Wait till there is a law against calling a business for other than transacting business. Wait till they criminalize calling a company to express your opinion.
Man people are really eager to list "insightful" today, eh? What happened to earning such a rating?
Begging for money is not the same as trying to sell you something. If fraud is involved, prosecute the fraud! Don't be a wimp and prosecute over a stupid and petty thing as calling you; it is not any different than "Mommy, Billy is looking at me!!"
Now, stand on the street and try to *sell* something, then you can start to get close. Just because you don't like TM, and probably can't say no yourself (with or w/o a civil tone), is no reason to be so incipidly wrong.
Why do I suggest you may not be able to tell them no? People that can/do typically do not complain about the suppposed "strong arm tactics" or compare TM to a mugging. They usually complain about the time and interruption.
The worst thing to happen to this country was the abdication of personal responsibility.
Don't like the show? Change the channel. Don't like the TM, hang up, don't take the call, or say "no".
Hell, maybe gather some friends together, pool your money and run an ad campaign "Just say no to telemarketers." Just be careful to not use the phone to do it, or you lose your message.
Like it or not, most TMers are college students putting themselves through school or second working parents, or single moms. Why? It pays better for one. This is not a "felel sorry for them" plea, far from it. However, it flies in the face of the pathetic claims that TMers are evil people out to bilk the poor and elderly from their life savings. It makes people feel better about yelling or cursing the other end of the phone out. People use it to justify something they know is wrong.
You'd rather put these people out of a job than focus on nailing those who *are* committing the atrocities you mention. Mr Pot, meet Mr. Kettle.
--rant on-- But hey, for some people they have to believe that shakey voice on the other end of the phone is a guy with horns a red suit and sitting in a room filled with brimstone, because they can't stand the cognitive dissonance that more governemnt means those people have to resort to telemarketing jobs, as opposed to staying home (if a working married mother), or giving up the TM as the second job they need to cover their living expenses or get out of debt because the government taxes the shit out of them to pay for all these "there outta be a law!" shouts from people who will not stand up and take personal responsibility.
Why not? They let others get away with claiming that there are 20 Million+ homeless, that the homeless are dying at a rate of a.5million/day, but will somehow be over 50 million in a couple years!
They also don't challenge the absurd claims that half of all Americans voted *for* Bush, and that slightly more voted *for* Gore, when the truth is that something like (IIRC) less than half of Americans even voted in the first place, and that of those that did, probably 90% of them were voting *against* the other guy.
HOWEVER....
And actually, 6.5M is not that unexpected, since it does not say what you did. It says 6.5M people working in call centers. That means the TMs, the management, the HR, the trainers, the screeners, the lawyers, the techs (that includes IT people), and even the people cleaning the place up.
Now, is it so hard to believe 6.5M in that entire industry, and those industries that support call centers.
No? Then add this fact: To get to dialing all the areas codes, across the timezones, it often is more cost effective to set up multiple call centers, usually in the two central zones. Usually this means two centers, thus doubling the people involved (slightly more for cross-site manintenance and management overhead).
No, are you so sure that 6.5M is unreasonable? Then counter with an estimate and justify it.
The Telemarketers insist that they have a constitutionally protected right to harass us
I am sorry but you are fully incorrect. They are not claiming that. They are correctly pointing out that they have a right to try to sell you something. You have a right to hang up, refuse the call, talk their ear off and not buy, or actually buy something.
Commercial speech *is* a form of speech. With freedom comes responsibility. Good is accompanied by the bad. Just as freedom of speech means you can/will be exposed to ideas you disagree with, so to doe si tmean you will be exposed to sales methods you disagree with.
This mass calling, while superficially petulant, demonstrates that a right to call and harass people works both ways, if they want to play that game.
Now you're getting somewhere. Mind you, to take this further means that if they want to spread *your* contact information to *their* friends and they all decide top start expressing their opinions (since they are not soliciting, the list and all solicitation laws are irrelevant), then you can not argue with it and remain consistent.
If this company chose to list Dave Barry's contact info on their boards and urge all the TM companies to call and give him their opinion. that's fine too.
That's a product of freedom, like it or not. Once you start limiting another's freedoms, yours are next on the chopping block. Hey,w e start with Do Not Call lists, then they respond with "Do Not Call Lists" and next hing you know it is *you* on the receiving end of that Do Not Call violation. Or, you start getting nailed for posting people's private numbers on/.
Hey, I now, rather than take personal responsibility, how about we just eliminate *all* advertising and marketing! After all, maybe I feel "harassed" by all those tampon commercials on the TV, the Radio, the billboards, the newspaper, etc..
Mark these words: If this continues, and you are not on a Do Not Call list, then legally it will be determined that you are effectively on a Do Call List.
"Well, you aren't on the Do Not Call List."
Laws like this have an odd tendency to "legitimize" the activity.
Further, the list excludes charities and non-profits. Congratulations, now every charity or non-profit on the world can get a list of people to call. All you do is shift it to a different group of tele-spammers. If the theory that people most likely to list themselves are the kind least likely to sy no, you have hamred these people even more. Now they have their heart strings tugged for "non-commercial" causes.
Besdies, it is soo easy to set up a non-profit that sells things and gives much of the proceeds to charity. Watch for this to become more commonplace as DNC lists are more prevalent.
In fact, I'd argue this system will increase the tele-spam. It will (in one theory) increase the sales per telemarketer, thus makign it more profitable to be one. This will lead to more of them.
However, Telemarketer-tarpitting(TM) has precisely the opposite effect. In reality it costs the company little to be on the phone with you; that is part of the calculation.
However, since most TM persons are paid based on performance, or stick around/kept on based on performance, then there is a higher rate of turnover in the TM labor market. This higher turnover leads to higher training costs and lower productivity. This is a more profound impact on revenue than simply calling them or keeping them on the phone longer incuring toll charges.
A sign indicating no solicitors would likely qualify as warning. If not put up one that say "Solictors are not welcom, and thus if you ring the bell or knock on the door, you are trespassing, and may be prosecuted under the law." and a reference to your local ordinances on trespassing would do it.
The Government Security Program, launched in January, aims to address concerns by governments over the reliability and security of Microsoft's software by providing controlled access to source code as well as technical advice on security.
Controlled Access. Well, IMO, if I can't build it and verify it produces the same binary, how can I be sure I was shown the real source? I can't.
Security advice from the company that a) can't seem to secure their own OS against basic script kiddie invasions and b) seeks to keep security flaws a pricey secret.
Now/that/ is funny. Better read the EULA on that Technical Security Advice.
Yes, I understand that issue fully. I'm reminded of the time NASA was looking for an island in the middle of the South Pacific ( you know, that part that's nothing but but blue when you look at it on a globe) that would be visible to the eye from the space shuttle. They pored over sattellite photographs and were coming up empty.
Eventually a libraian heard about the problem and refered them to a book on . ..birds.
She remembered reading a description of a completely unique island in a bird book.
NASA went back to the photos and sure enough, there it was.
The thing is that relationship existed in someone's mind, not in a database. It seems unlikely that if a database file system had existed at the time that they would have found it there either. A database is still completely dependant upon the relationships being built by a person and the computer can't make the leap of insight to build new and unsuspected relationships.
"Show me all islands in the central part of the south pacific large enough to be visible from low earth orbit".
Can that be done based on data about the islands? Yes, all of that can be determined. We can mathematically determine relative size as viewed at that distance. We can use coordinates to determine islands that are at that size or larger in a given box or region.
So must disagree and say that such a database/interface *could* have found that, without needing to know about birds, simply the size and locations of the islands, and a query as above. Sometimes the answer lies not out of the box, but *in* the box. The trick is not to learn to think outside of the box, but in *both* places.
"It's like CD collections, or books; libraries have nicely catalogued and ordered collections. Private individuals don't; they have roughly ordered collections on the shelf, and don't bother keeping them in any better order"
Call yourself a geek? How can you possibly but something on a shelf without first checking to see that it's in a proper place observing the subtle cross reference system that backs up the obvious system. Man, I hate it when people move my stuff.
Actually, this points out the problem with Heirchical FS. I have songs that go unde rmultiple categories, just as I do for CDs and DVDs.
For example, I can not right now have a "Comedy" section, "Action" Seciton, and then a "Bill Engval" or "Arnold Schwarzenegger" section and have them all consistent. Where does "True Lies" go? Well, it goes in two categories. But I'm not about to buy multiple copies just for organizations. It works for books too.
Sure, you can try symliks, but as someone who has gone down that route for my songs (Sort by Artist, Genre? What about cross-genre artists or multi-artis songs). It gets *real* cumbersome and you wind up writing a set of scripts or programs to try to organize the whole mess.
FIlesystems are the same. "Documents", eh? Well I've got documents that fall under multiple categories, such as Politics, Tech, Programming, Household, Corvette Stuff, etc.. Sorting by folders leads to the same problem.
If done well, this type of system can be very useful for storing *data*. I can then do things like "Views" in SQL-Speak to have a "table" that shows all "Corvette" related documents, regardless of physical location on my drives, or "Political Essays" that may fall under various topics.
That said, I wind up changing my book/cd/dvd collection organizing frequently since I add new items and the whole scheme changes frequently.
Best of luck to this project, I'll be watching it!
Or I might protest if sending junk mail was actually illegal, as spam is.
Not everywhere it isn/t, nor will it be. And in many of these places, what qualifies as spam is so narrow as to not qualify much of it.
The list just goes on and on. The differences between spam and junk mail are obvious and have already been discussed extensively in this forum.
Maybe, but the similarities are being deliberately avoided, much to the detriment of those being spammed. The similarities are where the progress in combatting it will be had, not ignoring them.
They cost you human time in bending over (potentially injuring your back) to pick them up from the porch, or they cost you time to open the door and unhook them from the doorhandle. You pay for maintenance on that door/porch, be it in rent, mortgage, property taces, homeowners insurance (what happens if the people fall down on your rickety porch?)
2) Menu's do not contain sexually explicit or illegal scam material.
The first part, well That depends on where you are. The second part, ask yourself why not? Because they'd get nailed for their already illegal activity!
3) Reading the menu doesn't cause me to be the permanent target of 100 other restaurants.
Nor does reading email. If you got a spam, your addres is *already* permanently on that list, in most cases.
4) Menu's may even be usefull.
So can spam. I've received useful spam many times. I chose to not participate, but it was indeed, still useful.
Here in Australia, you can even put a "No Junk Mail" sign on your letterbox - something you cant do for spam.
Sure you can. You can use a whitelist or similar system for your inbox. I have a couple addresses I use like this. IN fact, I do this on my phone line as well. I have caller ID. If you don't call from a number I don't recongize, you have to leave a message. If you call from a blocked line (as most phone-spammers do) you are instructed as to how to unblock your line and call again. Most phone-spammers will not bother.
There is another service the local telco offers that forces unknown callers to leave who they are. If they give it it then rings through and you are presented with the opportunity to accept or not. Meanwhile, they have to sit there waiting. Phone spammers do not do this probably 90% of the time.
Now, (back to my point).. this guy runs a legitimate business, but he's being conned by spammers.. he doesn't have the technical know-how to run his own server, and he doesn't know how to tell the difference between a legitimate listserv, and a spammer.. (which, is to check blacklists.) The spammers have his money, and his mailing list (which they send spam to, or sell to other spammers), and he's stuck being unable to send mail to a bunch of his clients..
So use the existing laws against fraud and con artists here. Just because they do it over the net does not make it less of a con.
You are right, he *has* learned a hard lesson. But rather than sit on this lesson, it could be used to help prevent this in the future. Taking the company to court for false advertising/fraud/whatever-it-turned-out-to-be-in- that-jurisdiction is the appropriate response.
There are spammers that spam for kiddie porn. True. Is kiddie porn illegal? In some areas. In those areas, nail them for kiddie porn. Some kiddie porn dealers use the local classifieds. We don't nail them over using the classifieds, we nail them on the kiddie porn.
Ask youself this:
If the kiddie porn spam and the genuine scams stoppped being a part of spam, how much spam would be left? Not much in comparison.
Email is simply a tool, nothing more. Spam is email. If the point of the email is to entice or promote criminal activity, you prosecute the criminal activity, not the use of email to do it.
If a business is advertising "100% opt-in" and it turns out they are knowingly full of it, nail 'em for false advertising/fraud.
After all, ask yourself this:
If you could be completely sure that a given list was 100% opt in, or even 99.99% (say your diety came down and told you, and you trust your diety), would you use it, or condone it as a legitimate sending of email?
Again, prosecute any illegal activity (such as scams, fraud, and kiddie porn) resulting from email, not the use of email to do it.
Indeed, it is the height of strategic and tactical folly to make it a crime for the bad guys to tell you what/where/when/who!
Right now, those perpetrating criminal activity over email are relatively safer when we focus on the method used to perpetrate the activity, rather than the activity.
We should be looking to the companies hiring spammers. We should be looking to them to file suit and charges for these practices when/where/if against the law.
If you bought advertising space from a marketing company that promised to only advertise in targeted magazines for your product/service, and failed, would you call for criminalizing advertising services? No, you'd probably sue the bastards and/or report them for false advertising and/or fraud. So why change it because they did it over the Internet as opposed to the phone?
The critical issue vith vigilantes is law enforcement, ot the absence thereof.
And if there is no law to enforce, it isn't vigilanteism.
Spam hunters are vigilantes. No, they are free-market components. Just as someone picketing or boycotting a company for what that person feels is irresponsible or immoral behavior is.
Vigilantes take the LAW into their own hands. If there is no law, they are not vigilantes.
The failure of your analogy is that "door hanging" costs a *lot* more than spam does. It also makes the incorrect assumption that one person does all those menu deliveries to your house. You would have hundreds of people walking up and leaving a menu each day. You going to shoot all of them? Even the college kid who rather than live off grants or his parents is putting himself through college by working for the local pizza place? How cruel can you be?;)
Individually, they are irrelevent. Only when combined do you begin to proclaim a problem. If it *were* one person doing it all, you'd merely wait for him to go out of business. It wouldn't even take a week, I'd wager.
And, no I'm not so knee-jerk testosterone laden that I'd simply go shooting people for doing their advertising. If I had a "No soliciting" or similar sign on my door, and that were to happen I would place a call to the business owner making many complaints --one call/compaint per doorstep advertisment. if that was not an option or failed to obtain results, I'd contact the better business bureau and complain there.
Further, your analogy fails in that there are simple and mostly effective ways of stopping spam --without shooting the messenger. There are, however, much more complicated and involved ways needed to stop door hangers.
Forutnately, with that much volume, the effectiveness of doorstep advertising decreases, and thus the costs go up. This leads to a drop in the number of businesses doing doorstep advertising, thus a reduction. This is why there is *not* hundreds of doorstep adverts on your door each day. Costs. And no, the costs are not out of legal punishments either. So too will it be with spam, as long as we keep Ashcroft and other fascists out of it.
And actually, during the summer I get sometimes a dozen or so a day, not just menus but siding and window contractor, and the kid down the street trying to make a buck for himself by offering to mow my yard. Would you shoot him too? Then, there is election season...
I used to get literally hundred of spams per day. But since installing spamassassin and using a decent RBL, I've seen very very few spam, and sometimes go weeks w/o getting any spam in my inbox. And my email addresses are all over the place. I don't try to hide them.
Glad to say it, your assertion that vigilanteeism is the only thing that works is flat out wrong.
But, I think spam is a *very* serious crime. Then show us the law that makes it a crime. Is it as serious as murder, rape, kidnapoping, and molestation?
Nothing speeds the decay of a society faster than abuse of the commons
Email is not a commons, and who decides what abuse o fit is? Maybe Ashcroft decides that email unfavorable to the administration are an abuse of commons, maybe even terrorism. Maybe after massive financial backing by a large computer company, the government decides to play favorites, and makes email proposing or furthering Linux or OSX or BSD or UNix use an abuse of "the commons".
being encouraged to sell out your neighbors for a quick buck.
So how does spam do that? To be logicaly consistent, you must also seek to make other thigns a "serious crime" such as:
* Giving a referral to a salesman
* Sending MCI to your family
You see, the medium is irrelevant.
buck. These spammers are doing something they *know* nobody else wants them to do, charging the victims for it,
So let me get this straight. You assert that spammers end out mass emails (they do) that they know *NOBODY* wants them to do (which is untrue) and then charge the "victims" for it (which is also untrue). In truth, the fact that spam WORKS is why they do it.
Do I WANT commercials on my TV show or my radio show? No. It costs me electricity that I PAY FOR to power my set during those times, and in my case since I pay for my satellite service I'm paying for that commercial to be sent to my TV set. Now, clearly I do not want that. I don't see a "Commercial Channel" where I can watch "commercials 24 hours a day". Though with "Home Shopping Network" and other knock-offs, it is close.
pulling this kind of anti-social bullshit.
Ok, that's enough of your anti-social rants on slashdot, time to whip you. Who decides what is pro-social and what is anti-social? Maybe it's just me, but I don't want a power-elite to be deciding what is good for society and what is not. That, IMO is anti-social itself. Society is the result of human interaction, not mandates and regulations by a minority. Let society decide for itself, let me decide for myself what is important to a good society.
Here you are advocating violence for sending out commercial advertisements. Maybe that could be considered anti-social.
The problem with spam is that it is getting increasingly harder to deal with
The problem with people wanting to take my money from me so they can do nothing is that it is getting increasingly harder to deal with.
The problem with people posting unfounded assumptions that they refuse to back up with evience on slashdot is that it is getting increasingly harder to deal with.
So, what you are saying is, it is not spam itself that is a problem, it is that spam is *successful* that is the problem.
Dude, the police state is here and its called the the patriot act Ashcroft is even coming to my state today to tell everyone how wonderful it is.
Well then, we live somewhat close together, he was in my state yesterday too. Are you in favor of the USAPA? If not then think of this: The same people that made that, that enforce it, and that use it to abuse your *genuine* privacy rights, are the very same people you are asking to decide who/what is spam. The same people that classified hacking as a terrorist activity, you are now asking to decide what is spam, and what should be done about it.
Far strecth to put spam under such a classification? Not really. I've demonstrated before how spam can be used to pass along terrorist funding. Let the government in on it, and watch it become classified as a terrorrist activity. Just think, you can be proud should that happen, since you pushed for it!
The real problem is not about creating a possible police state, but not recognizing the problem of spam as severe, which it is. Making spamming a felony and confiscating spammy's computers is not creating a police state.
BWAAAAHAHAHHAHAHA. Yeah, Hitler would be proud, as would Musullini, or the rulership of China or any other fascist state. The *only* power a state has is over criminals. Think about it. By increasing the things classified as crime, you increase the power of the government. How is that power enforced? By police. Thus, increasing the number of things a citizen's arse can be thrown in jail for increases the amount of police control over the life of people, thus increasing the effect of a police state.
Spam is not a "severe problem". When I can install free software on my system, either server or client, and block 90%+ of it, it is not a severe problem. If you want *only* certain people to email you, you have many, many options, including using a whitelist.
Or maybe you're saying that spammers should have the right of free speech no matter what. The problem of this is that a large amount of my spam consists of lies, scams and penis pills.
Well some of your posts here contain lies, should we throw your arse in jail for doing that? If a scam is already illegal, the fact that it happens over electronic media makes it no less of a scam, and thus no less illegal. Take speeding, for example.
Is there a legal differentiation between speeding on a motorcycle, and speeding in a car? Nope. Why? Same thing, different vehicle.
If you want to go after businesses for false advertising, go after them for false advertising. If you want to go after them for running illegal scams, go after them for running illegal scams. I don't ask for the postal spam I get in my mailbox, nor do I ask for it in my TV, or my radio.
"But I pay for my email!" So what, I pay for my satellite service, some people pay for XM radio. I pay for the electricity that powers them all in my house or car.
People with webmail accounts don't have the luxury of installing filters.
Not true. Many web-based email providers do indeed allow you to create/manage filters. My company does, and I know many others that do. Just because you chose a webmail service that doesn't, does not mean all do not.
Your ESP clearly does not care aboThe police exist to provide a necessary service to citizens.The police exist to provide a necessary service to citizens.ut the spam issue. So exercise your right to choose a different o
Sorry, but no, the spammer is not doing that, the person providing the address lists or software is. But you still have not addressed how that is a violation of your privacy.
Did you give the spammer system your email address? If so, *you* gave it out, making it no longer a "trade secret" kind of thing; it isnt private anymore. Of not, how did they get it?
If the email address is a common-configuration type, such as firstname@....com or lastname@....net or word@....com then it isn't *your* address, is it? You are merely using it. They made a random list of potential email addresses and used that. Or, they may have got it from your ISP or whomever is providing your email service.
Thus, it is not your email address and certainly not your *private* information. Thus, it is not a violation of your privacy.
Privacy violation is the wrong argument against spam, it shows a lack of thinking through the situation and it's causal factors; thus weakening or defeating your argument. The claim of privacy will not hold up on an email address. To rely on that argument is to base your foundation on a sandy beach in a storm.
If *nobody* bought things from spam, it would pretty well cease, as the costs would skyrocket, and spam woudl decrease. Unfortunately, people *do* buy things from spammers, and as long as it continues to eb cost effective, they will do it. And no, government regulations making it a crime (remember a crime does not simply exist, it must be created by government first) will stop it; indeed it will only make it more lucrative for those providing the tools, thus increasing it.
"...anything that slows down spam can only be a good thing."
Ahh, I see. So, blackouts, stopping the Internet, having some bureaucrat determine what is and is not spam, and banning email are all good things, then?
I just find it funny that alot of/. folk absoluetly hate the RIAA for doing this, but when it works in their favor, they love the idea
Yup. Bastiat talked about it in The Law. Where people get elected to stop the injustice of a group in power, and then when they get in, they use that same abuse of power on those they just defeated.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, yu think it's funny now ...
Wait till there is a law against calling a business for other than transacting business. Wait till they criminalize calling a company to express your opinion.
"But that's free speech!". Yup, for now.
Man people are really eager to list "insightful" today, eh? What happened to earning such a rating?
Begging for money is not the same as trying to sell you something. If fraud is involved, prosecute the fraud! Don't be a wimp and prosecute over a stupid and petty thing as calling you; it is not any different than "Mommy, Billy is looking at me!!"
Now, stand on the street and try to *sell* something, then you can start to get close. Just because you don't like TM, and probably can't say no yourself (with or w/o a civil tone), is no reason to be so incipidly wrong.
Why do I suggest you may not be able to tell them no? People that can/do typically do not complain about the suppposed "strong arm tactics" or compare TM to a mugging. They usually complain about the time and interruption.
The worst thing to happen to this country was the abdication of personal responsibility.
Don't like the show? Change the channel. Don't like the TM, hang up, don't take the call, or say "no".
Hell, maybe gather some friends together, pool your money and run an ad campaign "Just say no to telemarketers." Just be careful to not use the phone to do it, or you lose your message.
Like it or not, most TMers are college students putting themselves through school or second working parents, or single moms. Why? It pays better for one. This is not a "felel sorry for them" plea, far from it. However, it flies in the face of the pathetic claims that TMers are evil people out to bilk the poor and elderly from their life savings. It makes people feel better about yelling or cursing the other end of the phone out. People use it to justify something they know is wrong.
You'd rather put these people out of a job than focus on nailing those who *are* committing the atrocities you mention. Mr Pot, meet Mr. Kettle.
--rant on--
But hey, for some people they have to believe that shakey voice on the other end of the phone is a guy with horns a red suit and sitting in a room filled with brimstone, because they can't stand the cognitive dissonance that more governemnt means those people have to resort to telemarketing jobs, as opposed to staying home (if a working married mother), or giving up the TM as the second job they need to cover their living expenses or get out of debt because the government taxes the shit out of them to pay for all these "there outta be a law!" shouts from people who will not stand up and take personal responsibility.
--rant off--
Why not? They let others get away with claiming that there are 20 Million+ homeless, that the homeless are dying at a rate of a .5million/day, but will somehow be over 50 million in a couple years!
They also don't challenge the absurd claims that half of all Americans voted *for* Bush, and that slightly more voted *for* Gore, when the truth is that something like (IIRC) less than half of Americans even voted in the first place, and that of those that did, probably 90% of them were voting *against* the other guy.
HOWEVER....
And actually, 6.5M is not that unexpected, since it does not say what you did. It says 6.5M people working in call centers. That means the TMs, the management, the HR, the trainers, the screeners, the lawyers, the techs (that includes IT people), and even the people cleaning the place up.
Now, is it so hard to believe 6.5M in that entire industry, and those industries that support call centers.
No? Then add this fact:
To get to dialing all the areas codes, across the timezones, it often is more cost effective to set up multiple call centers, usually in the two central zones. Usually this means two centers, thus doubling the people involved (slightly more for cross-site manintenance and management overhead).
No, are you so sure that 6.5M is unreasonable? Then counter with an estimate and justify it.
Insightful?? Puh-lease!
There was no claim about being guaranteed an audience. Just thet they can try to get one!
To hell with Karma, I'm saying it anyway!
/.
The Telemarketers insist that they have a constitutionally protected right to harass us
I am sorry but you are fully incorrect. They are not claiming that. They are correctly pointing out that they have a right to try to sell you something. You have a right to hang up, refuse the call, talk their ear off and not buy, or actually buy something.
Commercial speech *is* a form of speech. With freedom comes responsibility. Good is accompanied by the bad. Just as freedom of speech means you can/will be exposed to ideas you disagree with, so to doe si tmean you will be exposed to sales methods you disagree with.
This mass calling, while superficially petulant, demonstrates that a right to call and harass people works both ways, if they want to play that game.
Now you're getting somewhere. Mind you, to take this further means that if they want to spread *your* contact information to *their* friends and they all decide top start expressing their opinions (since they are not soliciting, the list and all solicitation laws are irrelevant), then you can not argue with it and remain consistent.
If this company chose to list Dave Barry's contact info on their boards and urge all the TM companies to call and give him their opinion. that's fine too.
That's a product of freedom, like it or not. Once you start limiting another's freedoms, yours are next on the chopping block. Hey,w e start with Do Not Call lists, then they respond with "Do Not Call Lists" and next hing you know it is *you* on the receiving end of that Do Not Call violation. Or, you start getting nailed for posting people's private numbers on
Hey, I now, rather than take personal responsibility, how about we just eliminate *all* advertising and marketing! After all, maybe I feel "harassed" by all those tampon commercials on the TV, the Radio, the billboards, the newspaper, etc..
Mark these words:
If this continues, and you are not on a Do Not Call list, then legally it will be determined that you are effectively on a Do Call List.
"Well, you aren't on the Do Not Call List."
Laws like this have an odd tendency to "legitimize" the activity.
Further, the list excludes charities and non-profits. Congratulations, now every charity or non-profit on the world can get a list of people to call. All you do is shift it to a different group of tele-spammers. If the theory that people most likely to list themselves are the kind least likely to sy no, you have hamred these people even more. Now they have their heart strings tugged for "non-commercial" causes.
Besdies, it is soo easy to set up a non-profit that sells things and gives much of the proceeds to charity. Watch for this to become more commonplace as DNC lists are more prevalent.
In fact, I'd argue this system will increase the tele-spam. It will (in one theory) increase the sales per telemarketer, thus makign it more profitable to be one. This will lead to more of them.
However, Telemarketer-tarpitting(TM) has precisely the opposite effect. In reality it costs the company little to be on the phone with you; that is part of the calculation.
However, since most TM persons are paid based on performance, or stick around/kept on based on performance, then there is a higher rate of turnover in the TM labor market. This higher turnover leads to higher training costs and lower productivity. This is a more profound impact on revenue than simply calling them or keeping them on the phone longer incuring toll charges.
A sign indicating no solicitors would likely qualify as warning. If not put up one that say "Solictors are not welcom, and thus if you ring the bell or knock on the door, you are trespassing, and may be prosecuted under the law." and a reference to your local ordinances on trespassing would do it.
Yet nothing in that says they have to show it to *you*.
The Government Security Program, launched in January, aims to address concerns by governments over the reliability and security of Microsoft's software by providing controlled access to source code as well as technical advice on security.
/that/ is funny. Better read the EULA on that Technical Security Advice.
Controlled Access. Well, IMO, if I can't build it and verify it produces the same binary, how can I be sure I was shown the real source? I can't.
Security advice from the company that a) can't seem to secure their own OS against basic script kiddie invasions and b) seeks to keep security flaws a pricey secret.
Now
Yes, I understand that issue fully. I'm reminded of the time NASA was looking for an island in the middle of the South Pacific ( you know, that part that's nothing but but blue when you look at it on a globe) that would be visible to the eye from the space shuttle. They pored over sattellite photographs and were coming up empty.
Eventually a libraian heard about the problem and refered them to a book on . .
She remembered reading a description of a completely unique island in a bird book.
NASA went back to the photos and sure enough, there it was.
The thing is that relationship existed in someone's mind, not in a database. It seems unlikely that if a database file system had existed at the time that they would have found it there either. A database is still completely dependant upon the relationships being built by a person and the computer can't make the leap of insight to build new and unsuspected relationships.
"Show me all islands in the central part of the south pacific large enough to be visible from low earth orbit".
Can that be done based on data about the islands? Yes, all of that can be determined. We can mathematically determine relative size as viewed at that distance. We can use coordinates to determine islands that are at that size or larger in a given box or region.
So must disagree and say that such a database/interface *could* have found that, without needing to know about birds, simply the size and locations of the islands, and a query as above. Sometimes the answer lies not out of the box, but *in* the box. The trick is not to learn to think outside of the box, but in *both* places.
Actually, this points out the problem with Heirchical FS. I have songs that go unde rmultiple categories, just as I do for CDs and DVDs.
For example, I can not right now have a "Comedy" section, "Action" Seciton, and then a "Bill Engval" or "Arnold Schwarzenegger" section and have them all consistent. Where does "True Lies" go? Well, it goes in two categories. But I'm not about to buy multiple copies just for organizations. It works for books too.
Sure, you can try symliks, but as someone who has gone down that route for my songs (Sort by Artist, Genre? What about cross-genre artists or multi-artis songs). It gets *real* cumbersome and you wind up writing a set of scripts or programs to try to organize the whole mess.
FIlesystems are the same. "Documents", eh? Well I've got documents that fall under multiple categories, such as Politics, Tech, Programming, Household, Corvette Stuff, etc.. Sorting by folders leads to the same problem.
If done well, this type of system can be very useful for storing *data*. I can then do things like "Views" in SQL-Speak to have a "table" that shows all "Corvette" related documents, regardless of physical location on my drives, or "Political Essays" that may fall under various topics.
That said, I wind up changing my book/cd/dvd collection organizing frequently since I add new items and the whole scheme changes frequently.
Best of luck to this project, I'll be watching it!
Or I might protest if sending junk mail was actually illegal, as spam is.
Not everywhere it isn/t, nor will it be. And in many of these places, what qualifies as spam is so narrow as to not qualify much of it.
The list just goes on and on. The differences between spam and junk mail are obvious and have already been discussed extensively in this forum.
Maybe, but the similarities are being deliberately avoided, much to the detriment of those being spammed. The similarities are where the progress in combatting it will be had, not ignoring them.
Menu's dont cost me bandwidth or server CPU tim
They cost you human time in bending over (potentially injuring your back) to pick them up from the porch, or they cost you time to open the door and unhook them from the doorhandle. You pay for maintenance on that door/porch, be it in rent, mortgage, property taces, homeowners insurance (what happens if the people fall down on your rickety porch?)
2) Menu's do not contain sexually explicit or illegal scam material.
The first part, well That depends on where you are. The second part, ask yourself why not? Because they'd get nailed for their already illegal activity!
3) Reading the menu doesn't cause me to be the permanent target of 100 other restaurants.
Nor does reading email. If you got a spam, your addres is *already* permanently on that list, in most cases.
4) Menu's may even be usefull.
So can spam. I've received useful spam many times. I chose to not participate, but it was indeed, still useful.
Here in Australia, you can even put a "No Junk Mail" sign on your letterbox - something you cant do for spam.
Sure you can. You can use a whitelist or similar system for your inbox. I have a couple addresses I use like this. IN fact, I do this on my phone line as well. I have caller ID. If you don't call from a number I don't recongize, you have to leave a message. If you call from a blocked line (as most phone-spammers do) you are instructed as to how to unblock your line and call again. Most phone-spammers will not bother.
There is another service the local telco offers that forces unknown callers to leave who they are. If they give it it then rings through and you are presented with the opportunity to accept or not. Meanwhile, they have to sit there waiting. Phone spammers do not do this probably 90% of the time.
Now, (back to my point).. this guy runs a legitimate business, but he's being conned by spammers.. he doesn't have the technical know-how to run his own server, and he doesn't know how to tell the difference between a legitimate listserv, and a spammer.. (which, is to check blacklists.) The spammers have his money, and his mailing list (which they send spam to, or sell to other spammers), and he's stuck being unable to send mail to a bunch of his clients..
- that-jurisdiction is the appropriate response.
So use the existing laws against fraud and con artists here. Just because they do it over the net does not make it less of a con.
You are right, he *has* learned a hard lesson. But rather than sit on this lesson, it could be used to help prevent this in the future. Taking the company to court for false advertising/fraud/whatever-it-turned-out-to-be-in
There are spammers that spam for kiddie porn. True. Is kiddie porn illegal? In some areas. In those areas, nail them for kiddie porn. Some kiddie porn dealers use the local classifieds. We don't nail them over using the classifieds, we nail them on the kiddie porn.
Ask youself this:
If the kiddie porn spam and the genuine scams stoppped being a part of spam, how much spam would be left? Not much in comparison.
Email is simply a tool, nothing more. Spam is email. If the point of the email is to entice or promote criminal activity, you prosecute the criminal activity, not the use of email to do it.
If a business is advertising "100% opt-in" and it turns out they are knowingly full of it, nail 'em for false advertising/fraud.
After all, ask yourself this:
If you could be completely sure that a given list was 100% opt in, or even 99.99% (say your diety came down and told you, and you trust your diety), would you use it, or condone it as a legitimate sending of email?
Again, prosecute any illegal activity (such as scams, fraud, and kiddie porn) resulting from email, not the use of email to do it.
Indeed, it is the height of strategic and tactical folly to make it a crime for the bad guys to tell you what/where/when/who!
Right now, those perpetrating criminal activity over email are relatively safer when we focus on the method used to perpetrate the activity, rather than the activity.
We should be looking to the companies hiring spammers. We should be looking to them to file suit and charges for these practices when/where/if against the law.
If you bought advertising space from a marketing company that promised to only advertise in targeted magazines for your product/service, and failed, would you call for criminalizing advertising services? No, you'd probably sue the bastards and/or report them for false advertising and/or fraud. So why change it because they did it over the Internet as opposed to the phone?
That those who propose solutions relying completely on technology understand neither the technology nor the problem.
Nobody has a god-given right to carry themselves about in two tons of steel
And nobody has a god-given right to tell me what I can and can not drive!
Better yet, tell the Scientologists! Those people send LOTS of postal spam ALL the time!
The critical issue vith vigilantes is law enforcement, ot the absence thereof.
And if there is no law to enforce, it isn't vigilanteism.
Spam hunters are vigilantes.
No, they are free-market components. Just as someone picketing or boycotting a company for what that person feels is irresponsible or immoral behavior is.
Vigilantes take the LAW into their own hands. If there is no law, they are not vigilantes.
The failure of your analogy is that "door hanging" costs a *lot* more than spam does. It also makes the incorrect assumption that one person does all those menu deliveries to your house. You would have hundreds of people walking up and leaving a menu each day. You going to shoot all of them? Even the college kid who rather than live off grants or his parents is putting himself through college by working for the local pizza place? How cruel can you be? ;)
...
Individually, they are irrelevent. Only when combined do you begin to proclaim a problem. If it *were* one person doing it all, you'd merely wait for him to go out of business. It wouldn't even take a week, I'd wager.
And, no I'm not so knee-jerk testosterone laden that I'd simply go shooting people for doing their advertising. If I had a "No soliciting" or similar sign on my door, and that were to happen I would place a call to the business owner making many complaints --one call/compaint per doorstep advertisment. if that was not an option or failed to obtain results, I'd contact the better business bureau and complain there.
Further, your analogy fails in that there are simple and mostly effective ways of stopping spam --without shooting the messenger. There are, however, much more complicated and involved ways needed to stop door hangers.
Forutnately, with that much volume, the effectiveness of doorstep advertising decreases, and thus the costs go up. This leads to a drop in the number of businesses doing doorstep advertising, thus a reduction. This is why there is *not* hundreds of doorstep adverts on your door each day. Costs. And no, the costs are not out of legal punishments either. So too will it be with spam, as long as we keep Ashcroft and other fascists out of it.
And actually, during the summer I get sometimes a dozen or so a day, not just menus but siding and window contractor, and the kid down the street trying to make a buck for himself by offering to mow my yard. Would you shoot him too? Then, there is election season
I used to get literally hundred of spams per day. But since installing spamassassin and using a decent RBL, I've seen very very few spam, and sometimes go weeks w/o getting any spam in my inbox. And my email addresses are all over the place. I don't try to hide them.
Glad to say it, your assertion that vigilanteeism is the only thing that works is flat out wrong.
But, I think spam is a *very* serious crime.
Then show us the law that makes it a crime. Is it as serious as murder, rape, kidnapoping, and molestation?
Nothing speeds the decay of a society faster than abuse of the commons
Email is not a commons, and who decides what abuse o fit is? Maybe Ashcroft decides that email unfavorable to the administration are an abuse of commons, maybe even terrorism. Maybe after massive financial backing by a large computer company, the government decides to play favorites, and makes email proposing or furthering Linux or OSX or BSD or UNix use an abuse of "the commons".
being encouraged to sell out your neighbors for a quick buck.
So how does spam do that? To be logicaly consistent, you must also seek to make other thigns a "serious crime" such as:
* Giving a referral to a salesman
* Sending MCI to your family
You see, the medium is irrelevant.
buck. These spammers are doing something they *know* nobody else wants them to do, charging the victims for it,
So let me get this straight. You assert that spammers end out mass emails (they do) that they know *NOBODY* wants them to do (which is untrue) and then charge the "victims" for it (which is also untrue). In truth, the fact that spam WORKS is why they do it.
Do I WANT commercials on my TV show or my radio show? No. It costs me electricity that I PAY FOR to power my set during those times, and in my case since I pay for my satellite service I'm paying for that commercial to be sent to my TV set. Now, clearly I do not want that. I don't see a "Commercial Channel" where I can watch "commercials 24 hours a day". Though with "Home Shopping Network" and other knock-offs, it is close.
pulling this kind of anti-social bullshit.
Ok, that's enough of your anti-social rants on slashdot, time to whip you. Who decides what is pro-social and what is anti-social? Maybe it's just me, but I don't want a power-elite to be deciding what is good for society and what is not. That, IMO is anti-social itself. Society is the result of human interaction, not mandates and regulations by a minority. Let society decide for itself, let me decide for myself what is important to a good society.
Here you are advocating violence for sending out commercial advertisements. Maybe that could be considered anti-social.
The problem with spam is that it is getting increasingly harder to deal with
The problem with people wanting to take my money from me so they can do nothing is that it is getting increasingly harder to deal with.
The problem with people posting unfounded assumptions that they refuse to back up with evience on slashdot is that it is getting increasingly harder to deal with.
So, what you are saying is, it is not spam itself that is a problem, it is that spam is *successful* that is the problem.
Dude, the police state is here and its called the the patriot act Ashcroft is even coming to my state today to tell everyone how wonderful it is.
Well then, we live somewhat close together, he was in my state yesterday too. Are you in favor of the USAPA? If not then think of this: The same people that made that, that enforce it, and that use it to abuse your *genuine* privacy rights, are the very same people you are asking to decide who/what is spam. The same people that classified hacking as a terrorist activity, you are now asking to decide what is spam, and what should be done about it.
Far strecth to put spam under such a classification? Not really. I've demonstrated before how spam can be used to pass along terrorist funding. Let the government in on it, and watch it become classified as a terrorrist activity. Just think, you can be proud should that happen, since you pushed for it!
The real problem is not about creating a possible police state, but not recognizing the problem of spam as severe, which it is. Making spamming a felony and confiscating spammy's computers is not creating a police state.
BWAAAAHAHAHHAHAHA. Yeah, Hitler would be proud, as would Musullini, or the rulership of China or any other fascist state. The *only* power a state has is over criminals. Think about it. By increasing the things classified as crime, you increase the power of the government. How is that power enforced? By police. Thus, increasing the number of things a citizen's arse can be thrown in jail for increases the amount of police control over the life of people, thus increasing the effect of a police state.
Spam is not a "severe problem". When I can install free software on my system, either server or client, and block 90%+ of it, it is not a severe problem. If you want *only* certain people to email you, you have many, many options, including using a whitelist.
Or maybe you're saying that spammers should have the right of free speech no matter what. The problem of this is that a large amount of my spam consists of lies, scams and penis pills.
Well some of your posts here contain lies, should we throw your arse in jail for doing that? If a scam is already illegal, the fact that it happens over electronic media makes it no less of a scam, and thus no less illegal. Take speeding, for example.
Is there a legal differentiation between speeding on a motorcycle, and speeding in a car? Nope. Why? Same thing, different vehicle.
If you want to go after businesses for false advertising, go after them for false advertising. If you want to go after them for running illegal scams, go after them for running illegal scams. I don't ask for the postal spam I get in my mailbox, nor do I ask for it in my TV, or my radio.
"But I pay for my email!" So what, I pay for my satellite service, some people pay for XM radio. I pay for the electricity that powers them all in my house or car.
People with webmail accounts don't have the luxury of installing filters.
Not true. Many web-based email providers do indeed allow you to create/manage filters. My company does, and I know many others that do. Just because you chose a webmail service that doesn't, does not mean all do not.
Your ESP clearly does not care aboThe police exist to provide a necessary service to citizens.The police exist to provide a necessary service to citizens.ut the spam issue. So exercise your right to choose a different o
Sorry, but no, the spammer is not doing that, the person providing the address lists or software is. But you still have not addressed how that is a violation of your privacy.
Did you give the spammer system your email address? If so, *you* gave it out, making it no longer a "trade secret" kind of thing; it isnt private anymore. Of not, how did they get it?
If the email address is a common-configuration type, such as firstname@....com or lastname@....net or word@....com then it isn't *your* address, is it? You are merely using it. They made a random list of potential email addresses and used that. Or, they may have got it from your ISP or whomever is providing your email service.
Thus, it is not your email address and certainly not your *private* information. Thus, it is not a violation of your privacy.
Privacy violation is the wrong argument against spam, it shows a lack of thinking through the situation and it's causal factors; thus weakening or defeating your argument. The claim of privacy will not hold up on an email address. To rely on that argument is to base your foundation on a sandy beach in a storm.
If *nobody* bought things from spam, it would pretty well cease, as the costs would skyrocket, and spam woudl decrease. Unfortunately, people *do* buy things from spammers, and as long as it continues to eb cost effective, they will do it. And no, government regulations making it a crime (remember a crime does not simply exist, it must be created by government first) will stop it; indeed it will only make it more lucrative for those providing the tools, thus increasing it.
"...anything that slows down spam can only be a good thing."
Ahh, I see. So, blackouts, stopping the Internet, having some bureaucrat determine what is and is not spam, and banning email are all good things, then?
I think not.
Yup. Bastiat talked about it in The Law. Where people get elected to stop the injustice of a group in power, and then when they get in, they use that same abuse of power on those they just defeated.