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The Plot To Hijack Your Hard Drive
An anonymous reader writes Business Week Online examines the business practices of spammers and pop-up advertisers, using much-maligned Direct Revenue as an example case. The article discusses the history of the company, their rocky road through good and bad times, and what they're willing to to get your eyes on their ads." From the article: "Among Direct Revenue's alumni, pride over technical cunning mingles with regret for exasperating so many computer users. After waffling on the issue during a long interview, one former Dark Arts wizard sighs and sums up his version of the company credo with an elegiac observation by abolitionist Frederick Douglass: 'Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.'"
Here is preceding text of the observation by abolitionist Frederick Douglass: "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." How about the plot of the media companies and IT giants to hijack digital content using DRM? The spammers are small players compared to the corporate giants.
... I interviewed for this outfit for a linux position, and boy did it dishearten me. It seems that all that's left in NYC tech is consulting, banks/investment houses (which are often bastions of dumb corpthink, except for the more technical hedge funds), and shady outfits like this. There's very little in the way of new tech going on in NYC anymore, and the stable work has in many cases moved out to NJ and areas beyond.
IMHO stable back-office jobs in NYC are going the way of the dodo. Even if they don't offshore, they will migrate to states that are friendlier to business and have lower operating costs. I've already left NY, and so far I couldn't be happier. To be honest, I could sit playing WoW in my underwear in NYC and pay a fortune for electricity, cable, insurance, etc.. Or move somewhere else with broadband and do the exact same thing for less?
(and get paid the same, quite honestly, at least in tech the NYC job market has been squeezed so hard that the reputed higher wage level is a bit of an illusion now, so while wages remain stagnant or decline, costs go up up up.. I'm making more as a full timer outside NY than I did as a 'consultant' working in midtown, and that's just net take-home pay, before factoring in insurance and whatnot)
(please read everything before modding it. I'm tired of being modded because someone reads out of context - with incomplete info
There are one or two who have claimed to see the light and give up the ghost.
What's said is most of the spam isn't coming from people connecting to Russia or China and zapping it back here, but within the US. This is because there are still plenty of ISPs who are willing to harbor spammers because they are easy money. In fact, they likely can charge the spammers more in order to remain "protected", regardless of what the TOS might say. Little side deals (pink contracts). And some of the ISPs -- high enough up the food chain -- really just don't give a rat's ass what goes on, as long as the money flows.
The 2003 U-CAN-SPAM act was written by the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) who claimed to be "anti spam" and Congress largely believed them. The unfortunate thing is the DMA's definition of spam is|was a lot different than everyone else's. Why did they do it? Jerry Cerasale (VP) said, "we don't believe an opt-in requirement provides a viable economic model." translated: if you can't guarantee our ability to make money, we will fight it tooth & nail. Requiring Confirmed Opt-in (what spammers and ignorant people calll "double opt-in") would have made them pop a vein.
What's sick is are all of the spam messages which have a tiny little graphic (or text in lieu of) down in the lower right-hand corner stating their U-CAN SPAM compliance. This would mean: proper headers, a relevant subject, a legitimate snailmail address, and a legitimate, working opt-out address. Oh, you can harvest email addresses, but you can't send to those harvested addresses. The number of bulkers who send email messages which comply with this (and things which don't come to mind) can be counted on one, perhaps two hands. I had one where examination of their sh%tty IIS setup revealed two text files, both of which said you were being removed from the system. What was displayed was an IIS error and a reference to the file where a quick hack of the site revealed they had no intention of making things do what they are supposed to. Why did the DMA do what they did? To give everyone who wants to send permission, and (more importantly) to get rid of state laws, under the pretense they couldn't keep track of which addresses resided in which state and they were tired of being sued. U-CAN-SPAM wiped out the existing state laws with no grandfathering.
Ronnie Scelson, who likes to parade himself as a king of spam, but not as loudly as Alan Ralsky, former
If you were to quiz certain groups re: who can go after spammers, you'd likely be told it's a Federal thing: the FBI, FTC, Justice Dept, etc. What's being over looked are two other parties: SAGs (State Attorneys General) and ISPs. The only SAG I've heard earn a reputation for pursuits, let alone success is NY. The only ISPs have been AOL. Microsoft has put their landsharks to work, but Microsoft themselves harbor spammers on Hotmail and refuse to do anything about it, let alone spamvertised sites on bCentral. You'd think the standard ISP would go after them in order to show a success rate and separate themselves from their primary [local] competitors. All things being equal, if you had a choice between two ISPs but one goes after spammers, which would you choose? I know people who have created an ISP by providing a service to a single client and pursued spammers,