Slashdot Mirror
Two Spammers Murdered in New Jersey
Zerbey wrote in with a CNN report about the excution-style murder of two shady online stock promoters whose primary marketing device was ... spam. Zerbey wrote, hopefully with tongue in cheek, that they may have been slain "by a disgruntled recipient of UCE who decided that e-mailing abuse@ simply wasn't effective enough." Farfetched? Perhaps. A quote from the story: "Though investigators have not pinpointed a motive or suspects, Monmouth
County Prosecutor John Kaye said the attack likely was at least partly tied to the pair's penny stock Web operation, www.stockinvestor.com, or other ventures."
Will learn from this incident.. I'm getting spam on ICQ, and that's annoying as hell. I don't mind it in my email becuase I sort of expect it - but not on ICQ. How about this for an idea, we call all the spammers at 3 am and spam, then we cover their car with flyers, the we call them at work and follow them all over..
You get it, they are every where - invading you life...
-Ellis of Geeknews.com
In all seriousness, their deaths PROBABLY had NOTHING to do with spam, but business practices in general. As much as I would love for this to be a lesson to spammers in general, spam != bad business for most companies.
Not sure I agree. It's more that bad business does not imply spam. The other way arround it's hard to see something which involves stealing and deception (i.e. spam) as anything other than a bad practice.
You are right, what was I thinking? It was a closed source murder. I'll bet it was neither (beer)free nor (speech)free.
And why would it matter that you are armed?
DUH! That should be easy to figure out. If I were unarmed, any armed person (or any other large predator for that matter) out there could easily 'expend' my life, just like those two dead spammers, and there wouldn't be a damn thing I could do about it.
But because I have taken the sensible precaution of arming myself, I at least have a chance at shooting back. Therefore, anyone attempting to harm me runs the very real and immediate risk of being harmed or killed themselves. They will need to ask themselves if it is worth the risk.
My god! When I heard about this I realized I need to email all my friends! I think I'll post it on a bunch of news groups too!
Important news!
Spammers killed!
Please forward this message to everyone you know!
The two differ only in trivial details. The bottom line is that these two engaged in theft as a way of life, and finally made the mistake of robbing the wrong person. The Universe punishes stupidity by death, with no appeal.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Joking aside, the place where you go wrong is calling these two dead entities for "humans". They weren't, they were spammers. Treating them as human beings would be unethical. The have the same relationship with the human species as cancer cells have with ordinary cells. And should be treated accordingly.
Thank you for enlightening me of your complete and utter lack of intelligence. You'll be happy to know that henceforth all communiques coming from your little corner of stupidity will be ignored until the day you die. However, just to perhaps encourage brain cell growth in that shriveled little head of yours: My signature means that it's pointless to reply to my post with the intention of evoking some sort of response from my end unless your replying post is scored 1 or higher because, well, I have a hard threshold of 1. If you feel that is egotistical, you are of course welcome to your (rather moronic) opinions. I am, quite honestly, however, surprised no one has tagged you as flamebait, because quite obviously you're not a biped and I'm flaming you because you're an asshole.
One day people will phrase these questions (at least they should be queries, you presumptuous little bigot) politely, rather than mindlessly attacking anyone who isn't ``cool'' to them like some sort of barbarian with an ``inadequacy'' complex. Ha!
~ Kish
Back when a spammer used my email address to spam roughly two hundred thousand AOL users and I got burried in complaints and bounces, I, too, wished to be alone with the guy responsible, and a nice baseball bat.
Zero tolerance to spam... but seriously, if this indeed was the motive, then it's going a tad bit too far.
Can't say I'll be mourning, though.
Excuse me? What were you expecting anarchy to spill, virtual blood?
Hey I'm a spammer and this makes me sick. I think all the spammers out there need to contact me. We need to poll our money together to get some sort of protection service/agency for ourselves. Most of us are so filthy rich anyways we can certainly afford it. (I know I am! =)) Then after we feel sufficiently protected, we need to hire some assassins to start taking out the anti-spam advocates. Namely a number of slashdot lamers who showed no remorese for the 2 great men murdered need to be killed first. Secondly, we need to kill all the morons on slashdot who open their big damn mouths with their worthless comments without reading the fucking goddamn article. They really deserve what will be coming. Fellow spammers, here are my stats: AOL, spammed: 14,023,941 with 18 different messages. .COM, .NET, .ORG : Spammed 73,013,392. ! WAHOO!
I've never seen a better reason for reducing legal costs. Currently, unfortunatly, it's cheaper to hire a hitman than a lawyer.
Ed Craig "Who cares what you think?" George W. Bush, 4th of July 2001
These guys were killed "execution style". Meaning mob related. These guys screwew the wrong people over a botched hotel deal. This is NOT spam related.
I don't mean to make light of this. Yes, two people have been killed and this is a fundamental wrong thing (tm), it's just that there is this pattern that I keep seeing.
:), but these are just my observations of what is. Events like this are always bad, I just hope for some positive outcome when I see them. And what I look forward to in the future is recognition of and solutions to problems before horrible acts of violence force them to our attention. It has been said that "eternal vigilance is the price of freedom", but I think that if we can be attentive to the subtle things, our path will be smoother.
A few years ago, U.S. Postal workers flipped out regularly and started shooting up their place of employment. We haven't seen these events in Post Offices for a while. What happened? What changed? Was it just a phase of the moon? A syzygy (sp? - planetary alignment)? Some temporary problem of extraterrestrial influence? Maybe stress?
Hmmm... we might be onto something here. Perhaps the conditions were too repetitious/opressive/stressful and people flipped out. Maybe as a result of those events, the work model changed a bit. Maybe the bosses are a little less authoritarian. Maybe postal workers are being a little nicer to each other.
If the above is true, it could be a result of fear that their fellow workers might be capable of hurting them, or it could just be a recognition that there was a problem to start with and a sincere desire to make a positive change.
The bottom line is that there were a series of these events and now we haven't heard of such events for a long time.
In April, we had the Columbine shooting. There are some questions yet as to who the shooters were (philosophically), and their motives and targets. As a former High School outcast/geek, I can understand if their motive was fear or anger at jocks, being picked on, or excluded, or the structure or whatever. Maybe it was even due to their own mental imbalances. (I'm not condoning their behavior, only saying that I understand.) In any case, there is some reason why this happened and similar or copycat events continue to occur. There is some stressor, and I hope that these tragic events will cause the average person (student) to take a closer look, to stop and think about the impact of their actions. I can only hope that whatever brought about the change at the Post Office can happen in America's Schools. Maybe Jocks won't pick on Geeks because they're afraid of being shot. I realize that this is the wrong means to the desired end, but if we can take what was a tragic circumstance and make positive change as a result, at least there is some good. (My fellow Geeks, please do not take this a permission to go and shoot Jocks, and please do not believe that this is a good way to make a difference. I'm just arguing that since it's already done, maybe there can be some positive change.)
It appears that problems seem to fester and not come to serious light, let alone get lanced, until some extraordinarily bad event takes place. This is really unfortunate, but seems to be true.
Even though I agree that the killing of these two "shady" businessmen is certainly about the monetary fraud they committed, if it causes a Spammer to stop and think, "Maybe there is someone out there pissed off enough about what I am doing that they might try to do me bodily harm...", even to simply stop and consider the impact of his/her actions on others, this can only lead to improvement in our internet community the same as improvement has come to the Post Office.
Yes, I do recognize the downsides to all this as have been stated in many other posts. Labeling this as a Spam revenge thing can cause certain less-than-critically-thinking individuals to see us in a bad light. And this is the same tactic (at least the fear component) that has made it damned difficult for many women to obtain consitutionally protected abortion services. But there are facets of life that are simply fait accompli and we try appreciate the benefits we receive and fight against the injustices. As with most things, they can be used for bad or good.
IANAS (I am not a sociologist
Russ
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
The important question is, how many more spammers will have to die violently before it stops? If it became a pattern (regardless of -why- they were killed), surely at some point the spammers would stop, and Usenet would once again be usable.
Oh please - and you know this how?
Well.... the unabomber's in jail, so I guess THAT's a bad idea...
Assuming that each message wastes one minute of other people's lives (remember, you have to include bandwidth waste and message download times), then each batch of one million spams they send out takes about 1.9 years out of other people's lifetimes. If they've done it 80 times, they've killed two people. I think one could make a case for self defense. Of course, by this math, Bill Gates has killed more people than Hitler. Admittedly not quite the same thing.
Look at it another way: one of the 50 or so times some driver of a car deliberately tried to run me off the road on my bike, I smashed his windshield and dented his hood. Almost every serious biker I know in the area (Denver/Boulder) has been attacked/hit by auto drivers. Was I justified for reacting that way to a single incident? Maybe not... he threatened my life, but I could have gotten away. Instead, I cost him a few hundred dollars and scared the shit out of them. If that had been the first time it happened, I'd have let it go. But nobody who saw that will ever try to bump a bike again. And everybody who saw it, except the guys in the car, thought I was justified.
We need to retaliate every once in a while, give them a scare, or they'll never stop.
i clicked 'reply to' on a post, going to ask about what this "y2k bug spam announcement' microsoft sent out was.
i have somehow wound up at a reply page, but the post it says i'm replying to is totally blank and says at the top:
(Score:)
by on (#)
(User Info)
this is cool. i love it when slashdot trips out.
now let's post and see where this post winds up..
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
An even more tried and true method is to start stealing from the big guy. If the big guy doesn't like your action (s)he has the resources to do it and get away with it, and something to lose if they don't do it.
I agree with you that people have an apparent disregard for human life, but if these Slashdotters had known people involved, they wouldn't have said the things they did. So I think therefore, that they really do care for human life, they just see this situation through a looking glass.
As for gun control, that definitely wouldn't have stopped someone angry enough to kill from killing. Murder is against the law, and he didn't mind breaking that law, so why would he care if guns were outlawed? Outlawing guns is the worst thing you can do. If you don't believe me, look at Australia. They banned handguns and saw a VERY sharp increase in the amount of violent crimes involving guns.
Darn; death's too good for spammers, and these two got away.
Serves no purpose. The article should be moderated down. Roblimo, and Zerbey should loose buko-Karma for this ilk.
Oh geez! Lighten up already!
I really don't need to hear anyone making cheap jokes at the expense of a couple of dead people.
Then ignore the thread. Nobody is forcing you to read these posts. Asking the moderators to aggressively down-mod this thread just so it palatable to your own sensitive intellect is just a little selfish (not to mention arrogant).
It's not funny.
But it is funny. Perhaps you don't know the definition of comedy. According to Mel Brooks (and he should know), "Comedy happens to other people. Tragedy happens to me." I don't know those two, so therefore it's funny. Apart from that, do you not realize that jokes and laughter are a very human coping mechanism for stressful stimuli?
It's not cute.
You're right, it's not cute. But cute is not the same thing as funny, and many of the posts here are hilarious.
They're dead.
That means they are totally beyond caring what we do or don't say about them. Are a few dark jokes going to make them any more dead? Will false empathy and crocodile tears bring them back to life? It didn't for Diana Spencer, so don't expect a miracle for these two losers. So who is harmed by a little dark humor on Slashdot? Before you claim yourself as a victim, though, please remember that nobody is forcing you to read Slashdot.
Those were human lives.
They were SPAMMERS so 'human' is a debatable term. Additionally, there are now over 6 BILLION people on this planet. It's not as though human life (or spammer life for that matter) is exactly a scarce commodity.
all of these tasteless jokes would be appropriately tagged ``flamebait''
Thanks ever so much for so selflessly volunteering your services as the "Touchstone of Tastefullness". From now on, I'll make sure to consult you before I read anything. God forbid anyone should be subjected to potentially offensive material.
I for one did not need this to ``brighten'' up my morning.
You've never administered a public mail server, have you? Well, after spending all night cleaning up a spool directory that was clogged with over 6 Gigabytes of UCE, this sure brightened up my morning.
I think there's a phrase that could be paraphrased here somehow, but I've been awake too long dealing with spam to think of how right now. The original quote is "A Liberal is just a Conservative that hasn't been mugged yet." I think it could go "An Overly Sensitive Thought Police On Slashdot is just a Heartless Uncaring Bastard who hasn't spent all night sorting and cleaning spam out of a mail spool yet.
What next? What's worse than destroying whole communities for personal gain, which is what spammers do?
Stopping spammers is simply self defence. Yes, it should be the job of the police to stop the spammers, not the individual victims. There are always problems involved when private citizens attempts to enforce justice. But until the law starts working, we really have no alternative.
I want spammers to know that, yes, spam is cheap advertizing. But spam hurts people. Even if the spammer is too stupid (or greedy) to see how spam can hurt. And some of the people hurt might take it personally. Very personally.
Even if it's "fake child porn", all it does is encourage other pornographers and those that want to download child porn. It's sick, disgusting, and perverse and to think of it as anything other than that makes me suspicious of whoever does.
I'm sorry if you disagree.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
For a much happier Slashdot experience:
1. Set your threshold to 0 or 1 (or higher).
2. Set your reading order to "Highest scores first."
3. When a new topic comes up, especially a controversial one, wait a little while before reading it. Give the moderators a little time. If the article was posted at 11:50, don't come in at 11:55 and start complaining about the off-topic posts.
--
Pretend there is some witty statement here.
first post here, but this is a peeve of mine.
taking some innocent little kid and doing whatever sick things child porn people may do to him/her will give that kid severe emotional problems and probably mess them up for life. They might never be able to open up to a real relationship, experience love, friendship, or even feel safe ever again.
Anyone that does that to a kid too young to know any better deserves death, because they've basically killed that kid. I'm who just follow society's banal stigma of "if it's open-minded and peaceful and forgiving it must be good." Some people just don't deserve to live. Think about if it was _your_ kid that some pervert kidnapped and messed with. Or put yourself in the shoes of the kid himself.
I understand being forgiving up thieves, who maybe have to steal because it's the only way they will eat. Or forgiving the father who goes out and kills the man that raped his daughter. But to stick up for child porn, where a kid gets his life messed up so that some sick pervert can get his rocks off, that's just wrong. Re-think your values.
Definitely! I know we've all thought about killing spammers but I doubt anyone would really do it. Or would they?
Ah, yes, the good 'ol /. tradition of responding without reading what you're responding to.
FYI, the article you didn't read mentioned spam in passing. It was not a "spammer's get whacked" article... that's the spin the person who submitted the article put on it.
The two victim's business dealings in general were the focus of the article. The fact that they manipulated stock, defauded people, etc. That they used spam as a part of that was only simply mentioned. When they mentioned potential suspects, they only said there was more than one gunman involved, most likely, that certain people (ex husband of one of the victim's gf) was cleared, and a strong suggestion that it was tied to their "shady business." No mention of spam.
There's no mention of net vigilantes wreaking horrible vengence on spammers. I'm dismayed that a few people here actually are assuming this is what has happened (and, even more dismayed that they seem to sort of be into it...).
You know, if you are against media hysteria, perhaps you should try to not jump to conclusions yourself.
>Eagle
Nah, not offing lusers. Just rm -rf'ing them.
Dan "Now
- that
is a LART" Poore[insert witty quote here]
My 2 bits, WRT punishment of spammers:
:)
1st offense: Fine, say $1000 or local equivalent
2nd offense: Confiscation of hardware, triple the 1st offense's fine (in line with the TCPA for the sender knowingly violating the law)
[here's where we start to differ]
3rd offense: Spammer locked in a cell with a 386 using a 2400 baud modem (I'd say lower but I don't think you can find 150 baud modems any more), being fed tons of spam to an inbox that only holds about 100KB or so, with bounced messages disappearing completely, never to be seen again. To get fed, the spammer must find the right message (out of thousands of choices) and reply to it, deleting the rest. Note that the 'send food' message won't have any identifying markings in the Subject line or From line to indicate it's the message that must be replied to for the spammer to get food, and may even be buried in a message with the subject of a spam the spammer him/herself sent in the past.
4th offense: Wait a second... how do dead people spam?
Dan "To keep this post on-topic with the thread" Poore
[insert witty quote here]
Actually, I think the AC has a valid point. If you read the article, it nowhere says, or even implies, they were killed for their spamming. It is believed to be because of their "shady" business practices.
Just read the comments. How many posters look like they actually bothered to follow the link?
Certainly, the AC could have been a little more polite, but I just wish people would take the time to read the link for themselves, rather than believe everything they read on /.
Yeah, there are laws against Nazi propaganda. And I won't complain about them. Now, even if you can *theoretically* say anything in the US, what happens when your neighbours start ostracizing you? Not your problem anymore because it's not the bloody 'government' who's doing bad things? Typical libertarian silliness -- it can only be wrong if it's from the govt -- and vice versa
tongue in cheek remark is true, how would they even begin to sift through all those massive mailings to find suspects?? I mean how many suspects are they allowed to have??
It's about MONEY NOT BLOODY SPAM. Why don't you actually READ THE ARTICLE!!!
Hmmm. Sounds like a good idea. When I reflect on the amount of spam that a couple of my old email addressed got, I can understand someone's motive to be driven to murder :-)
It may not stop anyone else from spamming but it will stop them.
think that will stop anyone else from spamming?
Its actually interesting that this happened. It illustrates how the internet is becoming more and more of an anarchy, controlled by the people who use it, rather then by the governments. With that goes people taking matters into their own hands.
I keep getting spam offering me 51 million email addresses for $115...that kind of thing makes me very annoyed. Put that together with someone with an attitude and a gun, and the spammer's gone.
OFTC: By the community, for the community
"Actually, I think the AC has a valid point. If you read the article, it nowhere says, or even implies, they were killed for their spamming. It is believed to be because of their "shady" business practices."
Business practices even more "shady" than spamming? They must've been truly evil.
when sending out spam is a reason for murdering someone, what comes next?
what, if someone doesn't like your comments on slashdot and then he tries to get your adress...
ok, that's probably too much paranoia
"No, I'm not saying that spam isn't bad business. What I am saying, is that not all spammers are out to defraud, and make money off of us."
Now that is a horrible thought, presumably the ones that aren't out to defraud or make money off of us must be doing it purely out of spite.
Q: What do you call 10,000 spammers on the bottom of the ocean?
A: A good start.
Sorry, it had to be said. :-)
Yes, think what the families are going through, bad enough to find a loved one has been brutally murdered but then to discover that the person you cared about was secretly involved in spamming.... that shouldn't have to happen to anyone.
Still, why does a sexual situation nessisarily hurt a child?
There is a difference between a child voluntarily, in private, engaging in sexual acts (for instance, with another child or alone), and an adult exploited said acts for the purpose of pornography.
It's natural for children to have sexual desires and to explore them; it is not natural for adults to interact sexually with children, because there is an inherent imbalance of power.
If a 13-year-old boy fantasizes about girls his own age, it's normal. If a 50-year-old man preferentially fantasizes about 13-year-old girls, something is wrong with him, because that kind of behavior indicates a need to dominate and abuse his sexual partners.
The bottom line is that child porn is not about children wanting to explore their sexuality. It's about adults who should damn well know better, exploiting children and using them to fulfill their own needs, with no respect for the child's mental or emotional stability. Is every child harmed by every sexual situation? No. But it's a risk no adult should ever take. That's what's wrong with child porn.
Slash has nothing to do with Slashdot.
You people don't actually believe that these two were executed for sending spam do you?!
Read the CNN article you twits. They were probably killed because they had thier hands in god-knows-what kind of dirty buisiness.
The government has allowed a massive annoyance and misappropriation of resources to continue for quite a long time now, and is not responsive to citizens' calls for regulation barring the practice (on the model of the earlier ban on junk faxes).
The spammers themselves are (understandably) unwilling to stop a practice they believe profitable, merely because people are annoyed.
The commercial network services have proven ineffective at stopping the practice, as spammers can create new accounts faster than the network operators can delete old ones, and the network operators themselves are not held liable for their customers behavior, and thus have no incentive to prescreen customers (and a disincentive, as it would reduce their customer base).
Technical solutions have not been effective - merely leading to an arms-race, which the spammers so far are winning.
This leaves a lot of very annoyed people with no effective way to abate the nuisance - except possibly direct action.
Now add to this the recognition that somewhere between one-in-50 and one-in-200 of the population in general are psycopaths. (Think of them as people with a brain damage that leaves them with no conscience - no sympathy for the suffering of others.) And that this group has the usual mix of smart and dumb, and of foreseeing and thinkers-for-today.
It's only a matter of time before one or more of them gets so mad as to try a little direct action. And given the above, such people might easily believe that the only direct action likely to eliminate the nuisance is to intimidate, damage, or eliminate the perpetrator of it.
This is, in my opinion, the inevitable result of the government's failure to live up to its claims of protection.
Please note that I'm not advocating either government action or literal attacks on spammers. I'm simply pointing out that I expect the latter in the absense of the former.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
MY main complaint is that they are systematically working to detroy an otherwise effective communication medium. These people are seriously sick, they're seeking to profit by ruining a good system for everyone else, and apear to have no concern over the effect of their actions upon others.
The cost in money terms is not significant to me and indeed I will pay much higher for a guaranteed spam free service that does not disrupt legitimate messages. Unfortunately there is no way of perfectly excluding messages from people who have no concern for others.
In all seriousness, their deaths PROBABLY had NOTHING to do with spam, but business practices in general. As much as I would love for this to be a lesson to spammers in general, spam != bad business for most companies.
No, I'm not saying that spam isn't bad business. What I am saying, is that not all spammers are out to defraud, and make money off of us.
The most interesting thing for me, is to wait and see if this DOES discourage people from spamming. I mean, seriously, we can't say that these deaths AREN'T directly related to spam. This could scare potential spammers/scammers, especially ones specifically out to defraud or propate inethical business practices from making the first attempt.
Either way, reap what you sow = good way to think. Karma gonna git you sucka.
... On my aol account.
I kept getting messages like "I've got a stick to tell you about" etc. I think I actually responded once and told them it was illegal what they were doing (attempting to inflate the price through bogus means).
That is freaky shit.
Maybe we can hope for a spree of copycat crimes...
I'm getting mailed about this folks, and no I didn't intend it to be a funny article - I posted it cause I assumed it would interest the Slashdot community. Whatever the guys did I would never condone murder or make fun of it.
Apologies if I offended anyone I certainly didn't intend to.
Next, telemarketers and mass snail-mailers. Wouldn't THAT be great! You could actually die if you were a telemarketer! God that would dwindle quickly wouldn't it?
>> and child porn spammers deserve an espcially
>> painful death.
> Really? For what is death *deserved*?
He just said it. For spamming.
The pain is extra for the child porn.
One of the first spams I received (before I learned that spammers are _always_ lying) started with "We found your name on a list of people with a special interest in child pornography...". If the spammer had been in reach my anger would have made his death far quicker than he deserved.
> Methinks thou trollest.
You wish. The existence of spammers are the prime arguments for the right to keep and bear arms.
I take it that means you are also expendable ;)
Aren't we all? :)
We'll all be expended sooner or later.
dang it...i thought i could live forever..
OFTC: By the community, for the community
> If you produce it using real children that's bad.
The definition of "child porn" varies. In Denmark, in means real pictures produced with real children ( 15 years) in real sexual situations involving other people, animals or objects. Pictures of "nakid kids" are not even considered pornographic (respectable newspapers will bring them to show that "now its summer").
So for me, it is quite easy to hate child porn. Producing it hurts real children.
hehe, anyone ever play fallout 2?
"a group of angry people attacking a spammer"
-nick o
The point is that child porn should not be a crime. There is nothing wrong with having brutal, violent, vulgar sex with young, underage, deliciously innocent childs.
And even if there was, distributing pictures has nothing to do with the children. Maybe it should be illegal to rape the children, but certainly not to distribute pictures of it. Most americans seem to have some very twisted values. It's ok for children to be porn, but not have sex? Come on!
Hamsters are at least as feathery as penguins. HamLix
I could understand it if I got tagged a -3 on that post for ``overrated'', but seriously, ``troll''? You've to be kidding me. Well, it wouldn't be the first (and far from the last) time when I voiced an actual opinion that a moderator thought was some sort of flamebait. Get a grip. I post often enough for you people to (probably more for the worse than for the better) know what is and is not a valid statement from my camp. heh.
At any rate, for those of you mindlessly crying out, ``Politically Correct''.. You've obviously never seen me post anything on a controversial issue (new to Slashdot, anyone?). I find the accusation to be useful for generating a few laughs, however. ;)
~ Kish
And why would it matter that you are armed?
Well, i actually think it is a good thing.
/. has formed the basis of a very tight group of people who seem to get into fights alot, it could scare some people out of spam
If spammers see the reaction slashdotters have had and think they will get killed by a raging group of Linux guru's, they may think again.
Think about it,
www.atacomm.com - The Leader in VoIP Product Distributi
> Chalem was shot once in the chest and five > times in the head, while Lehmann, of Woodmere, > New York, was shot in the leg and once in the > back of the head, Kaye said. Their cellular > telephones were inches from their hands, and > they were still ringing on Wednesday I'm curious as to whether all news reports in America generally contain such a detailed description of the murder .. I was actually quite shocked .. I would never expect so much detail from a newspaper in Australia where I live.
have anything to do with this?
In all seriousness, it sounds like spam was just part of how they did business. I didn't get anything from the article which would indicate that the killer(s) was a disgruntled spam-recipient.
I don't know anything about the victims, but the brief profile in the article indicated that they may have been involved in some shady business activities. A disgruntled business associate/customer/creditor sounds more likely than a hacked-off spam target. The fact that the victims were spammers is interesting to the slashdot community, but probably not to the world at large.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
... that, and we just gave them more publicity by posting their URL on Slashdot than they got in a day's spamming.
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
I take it that means you are also expendable ;)
Damn straight.
However, I have taken the sensible precaution of arming myself. This makes me expensive to "expend".
Oh, fuck off, you self-rightous asshole. I'm GLAD the fuckers are dead. Weather spammers or con artists they richly deserved everything that happened to them, and limp wristed pansies such as yourself who whine "oh, you naughty people, rejoycing in another human's death" make me wanna puke. Get a life, and a spine. Loser.
It is important that we never let the public know that geeks are people who get angry when violated, and who are able hate the people who violate them repeatedly. Those are dark emotions which we should keep hidden.
Gosh, my karma is going to suffer today.
and this dude comes on my server and starts spamming his URL in huge banner fonts. So I fragged him.
You may be right. But I think it's only going to be a matter of time before something like this can be attibuted to spam. People kill for far less. Road rage is becoming more common. Why not spam rage? It annoys the hell out of me. Granted, I haven't killed anyone yet... but that doesn't mean I haven't wanted to get hold of the person who sends me spam and use their delicates for a bit of target practice... ;)
If their stupid and leave a 1800 number to get removed or to get more info do what I do..You get on your favorite sex newsgroup and advertise it as free sex talk..they get hundreds of thousands of phone calls. No one dies and they learn a lesson
This is not about spam! This is, excuse, was a con artist scamming the _wrong_ client.
Why not indeed. How about because you don't know where they are, and by the time you track them down, if you can, you will have cooled off slightly? Road rage would happen alot less if the people involved were 100 kilometres (or miles, if you prefer) apart.
I don't think spammers are going to be murdered on a very frequent basis. Mailbombed? Possibly. ISP cracked? Maybe. But murdered? It is an idea simply lacking in practicality.
I'll admit it seems like a fun thought, but I would hope it never really happens.
a BOFH offing lusers ? yay! something ive always wanted to do. now wheres my trusty Desert Eagle .50....
It's good to see that not everyone in the world is heartless. For example, take this AC. I'm not exactly sure what this is called, but I love seeing people pick apart other's posts and then replying to individual pieces. So, naturally, I find it my duty to do the same...
Asking the moderators to aggressively down-mod this thread just so it palatable to your own sensitive intellect is just a little selfish (not to mention arrogant).
Arrogant? If she were being arrogant, her sentence would have perhaps been "You should moderate these down because I say so."
But cute is not the same thing as funny, and many of the posts here are hilarious.
Hi, you should also note that many of the posts here are incredibly stupid (i.e, the both of ours!)
They were SPAMMERS so 'human' is a debatable term.
Gee, I wasn't aware that "anonymous coward" was now synonymous with God.
It's not as though human life (or spammer life for that matter) is exactly a scarce commodity.
Hello, do you know the definition of the words you are typing? Quoting M-W Dictionary - lookup "Commodity": 1 : an economic good: as a : a product of agriculture or mining. Well now, since when is a human life an economic good?
I think it could go "An Overly Sensitive Thought Police On Slashdot is just a Heartless Uncaring Bastard who hasn't spent all night sorting and cleaning spam out of a mail spool yet.
That's pretty good. Think of it all by yourself?
Some might consider this flamebait (not sure why) but I would just like to inform them that this is sarcasm at it's finest!@#$
~Steve
--
"<r-xr-xr-x> Just try to edit me" -- www.ircnews.com
Forgive me, I think I referred to the original poster as a she. As far as I know, it's a he. Sorry
~Steve
--
"<r-xr-xr-x> Just try to edit me" -- www.ircnews.com
You didn't know these people. You read an article and a bunch of messages on Slashdot. Then you made a lot of assumptions and posted a message that makes you look like some kind of wierdo. You, my "friend" are the "self-righteous a**hole." You're the kind of person who makes ME sick. The only people who DESERVE to die are those who murder others. What you do on your computer doesn't cut it. Ripping people off financially doesn't cut it. The fact that you think the way you do makes you a wierdo. You were smart to post that one anonymously. I wouldn't want to go around coming off like you did.
They're dead.
So they won't be around to rip any more innocent people off. How is that a bad thing?
yes, i know the people making the "death to spammers" were probably joking (i hope), but this guys had family who
cared about them....even if they stole $$$, they deserve to punished to the full extent of the law, but laughing and joking
about their deaths is so cold hearted and sick. have someone close to you die, and then see how quickly you find the
death of others so god damn funny.
Oh boo hoo hoo! Cry me a fucking river, why don't you?
If their family members aided and abetted in their thieving activities, or if they benefitted from them in any way, or are responsible for their upbringing into being such crooked bastards, then there ought to be absolutely no sympathy for them whatsoever. Do try and think on rational terms for once, and please spare us your misguided human compassion.
Then I guess you beleive assholes on the net who piss off other assholes... get re-imbursed fully, so to speak.
Lucky for you, I don't think this is true... >:-)
Man, the jerks you find on slashdot these days!
Funny, I thought the sig was great (it makes an important statement about something people always forget... and guess what it's probably against... ohoh, I see flames again!), it's just missing a y...
Of course... If you don't think it's so bad, maybe we'll just -1 you for the rest of yer IP block's life...
Hey! Nice use of "fsck"... -La Llama (btw, I'm not so anonymous, nor am I a coward, especially not among fellow Linux users... la_llama@forward.net)
Now I'm not saying it was right to kill them just for spamming, but I understand...
Mr. Natural -- Cat Herder
These guys were working as informers for the Feds.
-Every time I see you flourishing with a metaphor I experience the same anxiety I feel watching a child with a razor-
Not that I really think that. But it couldn't have happened to a nicer couple of guys.
What actually killed them was not the spamming, or the stock scam they spammed, but their attitude that humanity was theirs for the fleecing. They finally hit somebody who was uncivilized enough to do something about it.
I hope they find the triggerman and the godfather and put them on death row. Realistically, they deserve it more than the two schmucks they killed. They didn't do anybody a service; call me a control freak, but the rule of law is more important than some small-time corrupt stock brokers.
Distributing child porn is irrelevent when compared to spam. Any spammer diserves to die.
Still, why does a sexual situation nessisarily hurt a child?
I read that they were working for the Feds. They may have been scumbags, it seems more likely somebody found out they were snitches and wasted them. Fact is few people will actually go out and kill because they got screwed out of money(especially honest ones). They just go to the cops, if they're smart enough to realize they got scammed. But there a plenty of people, once they get dirty, who will kill to avoid heavy jail terms. They only got fined 650k 'cause they cut a deal for information
-Every time I see you flourishing with a metaphor I experience the same anxiety I feel watching a child with a razor-
Agreed.
(begin pedantic mode) beaucoup-karma (end pedantic mode)
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
> Gees these spammers must have really done well
> for themselfves, check out the picture of their
> house
That house belongs to the father of one of their girlfriends. It states that in the article.
dave
My turn:
;-). No, these posts are incredibly important. A -1 on a good post gives people the idea that that person is wrong, or bad. This needs to be debated, this looks like a great opportunity.
[K]Ermit> Arrogant? If she were being arrogant, her sentence would have perhaps been "You should moderate these down because I say so."
Let me refresh your memory:
Kish> Honestly, anyone who's doing some moderation today, please take a moment to read this: I really don't need to hear anyone making cheap jokes at the expense of a couple of dead people.
Kish>Anyone who really cares to read all these sick, tasteless gestures can lower their threshold to 0 or less if they haven't already.
Kish> I for one did not need this to ``brighten'' up my morning.
Kish>If you have something intelligent to say, you'll log in or get moderated up so I can read it. Otherwise, you're wasting your time.
So if you DON'T moderate these down you are obviously a heartless moderator, who will be ignored and shunned by this person. But if you do you are a perfect nice guy. Let's put it this way:
#1. "Give that poor child that ice cream now. You had one last week, and that poor kid hasn't had one, ever. I don't need to see this hungry kid, it gets me mad. If you don't do it, then you are an asshole, and I will never even look at you again."
#2. "That kid over there looks a little hungry. I bet he'd like some ice cream too."
Which is more arrogant? #1... And #1 is what Kish said about PCing posts. You don't have to make people do things, you can just make them feel like the sh*t on your shoe sole instead. That's the way to be!
His sig is also VERY insulting. I have decided not to talk to him if he responds to this posts because he has a moderation level above 0. So there... A little taste of his own medicine.
[K]Ermit>Hi, you should also note that many of the posts here are incredibly stupid (i.e, the both of ours!)
[sarcasm]So why'd you post?[/sarcasm]
I do agree with you that all life is precious, so I won't debate that.
Basically, Kish is an asshole. He is a loser. I really don't like him. He can suck my ass. And my toes, and my other extremities. Why can I say all this? Because I'm an AC, and he refuses to acknowlege my existence! He'll never even see this! Fsck you Kish! I (almost) hate you! Go to hell! You suck! Eat bad parity bits!
(The above paragraph wasn't flamebait, I'm just proving a point... If you don't understand it, too bad. I refuse to explain on slashdot. Request a private conversation, including this mail @ uzer@hotmail.com. Thanks, and peace out. No, this wasn't insulting, but I have a feeling I'd have to use some pretty simple terms to explain this, and I don't enjoy making people and slashdot look stupid (except for Kish, for whom my heart dries).)
By the way, please give me a -1 so kish won't read my post. Thank you very much!
> Microsoft's Y2K "important message"
Is that a UL being passed around by idiots who believe everything they get forwarded in email?
dave
> In the same vein on how alot of us have had thoughts of pouring iron filings into the back of a crappy monitor at work to get a new one, this is kind of the same logic.
Good Idea! I think I might just try this one... heheheheheh....
Phone the number first, and make sure. A lot of 800 spam numbers I've called admit they sent the spam. If they say they are sorry, or at least shift the blame to someone else, it proves they are sorry. If they hang up on me, or refuse to admit they are at fault, down comes the hammer... Those number deserve special attention. I plan to make a website listing them as I go along! :-)
> there are bound to be quite a handful of nuts in there.
Sounds like trail mix... Mmmmmmmmmm trail mix.
Sorry, I just couldn't help myself from this cheap quip.
see the title for a little more "ammunition" for your argument.
BTW: What's the best way to buy a gun when they are illegal? To give money to someone who stole them in a deadly armed robbery from the gun store in the contry next door...
Well after all spammers are pritty much 99.44% scam artists anyway.
:)
Who in there right mind would advertise with spam if they knew they were alienating 90% of there potental costummers?
Only a scam artist would want a quick load of costumers with little chance of repeate busness and no chance of expantion.
So in all honnestly I'm supprised spammers havn't been gun down before for non-spam related busness details.
On the other hand spammers do seem to believe pop culture and the idea is now planted firmly in our geek minds. Nevere mind the fact that we'd never accually kill annother human being even if we barely recognise em as such.
We are geeks and play violent video games so according to popculture we are dangerous violent blood thirsty psycopathic misfits.
I see a new first person shooter comming out... Geek revenge.. or "Spam Hunters".
Include on the game CD a howto on accually tracking down spammers and giving them das boot.
Finnaly direct players to call it a tranning program "Heh,heh,heh" simi-demonicly.
On the box front "The #1 spam elimination tool - Guns, bombs and psycopaths mag"
Maybe include a compemetry issue of this fictional mag in the box
Ok enough.. I have work to do... not related to spam however...
By the way.. Spammers beware.. we are psycopaths now and we know where you live..... muahahahaha
I don't actually exist.
Q: "How do you call a spammer floating dead in the river?"
A: "Pollution"
Q: "How do you call all the spammers floating dead in the river?"
A: "The solution"
Yeah, it's reaaaaally baaaad to wish someone's death.
People die.
Sometimes people who deserve it die.
If you rip off a bunch of other people really badly, you can expect to die.
If you engage in the sending of UCE, you do so at your own risk.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
I don't mind people doing their own thing, but when they start fucking with other people to do it then that's where I draw the line. I wouldn't murder the fuckers myself, but I also don't give a damn if they were murdered. A little common courtesy would go along way, but courtesy is a two way street. To get it you have to give it, and it looks like these two assholes didn't ever give any therefore I don't care about what happened to them.
I guess the moral of the story here is: Don't shit in your bed because you're eventually going to have to sleep in it.
Tupack and Biggie????
What, you're going to go for telemarketer operators? They're just kids getting paid $5/hr.
As far as mass-snail mailers, it's not costing you anything. Actually, neither is telemarketers. You can hang up/toss out the mail.
The main complaint about SPAM is that THEY are costing YOU money, or at least piggy-backing off of your internet connection fees.
Death is'nt funny? Hey, I've got bad news for you folks: WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE. And those guys are ALREADY dead. Tough. Shit happens. Plus they were crooks. Not just spammers, crooks, who probably ripped many people of their life's savings.
You merkins listen: KEEP YOUR 'POLITICAL CORRECTNESS' CRAP FOR YOURSELF.
These people were the ones behind the "JTSR Restaurants" series of spam runs late last year and earlier this year. That was one of the more massive spam runs of the last couple of years, involving nearly hundreds of fraudulently opened throwaway dialup accounts, and hundreds of hijacked mail relays over the course of several months.
I think that it is very much possible that someone who had his mailbox pummeled day in and day out with that crap -- many people received half a dozen copies of the same fucking spam every day for weeks -- went bonkers and tracked these people down.
When you start annoying tens of millions of people at random, you are bound to come across more than just a couple of nuts, kooks, and freakazoids. That's a given, according to laws of probability and statistics. There's no way around it. When you have such a large sample of population chosen at random, there are bound to be quite a handful of nuts in there.
Well, if you want to go around and start annoying and harassing a bunch of mentally unstable people, well, you'll just have to do it at your own risk. I'm really surprised that this hasn't happened more often.
--
Poor guys...scummy as they were, nothing it looks like they did would make them deserve to be gunned down like an animal.
They were spammers for christ sake. Of course they deserved what they got.
--
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
Don't bother with abuse. They'll just kick em off the isp and the spammer will find another. Find out who they are and DOS em for good!
If not, when the first spams start coming, get very pedantic on the abouse@ reporting. Some of the first ones will be small time operators trying to sell lists to you. Get them shut down.
Regardless of the spamming, i do not even find it remotely funny that they are dead.
Me neither. THey deserved what they got. Heck, they deserved a lot more.
Yes, it's annoying to get spam. but i have yet to see death as i justification for having to delete electronic mail.
Spammers cripple the net. They use up resources that aint theirs. They plague millions of people every day.
they deserve to punished to the full extent of the law, but laughing and joking about their deaths is so cold hearted and sick.
I prefer to say they deserved it. I prefer to say that I really hope this will happen a lot more often in the future.
--
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
A: you can only get two bullets into a derringer....
Those were human lives.
Humans are YAA (yet another animal). So who cares if a couple of people died? And beside, they were spammers so I personally enjoyed reading it. Quite frankly I hope this will happen more often in the future.
and all of these tasteless jokes would be appropriately tagged ``flamebait''.
I have a feeling my karma is suffering bad today. Spammmers deserve what they get. I cannot help it, but I *love* it when I hear about spammers, crackers and the like gets it bad.
--
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
"Both killed in iExecution style..."
I know people who really don't care about discussions
but, you're right, these people won't use slashdot for discussing their spam-mail and that's the difference
it's your own decision to use slashdot, but when being spammed by email you are forced to receive this and you can't easily start a discussion with the other person
Oh boy...
Looking at the first few comments posting to this article, it seems as though we're in for a bumpy ride.
This almost certainly has nothing to do with spam, and a lot to do with the $10m of investors money that disappeared.
Read the article and think before posting some off-the-cuff reply.
...j
How, exactly, do you produce child porn without real children????
Nevermind, I really don't want to know.
-----
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
Second offense ----- Big fine confiscation of machine
3rd offense --- Forced to receive and read all spam reports.
4th offense ----- Forced to work Windows tech support at Microsoft (dealing with all windows crashes), with Dick Gorgens as a manager, for 1 year.
5th offense ----- Forget it, if they can survive that, then nothing we can do would bother them.
Injured software engineer wins against Mattel!
How can you say this is a "outstanding contribution to the free software movement"???
Sure, spam isn't great, but in what way is it stopping free software??
This way of thinking just gives the free software movement a bad name!
A reason why most people tend to shovel the snow off of their part of the sidewalk when it snows
I don't know about you, but I shovel in my home town because the law requires it within 24 hours of snowfall. Besides that, if you don't shovel and people walk on the snow it's alot harder shovel later on when you want to.
-----
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
We all hate spam. As gratifying as it is for the net-savvy to see spammers get theirs it is, we need to look beyond the immediate visceral rush.
This is going to make us look bad. Now, not only is the net the playground of pr0n vendors and the dreadful capitalism-destroying mp3s, we're a bunch of gun-toting vigilantes who work out our grudges with guns as well as harmless flames.
A crime like this could lead to even more net-hysteria among the clueless.
Poor guys...scummy as they were, nothing it looks like they did would make them deserve to be gunned down like an animal.
In July O7, I got a mac pro. There's no punchline. Just endless joy and wonder.
Yes, murder is a very serious subject, and should not be delt with off-handedly or with silly one-liners. But, according to the article, these two scammed people out of a lot of money. I wonder how many people's lives these two ruined, or at least hurt a bit.
Finally, I'd like to say that no one can make an authoritative argument in any direction because you don't know all of the specifics of this story. I do think that IF these two willfully contributed to to conning 10 million out of various people, their deaths may not have been too much of a consequence. Let's wait and see if time will give us a better angle on this interesting story.
Damn right I'm posting this one anonymously!
In the same vein on how alot of us have had thoughts of pouring iron filings into the back of a crappy monitor at work to get a new one, this is kind of the same logic.
I have to say that making jokes about spammers (a general group) isn't necessarily a wrong or evil idea. However, laughing at a the real thing (specific people) is morally reprehensible. Nobody deserves to die - that doesn't mean we can't joke about it. Seems alittle contradictory? It is. Non sequir. None the less, it is true.
--
"A sexual situation" doesn't necessarily hurt a child, and isn't illegal. Not even in the US.
last time i was pissed enough to think about sending a mail bomb to this asshole spammer.. i personally think the govn't should have a buracracy specifically for spam control. it has great influence to the national productivity, hence the GDP and growth.
Maybe this is just the result of a very agressive procmail filter.
!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!
Classic!
I suggest we start a "Best of Slashdot" archive, and I nominate the above comment for inclusion in it.
I need one. please send to... oh. i can't tell you my email address, so please post the filter here. thanks.
the article said they screwed over many people in their scam that added up to 10,000,000 dollars.
I think when you screw over enough people at
the same time, the chances of some of those
people being killers, wackos, guerillas..
anything...increases with the sample size.
As their "enterprise" grew, I imagine the
number of people who wanted to kill them grew
as well.
what do you do with a snail mail address? i was wondering about that. if you got a good idea i'll write something to do so automatically.
Humor is completely subjective, and while I really do appreciate the cheap one liners, some may not. Yet, you don't see the humorous posts crying out against the bleeding-hearts. Why? Because they get it, when they rub a handful of neurons together they know that censorship and tastefulness are the tools of the fascist-minded.
I'd like to know which idiots actualy make their investment decesions based on what spam proclaims to be a "YOU CANT LOSE DEAL!!! JUST CLICK HERE". Of course the spammers deserved to die, the only debate is wether their execution should be cruel and unusual...
Well if you get spam, mail them with the URL of the story and then ask if you can have your name removed from their apam list.
Gees these spammers must have really done well for themselfves, check out the picture of their house
But seriously does anyone really deserve to die in such a brutal mannar for sending stock/security spam, if they were child pornography spam then nothing short of what happened to them would be required
Someday, we'll look back on this, laugh nervously and change the subject.
Regardless of the spamming, i do not even find it remotely funny that they are dead. I recieve way to much spam, and i never even give out my real email address. Yes, it's annoying to get spam. but i have yet to see death as i justification for having to delete electronic mail.
yes, i know the people making the "death to spammers" were probably joking (i hope), but this guys had family who cared about them....even if they stole $$$, they deserve to punished to the full extent of the law, but laughing and joking about their deaths is so cold hearted and sick. have someone close to you die, and then see how quickly you find the death of others so god damn funny.
..I actually find myself wishing for some more moderation. Honestly, anyone who's doing some moderation today, please take a moment to read this: I really don't need to hear anyone making cheap jokes at the expense of a couple of dead people. It's not funny. It's not cute. They're dead. Those were human lives. No one deserves to be murdered (this becomes an arguable point when it comes to the legal system and the death penalty, but in those cases the offenders have committed murder themselves, and as much as we all hate spam, it's not murder), and all of these tasteless jokes would be appropriately tagged ``flamebait''. Anyone who really cares to read all these sick, tasteless gestures can lower their threshold to 0 or less if they haven't already. I for one did not need this to ``brighten'' up my morning.
~ Kish
All i gotta say is, is that Usenet Death Penalty takes on a whole new meaning :) Wouldnt it be funny if this turns out to be some sysadmin on usenet who lost his marbles and took out some lamers in the process ? :)
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
Poor guys...scummy as they were, nothing it looks like they did would make them deserve to be gunned down like an animal.
Yeah, all non-human animals that get gunned down just get their rightful punishment!
seriously, it sounds from the article that their deaths is not at all related to spamming, except indirectly. these guys were ripping people off with penny stocks. this kind of securities fraud is nothing new, its just nowadays people may believe spam mails telling them how to get rich. whereas before it may have worked only by word of mouth. the guys are fscking con artists, they probably skrewed up somewhere, stepped on someone's toes or ripped off someone who got
a
little
pissed.
and dude, to the guy who said something about how the spammers did well for themselves, the house is owned by one of the guys' girlfriend's dad. i doubt either of them was very wealthy.
unc_
Gates probably has squandered more useful human potential than Hitler, but at least many of them were volunteers. And their judgment would indicate their minds weren't especially useful.
Nope, the title has nothing to do with Doom induced high-school killing sprees, just an observation I've had.
Most of the time, I consider the majority of Slashdotters to be somewhat Liberal in social views. If nothing else, we have many posters from countries which have gun laws and look upon the US's gun society as a barbaric one.
Given this somewhat leftist slant, It's sort of shocking to see the majority of people cheering and supporting the execution style murder of two humans. Where are all the posts crying for stronger gun laws I usually see with this type of story. I hate spammers as much as the next guy, but I would never have guessed that the denizens of slashdotland would be so bloodthirsty in their view of this "seedy underbelly" of net commerce.
Since we seem to have estabilished that it is OK to shoot spammers, what does everyone think of having a gun in the home for protection? Is that still evil? I'm not trying to be flamebait here (honestly), I just want to know why the view of guns changes when it comes to spammers (in the grand scheme of things, on of the least of all criminals)?
For the record, I'm a gun owner who believes in the gun laws we have on the books, and wished they would be enforced before we add new ones. I have a gun in my home to protect my family, but I would never condone the killing of someone simply because they sent you an annoying e-mail.
All this cheering about their deaths is kind of sick people.
Finkployd
"There are many who live who deserve death, and many who die who deserve life, can you give it to them?" Gandalf, from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings
Microsoft's Y2K "important message" is being sprayed all over - including addresses that had previously opted-out of their informational newswire mailings, and apparently harvested addresses as well.
This spam is different. This time a huge company is violating it's own privacy policy and blatantly disrespecting the wishes of the recipients.
I'm very disappointed that this is getting no press whatsover. It is about the worst precedent that could possibly be set by a industry leader.
Prepare for the deluge of spam from mainstream companies.
But to stick up for child
porn, where a kid gets his life messed up so that some sick pervert can get his rocks off, that's just wrong. Re-think your values.
"his life" ? You are a flaming homosexual. most men would not getting raped by a luscious girl
1. Stanford Wallace
2. Canter
3. Siegel
4. Ronald Reagan
5. Bob Hope, etc.,
_____
_____
The antidote to bad speech is not censorship, but more speech.
ObOnTopicComment: It wouldn't surprise me if this was spam-related. As with "road-rage", and other similar psychologically triggery scenarios, anger is not unusual. Mix that with a few too many down the bar, and a knowledge of who the spammer is, and this could easily be the result.
Whilst this is certainly disturbing, I have to say that inciting anger, to save money on marketing, isn't an FDA-approved method of staying in good health. It doesn't excuse what happened, no matter what the reason or motive, but if you choose to live dangerously, don't blame danger if you don't make a Hollywood escape.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I don't. I agree that the nut to normal ratio is high enough that they pissed off some freaks in the course of spamming ten or twenty million people. It's a longshot to suggest, though, that someone got so mad that they actually decided to raid the people's estate and shoot them. If you read the article I think it becomes eminently clear that there were plenty of other more pertinent reasons to kill them; namely that they ripped off internet investors for over ten million dollars, in addition to perpetrating "stock manipulation, forgery and illegal trading" at another firm they worked at. If you want to be murdered, a tried-and-true method that has worked pretty much through all history is to start stealing from the little guy.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
They even have *laws* that prohibit certain speech.
We may do other things wrong, but don't blame us for PC speech.
oh, I see, posting something is a waste of time unless you read it? Um... okay, ego boy.
Juln
Some spammers put in other peoples adresses or phone numbers as revenge, typically against people who got them kicked out of their last ISP.
This is the _real_ reason you shouldn't try to get even with the spammers, you might hit the wrong people.
...it wuz me!
--MEEPT!
you're so smart. i couldn't read the big scary article and i believe everything on slashdot.
Maybe this is just the result of a very agressive procmail filter.
If so, I hope it's Open Source.
> and child porn spammers deserve an espcially painful death.
Really? For what is death *deserved*?
Methinks thou trollest.
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
I heartily agree... there is no suggestion in the article that they were killed because they spammed someone.
Still, makes it obvious who actually reads the articles, and who just posts whatever pops into their head when they see the headline.
"child porn spammers deserve an espcially painful death"
"if it were child pornography spam then nothing short of what happened to them would be required"
Why is so many attacking this all the time? Ok, spam in general is bad but why would child porn spam be extra bad? If you produce it using real children that's bad. Just as producing regular porn by raping people. But I can't see anything wrong with child porn in itself.
The home was owned by the victim's girlfriend's father, and they were just staying there.