Re:Why do we tolerate these businesses?

[killjoe]

"Why do we voters tolerate these businesses that bring nothing to the economy except for to the few only at the expense of the unwilling many and their time?"

"We voters" don't really care too much about this stuff. All a politician has to do is to promise not to let gays get married and he will win.

Spam blocklist

[Mike1024]

Well, we can get DNSBLs that will block China, Korea, Nigeria, Argintina and Brazil. When will one be availiable to block all mail from the US?

Michael

Re:Spam blocklist

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly what needs to happen. The vast majority of spam comes from the US. The rest of the world needs to cut them off from the net until they get their house in order and can stop ruining it for the rest of us.

Re:Spam blocklist

[Anonymous Coward]

http://blackholes.us/

You can block by the major providers - e.g. hurricane electric, internap, etc.

Or the entire US - not recommended for anything other than toy sites - http://countries.nerd.dk/

Please rsync if you're going to hammer the server.

I say we...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's an Aliens quote that comes to mind. You know the one I mean.

Flushed out!

[splitterbob]

anecdotal evidence that the amount of spam worldwide fell for a while after last year's hurricanes in Florida

They had to wait till the sewers were drained back to normal levels

Well, now I don't feel bad...

[IronChefMorimoto]

...when I piss in the water at Sanibel Island. Screw you spammers.

IronChefMorimoto

Re:Well, now I don't feel bad...

[chrae]

...when I piss in the water at Sanibel Island. Screw you spammers.

Dude, I was chillen out there and stuck my feet in the water at Sanibel and I never sent you a single email. I'm gonna kick sand on your towel if I ever come across it. And may the spams of a thousand bot-nets infest your email box.

Hurricanes are evidence..Enlarge your God.

[Anonymous Coward]

No telling what kind of spam he gets.

Re:Dirty Business

[pintpusher]

and don't forget... PIRATES!!!! Aarrrrrgh!

Too bad this wasn't exposed sooner...

[IronChefMorimoto]

I think it would have been great to seize some spammer's bank accounts after the hurricanes last year to help devastated families rebuild.

"What do you mean that I have no insurance or money to rebuild my South Beach home? They did what? Seized what accounts? Why? Found out I'm a spammer? Who the hell...what?! My last $1 million in spam profits is going to rebuild a church? Where? Isn't that a swamp? DAMMIT!"

IronChefMorimoto

Con Men and Crooks

[Detritus]

If you ever get the chance, see The Cocoanuts, starring the Marx brothers. Its backdrop is the great Florida land boom/swindle of the 1920s, which attracted con men and crooks from across the nation. Now their great-grandchildren are spamming us.

spam spam lol

[Monkeman]

Am I the only one who doesn't get any spam? I've been using GMail for maybe six months and I've gotten one spam email. This figure is excluding church "newsletters" that I get every two days and don't care about, but those go into my spam folder anyway so I don't see them. How did they get my email address anyway?

Re:spam spam lol

[knightri]

I average one per week with my gmail account and they have blocked everyone. They dont like partypoker.com, but i can deal with that.

Re:spam spam lol

[Adelbert]

How did they get my email address anyway?

Um... because you have it on the top of every /. post you make? I'm actually surprised at how little SPAM I get through GMail. I have used hotmail and yahoo as free accounts before and they're spammed to high heaven.

Re:spam spam lol

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

I too get very little spam. My personal email server uses Clam Anti Virus & SpamAssassin, and though I understand that not everyone has their own mail server, I get almost none at my gmail account as well. And, I haven't had an infection on my Windows internet surfing box in several years, even without a firewall.

Personal Story

[Anonymous Coward]

I wrote this last year in my 'blog:

It's not everyday that you get a phone call from a sleazy spammer. I was just filling out some forms and this random guy (apparently) from Miami, Florida calls me up. He asked about my BotBlock service, or rather how to override it. Turns out he wants to pay me "any amount you want" to make a software that can bypass the image-verification (CAPTCHA) used by TicketMaster. He told me his "competition" was overtaking him and he was willing to pay me $5,000 to make such an application. Best of all, if I was feeling lonely, he could send me a hot woman any time of the day. I politely told him, "I'm sorry Sir but I think I'll have to hang up now. Please do not call again."

The world of mafia and money launderers of the yester years used to be a world of machismo, bravado, and to a certain extent glamour. While the neighborhood mobster is mostly a thing of the past, street-corner spammers are dime a dozen and each is trying every under-handed trick to oust the other. There is nothing smooth or sauve about trying to peddle cheap sexual aids or promote low-budget vacations to islands that don't exist. I think even the spammers themselves will agree that they are almost the scum of the planet, slightly above child molestors and rapists.

Tonight I had this guy asking me if I could write a ground-breaking software (image recognition is not cakewalk) so he can hoarde tickets illegally and spam mailboxes around the world with filth. Of course I said NO! I will never EVER on any conditions do anything to promote spam. Hell I wrote BotBlock to prevent it! Come to think of it, the genius asked me how to bypass BotBlock! I wanted to say, "What the hell do you think I am??? As dumb as you???" But then, last thing I want to do is piss off a spammer who will only enjoy harassing me. So I just acted polite and hung up.

I have a decent job and a bright career to look foward to so even the slightest dealings with these tarts will taint me forever. But what about the recently laid off, newly-married programmer who has bills, loans, and rent to pay? That's the guy to watch out for. I think the blame lies not only with these slimy spammers but also with smart programmers without jobs. It's no wonder so many hackers (well crackers) are from Russia, where the minds are young and bright but their future is bleak and dark. I'm pretty certain that the spammers are already working in tandem with programmers from all over the world but I wonder if there's anything anyone can do to stop them. Well other than making better blocking and filtering software. I think I'll stick to that for now. /been an AC lurker since 2000. Maybe I should get an account :)

Re:Personal Story

[Anonymous Coward]

The world of mafia and money launderers of the yester years used to be a world of machismo, bravado, and to a certain extent glamour.

I suspect that that had more to do with Hollywood than reality, to be honest.

Re:Personal Story

[drooling-dog]

he could send me a hot woman any time of the day.

I like mine best around 9am or so, if the offer still stands...

Re:Personal Story

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you find a new house yet?

Re:Personal Story

[CPgrower]

been an AC lurker since 2000. Maybe I should get an account

Posting as an AC reduces the credibility of your "Personal story".

So what is this BotBlock service you'd written? Do you have a URL? Doh! I forgot. That may reveal your identification.

I have a decent job and a bright career to look foward to so even the slightest dealings with these tarts will taint me forever.

Taint you *forever* ??? Whoa! That's pretty serious.

Mod me down if you like. I'm not the one who believed this AC's story.

Re:Personal Story

[srw]

Sheesh! Although it doesn't prove the AC is who he says he is, a quick google search or two will let you know what this BotBlock service is: http://www.chime.tv/products/botblock.shtml and the blog he is referring to: http://www.chir.ag/?20040302

I'd mod you down like you asked, but I don't have mod points, so I'll reply with facts instead.

Re:Personal Story

[CPgrower]

Although it doesn't prove the AC is who he says

Exactly!

Re:Personal Story

[JumperCable]

Aaahhh. Come on. No phone numbers for the spammers?

Re:Personal Story

[SacredNaCl]

It's not everyday that you get a phone call from a sleazy spammer. I was just filling out some forms and this random guy (apparently) from Miami, Florida calls me up. He asked about my BotBlock service, or rather how to override it. Turns out he wants to pay me "any amount you want" to make a software that can bypass the image-verification (CAPTCHA) used by TicketMaster. He told me his "competition" was overtaking him and he was willing to pay me $5,000 to make such an application. Best of all, if I was feeling lonely, he could send me a hot woman any time of the day. I politely told him, "I'm sorry Sir but I think I'll have to hang up now. Please do not call again."

I would have offered to do it for 60K, then immediately set to update bot blocker so that the program you sold would break as soon as they update to the new version. This way you can make 60K a pop per version from the spammer, and make money upgrading your Bot Blocker program.

Sounds like a pretty good business model to me.

Re:Personal Story

[JuggleGeek]

I had someone try to hire me to write some spam software once. They contacted me via email, but it was a personalized msg, clearly to me, not part of a mass mailing. And at first, they didn't tell me what they wanted - they wanted to hire a programmer for a do-it-at-home project. But once they started explaining what they wanted, I could see the part they weren't coming out and saying. And then when I started checking, I figured out who it was. I couldn't find any good way to do anything about it though, so I just fed them a few stories about "I'm really busy this week - but I can get to it next week" for a bit, until they quit bothering me. I figured stringing them along would at least waste some of their time.

Re:Personal Story

[LaCosaNostradamus]

Don't be bashful. Guys like that think that there are no consequences to exposing themselves to decent folk. Show him that decent folk still get remarkably pissed off. To wit:

You should invite him to a public park to discuss the matter.

Then knock him out with a taser and then ether.

Then pile him into a car trunk.

Then take the car to a cash-only motel. Unload him into the room you rented for a couple of hours.

Then make some cuts on each back/side of his body right by his kidneys. Stich them up as if they were real wounds that were sutured closed.

Then place him in the bathtub with cold water (not ice -- we don't want him to die of hypothermia).

Then leave a large note that says:

YOUR KIDNEYS HAVE BEEN REMOVED. YOU WERE PACKED IN ICE TO DELAY THE ONSET OF BLOOD POISONING. PLEASE CALL 911 OR YOU WILL DIE! HAVE A NICE DAY.

Then get the fuck out of there.

Lower 48

[Doc Ruby]

Has anyone else noticed that Florida is the worst place in the United States? Is Texas jealous?

Re:Lower 48

[rco3]

You speak as a man who knows nothing about his subject - no surprise, this is Slashdot.

Mississippi is a MUCH worse place than Florida. People in *Alabama* regularly thank God that they don't live in Mississippi.

Personally, I'd much rather live in Florida than, say... [shudder] New Jersey!

Re:Lower 48

[Anonymous Coward]

Mississippi and West Virginia are both pretty awful -- lowest per capita income, worst levels of education.

Both still see problems with discrimination against blacks.

West Virginia also is home to many of the farmers that support Big Tobacco, and boasts the highest lung cancer rates of the states.

West Virginia and Florida have some of the oldest (and hence more conservative) populations in the United States.

Re:Lower 48

[lav-chan]

Missouri, actually, is the worst place in the United States. Mississippi is pretty bad, but i would probably put Florida in second over it.

Re:Lower 48

[hyperstation]

ahem...west virginia born, now live and work in south florida.

you overestimate the problems of discrimination in wv - there are none, basically. all races are treated equally given they act responsibly and behave as decent citizens.

wv does have an older, mostly centrist population - with a few particular issues that tend to go more conservative.

it's sad that wv has (had?) so much value in natural resources, and that large energy companies have profited for a century while dooming the populace to illiteracy, poverty and a poor public education. i count myself as fortunate to have been able to find a decent living in florida, and visit wv every chance i get.

it's a beautiful state, full of mountain streams, teeming forests and beautiful views that stretch for miles. drop off your sterotypical hatred of the place and stop by sometime when you're passing through.

Re:Lower 48

[Doc Ruby]

Having been through, and to, Florida enough times (dozens) that I now refuse to go back, I've got more knowledge of Florida than I want. I lived in Louisiana for years, so I know about Mississippi and Alabama, too. Though my despite of Florida is mainly for its eastern and southeastern swamps. The Gulf coast seems to have redeeming qualities, without the depths of the Atlantic alligator pits, and the north-central is just typically redneck. Of course, those Floridian depths are populated exactly by people who'd rather live in Florida than in New Jersey - so they moved south.

Re:Lower 48

[Doc Ruby]

Basically denial of racism in WV. Unless you mean by "decent" that nonwhites should accept persecution. When you think about how WV voters have been sending to government those representatives of the energy companies that have exploited them and their state, it makes sense that denial is such a well practiced skill.

Re:Lower 48

[hyperstation]

no, it means "get over it, everyone is equal now".

i think that the phrase "be excellent to each other" is also applicable.

there's a klan for every state in the union, what's your point.

Re:Lower 48

[Anonymous Coward]

If only everybody thought as you did, then people would stop moving here and ruining the state. Seems as though it's becoming the collection point for every washed-up piece of yankee trash that wants to wallow on the beach in FLA-RAH-DUH!

Re:Lower 48

[Doc Ruby]

Those are words to live by. But people don't. My point is that you're kidding yourself if you think there's basically no "discrimination" in West Virginia. You certainly can't fool me.

Re:Lower 48

[Doc Ruby]

Well, the trash is not exclusively Yankee. But Yankees are overachievers, so they stick out over the Dixie and other redneck trash.

Re:Lower 48

[Propaghandi]

West Virginia is a beautiful place-we attended a family reunion there some years ago, and the state park (Pinecone?) was terrific! However, after driving through the mountains, I now understand the meaning of the term, "hollers"! As to the earlier poster stating Missouri was the worst place, I humbly disagree. Being a lifelong resident, I have yet to cover all the variety of nature here. I will however, reluctantly agree with the poster's assessment of Missouri as far as our politicians are concerned...

Re:Lower 48

[SacredNaCl]

Mississippi is a MUCH worse place than Florida. People in *Alabama* regularly thank God that they don't live in Mississippi.

Alabama has redneck NASA in Huntsville. You go there and see the space shuttle sitting in an overgrown field of weeds, resting on blocks with the tires off, one window smashed out, and painted in two different colors of primer.

Re:Lower 48

[Anonymous Coward]

Missouri, actually, is the worst place in the United States.

Living in Missouri is vastly superior to living on the coast. Housing is cheap, you don't spend 5 hours a day on I-95, and though you get paid $5K less, you save 15K a year minimum on your rent/house payments alone. Plus it doesn't spell like salted dead fish.

I was very happy to move back to Missouri after a few years in NoVA & NJ.

Re:Lower 48

[mink]

As someone who lived in W.VA. (northern panhandle area) for over 9 years and saw DAILY examples of racism I have to back Doc Ruby up onthis. Nothing has changed and The way parents raise kids I dubt it will.
They may not be burning crosses on lawns any more, but I still have to supress a murderous rage every time I hear some ignorant fuck mumble some shit like "nigger lover" under their breath.

Re:Lower 48

[Doc Ruby]

It's not hard to know, even without specific WV examples. Racism is pretty basic to American culture (like every culture I know of). Until recently, racist competition was more valuable to a "race's" integrity and success than was equitable cooperation without it. For thousands, maybe millions, of years. It's still valuable to many leaders of racial communities - of all origins - in perpetuating their own power at the expense of the success of their group. What's sad about the post to which I replied is their probable actual belief that there's "basically no discrimination" in WV, or their new home in Florida - two places racism has been most damaging, and which need honesty about the problem to solve it. That kind of "mistake" depends on serious denial, exactly the kind that most perpetuates racism, as the repressed truth fights its way out for violent expression by the wily human mind. Their silence enables the active racist, and often protects their own racism from modification until it's too late, and it erupts in some person's face.

Florida is for business retirees

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it also answers the question. "What do retirees do with their time?"

49 vs. 1: Spam War I

[suitepotato]

I think we need to make this well known to the representatives and senators of all the other states by auto-forwarding all of our Florida-originating spam to their e-mail boxes. We'll stop doing it when you stop the Florida delegation from sleeping, eating, f*cking, etc. until they get results back home in the FL state capitol. They use peer pressure to get us to comply with their dictates, let's use it to get FL to comply with our most simple one: SPAMMERS WILL BE FED TO ALLIGATORS. PUBLICLY. IN ORLANDO. PRIME TIME TELEVISION.

Don't suppose...

[Chordonblue]

...we could give South Florida it's own domain (so we can block it)!

Call it .sfl...

Re:Don't suppose...

[Anonymous Coward]

No need for a TLD. You can already do this. Have your software use WHOIS registration data. For example, the spam-assist company mentioned in the article, americaint.com, is registered in Davie, FL.

Re:Don't suppose...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get it. What's so funny about .sfl? Dictionary.com says SFL is

System Function Language. Assembly language for the ICL2900.
"SFL Language Definition Manual", TR 6413, Intl Computers Ltd.

Florida = White Trash Capital of USA, maybe World

[Anonymous Coward]

It must be said. Find any news story about heinous murders, rapes, scams, political corruption, and you will find a Florida dateline. This is not a troll or a humor piece, I am serious. Kentucky is breathing a sigh of relief tonight knowing that its many mulletted carnies are in fact not the low forms of caucasian life.

I sometimes wonder...

[J. Charles Holt]

I sometimes get the feeling that if someoner we could suddenly eliminate Florida and New Jersey, we'rid ourselves of an extremely large percentage of the sleaze in this country. It seems almost every time I've had dealing with a company that's operating just barely outside the law, it's in NJ or FL. I'm not implying that everyone who lives there is sleaze. Just that sleaze is more likely to live there. :) Now don't get me started on DC...

Re:I sometimes wonder...

[MemoryDragon]

Ahh New Jersey is not that bad, I think you have to get rid of some sleazy oil barons and the filth regarding US corporations generally, remove the legalized corruption which the current campaign funding in reality is and everything is well again.

Fountain of Youth! Sexual potency!

[splitterbob]

story about how South Florida is home to more spammers than any other place in the world according to Spamhaus

500 years too late for Ponce de Leon. 5 seconds in the water and a bunch of gators popped up!

Drop the bomb!

[tedgyz]

Exterminate them all!

Don't buy online from Florida

[Animats]

In general, it's best to avoid buying online from companies in Florida, even if they're not spammers. The overall level of criminality is just too high.

Re:Don't buy online from Florida

[Anonymous Coward]

This seems oh so true... For a while I was getting junk-faxes (which have been illegal for over 10 years), mostly from "Travel Agencies" based in Florida. They used all kinds of deceptive things, often pretending to be the department that handles our corporate travel (My home has a corporate travel office? Hidden in the basement, perhaps?).

Almost as bad as all "Business Opportunties" that come out of Utah (scamming pyramid/MLM crooks, every one of them...).

Re:Florida = White Trash Capital of USA, maybe Wor

[Anonymous Coward]

Racism on Slashdot? I guess we sunk to a new low.

Not quite an answer

[zappepcs]

Well, Florida does seem to harbor scammers of almost every kind, but removing all computers from Florida won't even begin to stem the tide of spam in your e-mail inbox.

Because of the very design (or lack of) of the Internet, it is not possible to locate and eliminate the source of spam with anything near 100% efficacy.

The only answer is not a single answer, but many small efforts to both block, and eliminate spam. There are currently laws to prosecute spammers, but the governments of the world are more or less impotent when it comes to catching and stopping spammers. Like any good scammer, they are always looking for loopholes and workarounds for anything that is put in their way.

Only education and a concerted global community effort will stop them. They are obviously making money or they wouldn't bother to send out that spam. Really, they don't send it just to irritate you or I, they send it because there are smucks in the world that click on the links and hand over cash for whatever is being sold.

The real way to stop SPAM is by using an approach that includes everything we know or will know about stopping it:

-Educating users to press delete first
-Hardened mail servers
-OSS based instant notification to the global community of new spam identifiers
-OSS based listing of spam identifiers, with something like /. to identify an email/content as spam, and given enough karma on it, all other subscribers can add it to their filtering lists
-Actual use of white and black lists by default on e-mail clients
-many many more mail servers scanning emails, even small modem sized proxies doing it for home users

and the list goes on. Until we are furiously implementing all methods instead of looking for one killer app to get rid of spam, it will exist.

Just 2 cents worth

There is one good solution to this

[terminal.dk]

Block all Internet traffic to/from Florida until they learn to behave.

Re:There is one good solution to this

[cosmic_0x526179]

Oh really... And what would you suggest being done about the 12 level-3 conduits and the 5 or 6 williams pipes a few miles from my house ? And what exactly would you propose about the IXC pipes about 6 miles in the other direction. And none of this addresses the AT&T/MCI/Sprint pipes.

Speaking of AT&T... there is the most curious AT&T facility about 40-ish miles from me. On a little country road, built into the side of a low hill. A big tall microwave/cell tower on top and 3 HUGE gensets under a brand new concrete porch. Double fenced, with a cam watching the entrance. Rarely any vehicles in there (but I only go past it once or twice a month, and usually at night so who knows about the daylight hours). A week or so after 9/11 I happen to be driving down that road... deputy sherrif backed in blocking the entrance with his parking lights on. One was there everytime I went by for the next couple of months. WTF is that place ?? I'm guessing a fiber switching facility, otherwise I dunno. The other strange thing about that place is the 3 stovepipes off to one side of the property. Maybe 20-30 feet tall. Heavily guyed. Strangest things I have ever seen on a comm facility.

Re:There is one good solution to this

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure about that place in particular, but I know that AT&T built comm facilities that were hardened against nuclear attack. I know of one such place south of St. Louis. There is usually nothing particularly interesting going on in them, but I am guessing that after 9/11, all infrastructure had people looking after it.

Re:There is one good solution to this

[Anonymous Coward]

> Oh really... And what would you suggest being done about the 12 level-3 conduits and the 5 or 6 williams pipes a few miles from my house ? And what exactly would you propose about the IXC pipes about 6 miles in the other direction. And none of this addresses the AT&T/MCI/Sprint pipes.

With that much connectivity nearby, I just want to know one thing...

Dude, how do you put up with the constant rain of rogue backhoes? What is it like to see nothing but safety-yellow paint out your front window every morning? How do you clear the streets of them? Do you sell 'em in bulk on eBay, or is it cheaper on shipping to just melt them down and sell the steel back to the manufacturers? :)

Re:There is one good solution to this

[cosmic_0x526179]

With that much connectivity nearby...

Dude, I wish... I'm about 2-km from a hellsouth SLC... that has no DSLAM and no fiber... so guess what that means... no eff-ing DSL! Also no cable (its hard getting the cows to subscribe I'm told). It hurts to be so close to so much bandwidth... and none for moi. All that water and not a drop to drink :/

South Florida is DEM territory.

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

South Florida is home to more spammers than any other place in the world...

Don't forget the Bush family...

South Florida is Democrat territory [mostly transplanted NYers and NJers] and went overwhelmingly Gore. Republican strength is in North Florida, which, for all intents and purposes, is an entirely different state.

By the way, real estate swindling is a long time source of Democrat wealth [John Zaccaro, husband of Geraldine Ferraro; Richard Blum, husband of Diane Feinstein; etc], which is the primary reason why Federal, State, and Local zoning laws and "environmental" regulations exist in the first place [to defend the interests of the landed gentry, and crooked Tony Soprano-esque insiders who can game the system].

We could also take some time to review the history of penny stock swindlers, like FDR's bootlegger cum-Nazi apologist ambassador to Great Britain, but this reply is getting kinda long-winded.

Re:South Florida is DEM territory.

[Anonymous Coward]

but this reply is getting kinda long-winded.

Actually, I was enjoying that.

Re:South Florida is DEM territory.

[nunchux]

South Florida is Democrat territory [mostly transplanted NYers and NJers] and went overwhelmingly Gore. Republican strength is in North Florida, which, for all intents and purposes, is an entirely different state.

True that N. Florida is the bottom of the Bible Belt, but your summation of S. Florida as all transplants from NY is dated. They definitely exist in large numbers, but so do native Republicans. And then there is the enormous first and second generation Cuban community, which Jeb has more-or-less managed to sway (and who are responsible for tipping the scales in the state and getting him elected to office in the first place.)

Also-- I'm not familiar with the specifics of bankruptcy laws and such, but I believe Florida is extremely lenient. Meaning you (or your shadow corporation) can declare bankruptcy and still hold on to most if not all of your personal assetts. Seems to work for O.J...

Re:South Florida is DEM territory.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, Democrats have a long history of swindling.

By contrast, Republicans have a long history of marching their jack-booted thugs into any country that doesn't follow along with their narrow-minded religious ideals and their ideas about ownership of oil.

Pot, meet kettle.

Re:South Florida is DEM territory.

[Mattintosh]

What, exactly, is a "cum-Nazi"?

No, wait... I don't want to know. Nevermind.

Re:South Florida is DEM territory.

[will_die]

In Florida and Texas they have a homestead exemption, so if you do file for bankruptcy you cannot be forced to sell your home. IIRC Texas has a it a little more easy in that they also cover some land larger then that in a standard housing lot.

Re:South Florida is DEM territory.

[Anonymous Coward]

Arizona's got lenient bankruptcy laws, too. A company that used to be in New York state, and who owes me and a bunch of other developers a lot of money in unpaid wages (from the beginning of the end of the .com era) moved to AZ to avoid having any of us sue them and to keep all of their nice goodies.

Posted as AC in case they're reading (but I doubt it).

Re:South Florida is DEM territory.

[Anonymous Coward]

Environmental regulations were invented for South Florida real estate swindlers? What is your source of info? Art Bell?

The hotels and condos that have gobbled up every inch of the coast and the pampered farmers who dump fertilizer and pesticides into the water supply would love to hear about your theories.

Re:Florida = White Trash Capital of USA, maybe Wor

[Anonymous Coward]

we haven't even touched on NAMBLA yet, there are many lows to go.

5 Hurricanes...

[Comatose51]

5 hurricanes, God's pissed off at you South Florida! I heard hurricane season is about to start again soon... Repent now!

(I can say this because I'm from S. Florida.)

Old news.

[alanw]

It has long been known that Boca Raton is the spam-haven of the world. A google groups for the place in group:news.admin.net-abuse.email turns up 1,230 hits.

See, for example, this media report in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel from Mar 24, 2003, or this one from Oct 10 2001, asking

What is wrong with the Boca Raton, Plantation, et. al. area of FL that it has such a high density of shameless and unrepentant spammers?

One of the reputed reasons spammers find it attractive, as mentioned in the article are the lenient bankruptcy laws which prevent the spammer's house from being reposessed.

Re:Old news.

[dickens]

Know any backhoe operators in Boca Raton?

Re:Old news.

[jafuser]

I used to live in Boca Raton.

It is home to the rudest, most obnoxious, egocentric, opportunistic, agressive, materialistc scumbags I've ever met. And that only describes the people who *would* give you the time of day.

Well it is time

[MemoryDragon]

that the governour does something about it, but wait... who was governour again?

Re:Well it is time

[Anonymous Coward]

Your spelling and pro-terrorist attitude reveal you as a Brit. Is it just me, or has there been an increase in English trolling since the fox hunting ban ? Can't you guys get another hobby, such as buggering hedghogs or something ?

Re:Well it is time

[MemoryDragon]

sure... put every valid criticism down as pro terrorist attitude... that kind of thing even worked for good ole Goebbels ...

I've forgot what spam is...

[hibi]

since I'm using gamil account :)

Speaking of Penny Stock Spammers...

[Nova Express]

...am I the only one who has received some 30 pump an dump stock spam scams from Wysak Petroleum?
(Yap Internation and Emerson Oil & Gas aren't far behind.) I've copied enforcement@sec.gov on all my spamcop comlaints, so far without avail.

If anyone has a good e-mail address to get their domain yanked, that would be a good start. Here's the DNS info:

wysak.com
Registrant: Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15511 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260 United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com (http://www.godaddy.com/
Domain Name: WYSAK.COM
Created on: 06-May-03
Expires on: 28-Mar-09
Last Updated on: 09-Jun-04
Administrative Contact: Private, Registration WYSAK.COM@domainsbyproxy.com
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15511 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260 United States
(480) 624-2599
Technical Contact: Private, Registration WYSAK.COM@domainsbyproxy.com
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15511 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599
Domain servers in listed order:
DNS1.INFINITEBANG.COM
DNS2.INFINITEBANG.C OM
Registry Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK

Currently trying: abuse@domainsbyproxy.com, root@INFINITEBANG.COM, abuse@godaddy.com
terryu@telus.net,

president@wysak.com bounces
root@wysak.com bounces
sales@wysak.com bounces
abuse@infinitebang.com bounces

Re:Speaking of Penny Stock Spammers...

[Anonymous Coward]

Print out the emails and send them by certified mail to the SEC. Also send them to several of big brokerage houses, certified, and ask if they made any brokerage fees from selling that stock. The brokerage houses will then tell their servant, the SEC, slap someone's hand.

Re:Speaking of Penny Stock Spammers...

[Anonymous Coward]

Received about 15 of them so far, which is at least 40% of my daily spam.

SpamAssassin completely misses them. I had to setup a mail rule to auto delete.

Re:its easy to call people stupid

[drooling-dog]

Why do we voters tolerate these businesses

Because God wants us to, apparently...

Why go that far?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why go that far? Many mail administrators simply drop email from China -- it should be just as easy to blacklist South Florida.

You mean

[Anonymous Coward]

...America's wang is always trying to make mine bigger?

Florida is deffinitelly a crookland...

[NeedleSurfer]

I mean if you consider that recently Jeb Bush legalized the use of firearm in public as long as one feel his live is endangered, the spam capital of the world, a primary entry point for most of the drug in the US...

And it's governor another Bush, what a great american family...

Re:Florida is deffinitelly a crookland...

[squatex]

This is pretty off topic but:

I mean if you consider that recently Jeb Bush legalized the use of firearm in public as long as one feel his live is endangered,

Frankly I dont see what everyones problem with this change of law is. Not only do you have to feel your life is in danger, but you better make damn sure that your life really was in danger (and be able to prove it somehow). Its not a license to kill or anything.

Re:Florida is deffinitelly a crookland...

[Anonymous Coward]

because if you feel your life is in danger, and a gun can save you, you should just die? you not a big fan of life, my friend?

Re:Florida is deffinitelly a crookland...

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people who are in fear of their life will break the law to save it. It makes no sense to have laws that require people to endanger or sacrifice their life; those laws just get broken and you end up with "problematic" jury trials.

Think of that law as more of an instruction to county DAs to not waste the taxpayer's time with certain trials.

Prosecuting someone for defending their life isn't even done in big gun control places like Japan, Britain, and New York City. They will prosecute for the lesser offense of having an unregistered weapon or something, but even they aren't as stupis as you, NeedleSurfer. Are you thinking of running for office anywhere ? I'd like to see you in a public debate.

Re:Florida is deffinitelly a crookland...

[Greyfox]

I suspect that part of his motivation for that is the 3 or 4 people a year who have alligators come into their houses during mating season. They shoot the alligators and are subsequently prosecuted for discharging a firearm within city limits. Although this law seems more geared toward human criminals, I suspect that its main application will be for reptile ones.

Re:Florida is deffinitelly a crookland...

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's governor another Bush, what a great american family...

I'll be sure to point you back to this post when Hillary Clinton runs for President, unless frowning on multiple family members running for office only works against Republicans.

Re:Florida is deffinitelly a crookland...

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's governor another Bush, what a great american family...

And its poster another Slashdotter, what an intolerant liberal institution...

Welcome to /. where Bush bashing is in-season all year long, even when it has absolutely nothing of real relevance to the topic at hand.

Re:Florida is deffinitelly a crookland...

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

What the hell do firearms have to do with a "crookland?" Troll. Just because you don't agree with one decision with the governor doesn't mean "Florida is deffinitelly a crookland."
Last time I checked Washington DC leads the nation in violence and firearms are banned out right there.

Re:Florida is deffinitelly a crookland...

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

Also, you jackass; do you think geography might possibly have something to do with Florida being a "primary entry point for most of the drugs in the US?"
No wait, it's Jeb Bush.... That MUST be it. Liberals are bad enough but then you have stupid liberal trolls... Then again you might just be bashing Bush. Too bad you're so incompetent at it.

Two Words

[benjamindees]

Key Largo
It's nicely relevant to the current political climate in the US as well.

the next iraq

[Anonymous Coward]

Preemptive strike against Weapons of Mass Distribution. Oh boy!

Re:the next iraq

[Anonymous Coward]

But this time, we are likely to find something.

A shame...

[Dimensio]

...that it's hard to argue that a spammer has somehow endangered your life.

So you'll need a good story in advance, and no witnesses.

Re:A shame...

[DavidTC]

It's better just to get like four other sysadmin to alibi you.

Re:A shame...

[mink]

He's comming right at us!

Secret spammer's base

[cpghost]

Admiral: Darth Vader, we've finally discovered spammer's secret base.

Darth Vader. Excellent, admiral. Where is that?

Admiral: It's called "south Florida" on a useless little planet named "Earth".

Darth Vader: Very good! Is our new and improved star destroyer ready?

Re:Secret spammer's base

[WarPresident]

South Florida Airport. You will never find a more wretched hive of spammers and villainy-- we must be cautious.

Re:Secret spammer's base

[ggvaidya]

(2 days later)

Ackbar: It's a trap!

ObiWan: That's not a planet ...

(New security systems - installed by the mice after that Vogon incident - kick in and destroy the SSD)

Uh oh...

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

Methinks the Sun-Sentinel will soon regret having a reg-free "post your comments" board attached to an article that just got Slashdotted.

"Marge? What in the world does '133t Hax0r' mean?"

Re:Dirty Business

[Mr. Hankey]

There's Disney, too. Gotta love corporations that sue pre-schools.

Follow the money....

[hughk]

There are underpaid or out of work techies all over the world who want to make $$$ from home.

The thing is that if somebody offers a product over the Internet, they want paying. You don't get V1agra or C1alis for free!

In the end a Spamming business needs bank accounts and in particular, card clearing services. Sure, technical solutions can help but it is an Arms Race. The best way is surely to close down their source of funds, or at least make it uneconomic for them to work over the internet.

maybe you forgot to notice

[hyperstation]

that the south florida economy is *booming*. i live here, and really kinda like it. it's got it's problems, just like anywhere else.

contrary to popular belief, spam is NOT the only industry. it's illegal. SOLICITED email, however - is not.

no state income tax, either! makes a real difference if you're making a bit of money.

so if you're a whining, out of work programmer - then come here and find a job. there are plenty.

Re:maybe you forgot to notice

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what South Floridians ALWAYS say, especially when trying to sell your grandma a trailer lot in a recently drained swamp that's "perfect for building your dream house on later" and "guaranteed by the Army Corp of Engineers not to flood again" and "only a short walk from the beach" (say 20 miles) and "part of a master-planned community that will include a swimming pool and performing arts center" , blah, blah, blah.

Face it, your region has a bad reputation for a reason. It's because your neighbors are drug smugglers, real estate pimps, fly-by-night hurricane repair constructers, avon and herbalife salesman, and yes, spammers too. If you want people to pay attention when you advertise your region, how about applying a little old fasioned Quacker shunning to some of the sea of criminals that you are immersed in ?

Re:maybe you forgot to notice

[DavidTC]

Why not just ARREST the criminals?

Get a grip...

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

wasn't it last week that we declared the spam capitol of thw world was china or was it that one eastern european country?

Spam is the direct result of the freedoms and capitalism that our great democratic republic is a great nation for. If you don't like it, than move to China...

and write an spam email program ?

[bananasfalklands]

Move to hell ? No thank you.

That would be a despicable waste!

[MisterLawyer]

All that... Delicious... Spam... Squandered... All the spam in florida? That would be enough spam to feed the populations of Africa and India for, like, decades.

Re:Dirty Business

[Anonymous Coward]

Central Florida.

South Florida is (NOT) DEM territory.

[Ryosen]

2000 Election results from CNN:
Bush 2,909,176 (49%)
Gore 2,907,451 (49%)

2004 Election results from the Washington Post:

George W. Bush 3,955,656 (52%)
John F. Kerry 3,574,509 (47%)
Other 61,618 (1%)

49% of the state voted Republican in 2000. 52% in 2004.

In South Florida, only Broward, Miami/Dade and Palm Beach counties voted Democrat and Kerry lead Bush by only 6% of the votes in Miami/Dade.

More info here: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/sta tes/FL/P/00/map.htmlpages/results/states/FL/P/00/m ap.html

Not exactly "overwhelmingly" Democrat.

Re:South Florida is (NOT) DEM territory.

[cubicleman]

I wouldn't trust the '00 or '04 Florida results..remember hanging chads? I assume both of those elections were rigged, what with Jeb being the gov..

Re:Dirty Business

[Mr. Hankey]

Well then, it seems these two sections of Florida have more in common than one might like to admit.

Spam and politics

[GQuon]

From your comment: "In South Florida, only Broward, Miami/Dade and Palm Beach counties voted Democrat and Kerry lead Bush by only 6% of the votes in Miami/Dade."

From the article in the story (TFA): "Together, Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties are home to more spammers than any country on Earth. "

(my emphasis)

Ooops :-)

Correlation isn't necessarily correlation, but I found it rather funny that they were the same counties. :-)

Re:Spam and politics

[Ryosen]

I see your point.

So, if I'm to understand correctly, the majority of "small-time" criminals are Democrat. I guess that would leave the Big Leagues to the Republicans?

Re:Spam and politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Correlation isn't necessarily correlation

What? "Correlation" is case-sensitive? Damn!

Re:Spam and politics

[GQuon]

Whoops. Correlation isn't necessarily causation, is what I meant.

Re:Spam and politics

[Anonymous Coward]

>Correlation isn't necessarily correlation, but I found it rather funny that they were the same counties.

First, see the map of Florida counties and note the relative positions of the three counties in question. That's right: they're all adjacent, and they're part of the Miami metro area.

According to the 2000 census, there are only 34 US counties with over 1 million people (in only 14 states).

9,519,338: Los Angeles County, California
5,376,741: Cook County, Illinois
3,400,578: Harris County, Texas
3,072,149: Maricopa County, Arizona
2,846,289: Orange County, California
2,813,833: San Diego County, California
2,465,326: Kings County, New York
2,253,362: Miami-Dade County, Florida
2,229,379: Queens County, New York
2,218,899: Dallas County, Texas
2,061,162: Wayne County, Michigan
1,737,034: King County, Washington
1,709,434: San Bernardino County, California
1,682,585: Santa Clara County, California
1,623,018: Broward County, Florida
1,545,387: Riverside County, California
1,537,195: New York County, New York
1,517,550: Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania
1,465,396: Middlesex County, Massachusetts
1,446,219: Tarrant County, Texas
1,443,741: Alameda County, California
1,419,369: Suffolk County, New York
1,393,978: Cuyahoga County, Ohio
1,392,931: Bexar County, Texas
1,375,765: Clark County, Nevada
1,334,544: Nassau County, New York
1,332,650: Bronx County, New York
1,281,666: Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
1,223,499: Sacramento County, California
1,194,156: Oakland County, Michigan
1,131,184: Palm Beach County, Florida
1,116,200: Hennepin County, Minnesota
1,068,978: Franklin County, Ohio
1,016,315: St. Louis County, Missouri

Note that if we consider metro areas instead of counties, the above list above shrinks considerably (e.g. in California, the four biggest counties are part the LA metro; in New York, all of the counties listed are part of the NYC metro). I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to show that the list can be cut in half if you only consider metro areas.

Anyway, back on topic: the top 3 counties in Florida make up more than 31.3% of the total population of the state (with only about 7.5% of the total area). Thus, if you know that someone lives in Florida, there's a 31.3% chance they live in one of those the top 3 counties. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that these three counties would be listed together in various press releases. It's akin to grouping LA, Orange and San Diego counties together in a press release about something in California.

The only curious part is: why is this happening in the Miami area and not NY, LA, Chicago, DC, San Fran, Philly, Boston, Detroit or DFW?

Poor statistics, no proof

[cyberlotnet]

They are making theory not fact.

With so many ISP's, and Customers that report spam OFFLINE in florida it would make perfect sense that the rate of reported spam would drop!!!

Granted im not saying Spam is not a major source of spam, just that there theory has no backing and is has a major flaw in its thought.

GOD HATES SPAM

[Anonymous Coward]

...even more than ***s!!

Job interview

[digitalhermit]

I live in sunny S. Florida... Last year I had a phone interview that went something like:

Interviewer: So tell me what you know about mail?

Me: Well, I've configured dozens of mail servers. I've configured everything from the DNS down to the spam filtering software.

Interviewer: Spam filtering software?

Me: All aspects. I can configure software such as SpamAssassin and of course hard Postfix and Sendmail against lots of spam attacks. Depending on what the customer wants, I can set it up to be super aggressive or not.

Interviewer: So you don't agree with the practice?

Me: Man, I hate spam. These people don't realize the headaches that it can cause. I wish they'd get some fungus that science hasn't heard about yet.

[snip]

Interviewer: So any questions that you'd like to ask us?

Me: There are a couple. Things such as salary and of course the job description. The headhunter was a little vague.

Interviewer: We're an, umm, direct marketing association.

Me: Direct marketing?

Interviewer: Yeah, we send email to people who have expressed an interest in our products.

Me: [light beginning to flicker on] So how do you know they're interested?

Interviewer: They have visited related sites...

The interview pretty went south from there. He finally told me that I perhaps wasn't the best candidate for the position. I agreed.

Re:Job interview

[DSP_Geek]

Dude. you blew it. Next time see if you can get the job, get root access to their servers, make copies of their scams, keep the FTC and FDA in the loop.

Re:Job interview

[HermanAB]

Hmm, a few weeks ago, somebody phoned and asked whether I can send mass mail for him. I commented that I can send the mail alright, but I am pretty sure that it won't get through my mass mail filters. It took him a little while to understand...

+1 Funny should be renamed to: "+1 Curse"

[RedLaggedTeut]

+1 Funny + -1 Overrated = -1 Karma ;-)

Mississippi

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Oh yeah. Every few years I spend 5 or 6 weeks in Biloxi. The first time I flew down there scared the shit out of me, I took a taxi just about everywhere, and the drivers where straight out of Deliverance. All the same, after a few trips, I grew to like the people and find that they are much more friendly and honest than here is Seattle.

Not really

[Anonymous Coward]

Since we dislike you so much, we have been sending you a bunch of trash. But you voted it into Gov.. Twice.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

You hear that?

[northcat]

Florida. That's USA. Not China. Or Russia or Hong Kong or Timbuktu.

RE: Spam Capital of the World

[Anonymous Coward]

This crap will continue until we begin executing spammers on primetime TV.

Be a Patriot!

[Anonymous Coward]

We are Americans! Be a patriot, and buy that V1agra and Cia1is from your fellow American!

where's the xendi when you need them?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's the xendi when you need them?

Florida

[Max Threshold]

"The reason for that seems to be Florida's long history and friendliness with dirty business from real estate speculation to the penny stock scammers."

...not to mention corrupt law enforcement, massive election fraud (1876, 2000, 2004), a large percentage of the nation's collection agencies, corrupt school board officials, Disneyland, you name it. Florida is a festering pot of swill that doesn't deserve to be a state in my Union. (And technically isn't.)

i like s florida

[harlemjoe]

i like s florida
for its shamelessness
and the girls are gorgeous
and the club scene is great in miami
and people drive nice cars
and the golf courses are nice
and the water is bright frikkin' blue

i sympathize with the spammers ... who wants to work hard in the sunshine?

only the hurricanes are a bummer

and imho if the world has to have a spam capital, I'd rather have it here in the US than abroad -- spam isn't going to disappear if we clear up South Florida

read this fun slate article about election fraud and its history in florida...

Re:i like s florida

[cubicleman]

I like S. Florida also..grew up there (Marathon in Monroe County in the Keys to be exact). I've lived in Ohio, Michigan, Arizona, and now Colorado since then. Thinking of moving to California now..

How do they know where it's coming from?

[UnapprovedThought]

From TFA:

The city with the most spammers in the world is Boca Raton

Unlike direct mail and telemarketing, e-mail is cheap, global and often untraceable.

So, if it's untraceable, how do they know it's coming from Boca Raton? If, on the other hand it is traceable and they know where it's all coming from then why haven't they cracked down on it? Maybe it's because they really don't know?

Inexperienced, understaffed investigators must feel an incredible temptation to stop following the red herring trail provided by a spammer as soon as they find something which they think fits a profile. But, for all they know, it could just as easily be a smokescreen set up for their viewing pleasure by a spam industry elsewhere that wants the domains of their competitors shut off.

Notorious Florida

[Nuitana]

That doesn't surprise me. I've long thought that Florida was land of the most unscrupulous marketers, including telemarketers peddling Florida vacations and timeshares.

Can be easily solved, South Korea block needed

[Ilgaz]

All Major mail servers should block South Korea until their government takes action to following:

http://www.spamcop.net/w3m?action=inprogress

Its dynamic statistic. Kornet and Hananet.

Government action is: Mail servers, servers are SHUT DOWN until businesses PROVE they are legit/non spammer business, servers patched, force ISP buy whatever security service needed, price not asked.

As a spam reporting guy, believe me when I say it. Those ISP's are in a point of S. Korea congress/parliament whatever hearing. Its in "police" level of spamming and ignorance.

I may easily say the Korean giants as Samsung etc may be effected. I got Korea IP space blocked for instance.

Florida? Hope you never see Korean chars in your inbox.

PS: I will shoot the first guy telling poor Koreans can't manage their servers or doesn't know english etc. If you can't manage, you don't "BE" on Internet and effect its stability, peace!

Global Warming

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly this is a reason to support global warming. Most of Florida is only a few meters above sea level. Raise oceans a meter or so and most of the state would turn into a lagoon. Sea water is very hard on electronics ya know.

Something you can do about it

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are receving spam from florida, and the spam itself has something wrong with it (bad subject line, bad from address, forged routing info, etc...), You can file a complaint with the Florida Attorney General's office, so that they'll go after the guys.

Their complaint form is at: http://myfloridalegal.com/pages.nsf/Main/CB94AA46D 5A0974985256EBB006D2E21?OpenDocument

note: You might want to include evidence tying the message to florida (a whois, traceroute, etc...).

another get-rich-quick scheme

[juan2074]

Perhaps South Florida just attracts a lot of people planning to get rich quick.

Even as a Cuban, I can't stand the place.

how about a lack of common decency?

[Anonymous Coward]

you know that could be why so many scammers/spammers set up shop in South Florida.

you would think that the Florida Attorney General would be embarassed but he doesn't appear to be.

the legislature, the A.G., and local government and law enforcement need to go after them.

Ho-ho-hold on one second

[crimson30]

This state has a substantial dollar value attached to it!