10+ years ago, I bought something at CompUSA which had advertised a $50 rebate. When the store clerk handed me the rebate form, I immediately noticed that it had expired, but was reassured by the clerk AND by store manager that the expiration date had actually been extended, and the rebate would be paid (it was a CompUSA rebate, not a manufacturer's rebate). Of course, that was absolute BS, and the rebate was denied as "expired."
So I posted a web page describing my experience, and within a few weeks it came up in the top few search results for "CompUSA rebate" on AltaVista, which was then the most popular search engine.
Someone from CompUSA called, and asked me to take the page down; I said no.
They offered to give me the $50 if I would take the page down, and I said no.
Then they mailed me a $50 check, which I cashed (since they owed me $50 for the promised rebate).
Then they mailed me ANOTHER $50 check, which I returned.
Then they sent me a $100 check, which I returned.
(It was several years before that web page disappeared in a site transition.)
About 10 years ago, I purchased a new power supply from Fry's, and it FRIED my computer's motherboard because the wires were mis-marked. I attempted to return the power supply, and the store manager (at the old Fremont location) absolutely refused to pay for anything, and he was belligerant and actually said "go ahead and sue, we won't give you a penny" or something like that. My letter of complaint to Fry's HQ was ignored.
So I went ahead and filed suit in small claims court in Fremont, and within 48 hours I got a call from their legal department, agreeing to pay the full amount I'd requested, including court and process-serving costs. I got the money a day or two later, and dismissed my suit. I didn't check, but I suspect that there have been many thousands of small-claims lawsuits filed against Fry's since they began selling electronics products. I'm sure that they earn a huge profit since 90% of people won't sue.
Note that in my case, the defect was absolutely a manufacturer's problem, but a retailer is equally responsible for what they sell, and in this case there was no manufacturer name, just a "made in ----" label (I'm not certain which country).
To its credit, Fry's actually is quite generous in accepting returned products, probably because they know that they're playing with fire by re-shelving defective items, and not bothering to even check returned items. I've returned many dozens of products at Fry's over the past 20+ years.
Why do we keep shopping at Fry's? Perhaps because of their product selection: my wife and I just bought iPhones and we're planning a trip to Fry's this evening to look at cases and car chargers. (There was once a time when Fry's offered the best prices on most products it sold, but that's long ago, and now their prices are frequently higher than the big-box electronics and office-supply retailers on many products.)
"You should see the customer returns go right back to the shelf" is absolutely right. I once purchased a product at Fry's that was shrink-wrapped with no "returned product" label. It did not work properly, and after a day or so I was talking with the manufacturer's top-tier support, who advised that there was a firmware upgrade on their web site, but I explained that my product had that firmware upgrade already (based on the version number). The technician was quite surprised, since they had not yet begun shipping any products with that new firmware upgrade. Clearly, someone else bought the product and went through this process, then found that the product was defective, and returned it -- and Fry's just put it back on the shelf. When I returned it, I insisted that they affix the "defective/return to manufacturer" label while I watched (though it wouldn't surprise me if they either peeled it off or covered it up with a "returned in good condition" label).
Nope. I called my credit-card company, and they insisted that a dispute regarding a rebate was NOT something that would justify reversing the transaction or any part of it. In fact, they insisted that I couldn't complain until after I'd applied for each rebate and not received payment -- and of course, the time to dispute the transaction would expire long before then. So I'm out the $80 that Circuit City charged as a "restocking fee," and Circuit City lost our patronage at the exact time that we received a financial windfall, which we've happily spent at other retailers.
There is NO VALID BUSINESS REASON for rebates in the 21st century. Given the high cost to process and issue small-value rebates, and the damage to reputatin, the ONLY real business reason is the expectation that a substantial number of the rebates will not be paid. A rebate offer is a way of denying some consumers the advertised price. After the many disclaimers and contradictory terms in the rebate language, and the nit-picking and deliberate indifference of rebate processors, deliberate misconduct or gross negligence (1,300 unopened rebate envelopes in a trash can) is just the "icing on the cake."
I can't understand why some enterprising state legislators don't introduce a bill to prohibit the use of mail-in rebates entirely, or to create a "rebate death penalty" whereby no retailer or manufacturer could advertise rebates after proof that valid rebate requests were rejected. Of course, one issue is that states collect sales tax on the rebate amount (since the consumer pays the full price, and gets a rebate for the purchase price but not for the extra sales tax).
I recently returned a laptop computer ("$549 minus $200 rebates = $349") to Circuit City (this was really a $400 laptop marked up to $549 so they could boast a price of $349 "after rebates"). It was a "sham" offer. First, the two rebates ($50 and $150) were BOTH to be sent to Circuit City (at two different addresses in two different states), but although both were advertised together, each form clearly stated that only ONE rebate would be paid "at most." Then I read on, and found a complete and total disclaimer of ANY duty by Circuit City or any other entity to process or pay any rebate; there was even a provision requiring that I wait 120 days for the rebate to be issued, along with another provision provided that any claims regarding unpaid rebates would not be considered unless they were be presented to Circuit City within 90 days after purchase. When I called for clarification, I was given many reassurances that contradicted the paperwork, but a flat refusal to put anything in writing; when I returned the computer to the store, they insisted that my concerns were unfounded, but again would not put any of their reassurances in writing. Of course, Circuit City took $80 out of my refund as a "restocking fee," despite the fact that their fraud and their refusal to honor their promise was the sole basis for my return.
Fry's is certainly a "bad actor" in the rebate space; over the past 20 years, I've caught them many times advertising rebates that have expired or combining mutually-exclusive rebates together. But in fairness, Fry's Electronics seems to offer FEWER "deals" that include rebates than the larger chains like Best Buy, Circuit City, and CompUSA. I have lots of reasons to dislike Fry's, but I can only think of ONE product that I purchased at Fry's that had a rebate -- and I bought it because the price before rebate was still lower than the competing products. (I probably wouldn't have spent the postage to mail the rebate form if the purchase weren't on behalf of our 12-year-old child; getting the crumpled-postcard $5 check four months later was a nice, unexpected bonus.)
In terms of fairness and honesty, one of the new "scams" is the use of "debit cards" to fulfill rebate promises; these are a huge hassle and are intended to create additional profit, and I was outraged to receive one of these instead of a check (as promised) from Symantec a couple years ago; I won't buy another Symantec product.
I now mentally edit out rebates whenever I look at any offer. In the cell-phone store, I ignore the large bold price because I know it reflects the application of one or more rebates which might or might not be paid.
On Thursday, January 13, 2005, eBay announced that it would increase its "Final Value Fees" by more than 50% (more than a 70% increase for larger transactions). (This really deserves its own thread). The announcement does not really give any idea of the magnitude of the fee increases (which are substantial).
The Final Value Fee for these sale amounts would increase as shown:
For reasons I can't comprehend, there appears to be a total stop on all my email. My own mail server is receiving nothing -- strange, since normally I get about 50 spam emails per hour. Likewise, email is not coming into my yahoo mailbox, nor my ISP mailbox. I triggered some third party sites to send email to various accounts, and it does not come in, to any of my three different email servers (of course, my own mail server and my ISP's are just a couple hops apart, and mail.yahoo.com is notoriously slow at times, so I dunno what's up).
Is anyone else seeing a "total stop" in internet email activity?
I was worried that this was a virus on my mail server, so I ran a different virus check -- and it reports a "possible" infection of the file slmail.cpl. And of course, Google blocks my attempts to search for references to that file name, although when I search for "slmail cpl" I was able to find a reference to a "hack" for SLmail. I've uninstalled and re-installed SLmail but the same alert comes up, which makes me think it may be a false alarm, but of course I can't tell, and the slmail.com web site is not responding. (I chose to use SLmail because it's not often targetted by virus and trojan writers -- was I wrong?) Any advice on the slmail.cpl issue would certainly be appreciated.
Wow, perhaps this explains the huge upsurge in the number of non-received emails. People in my Rotary club are baffled that I am not responding to their emails, and it certainly seems to be all the AOL folks. Are they rejecting emails, or blackholing them?
I run my own mail server on a "business DSL" connection with a static IP address, but it runs to my home and I doubt there is any genuine distinction between "residential" and "business" DSL lines. I run my own server, of course, so that I can have a fairly powerful set of spam filters at the server side, in addition to a complex set of client-side spam filters -- all because I receive hundreds of spam emails per day, including dozens that I can identify as coming from AOL-owned servers.
I assume that AOL has only disabled receipt of email from DSL lines, and continues to send its customers' spam to folks like me. It's hard to know, since my filters already reject more than 98% of incoming email delivery attempts.
Let's at least try to be fair to AOL: they are just like the rest of us, forced to seek out triage solutions to the increasingly aggressive strategies used by spammers. Until a new structure is widely adopted for exchange of email (something that allows for true source verification and financial compensation for abuse), triage is the only solution that will work. Hence I block nearly all email from earthlink servers and customers, as well as juno.com and HUNDREDs of other domain names and IP addresses.
This is definitely a lawsuit with merit: it is simply not proper for stores to sell software, then after the sale make disclosure of highly restrictive license terms that violate public policy (like Microsoft's no-review policy) and then refuse to accept return, insisting that the consumer "accepted" the terms of the UNDISCLOSED agreement by opening the box (which contains the agreement inside the sealed box).
Of course, it's extremely likely that this suit will be promptly settled -- none of the software makers want a EULA case to go forward in California.
First, my immediate reaction was the same as others: Congress will never pass such a law, so Lessig is safe. I'd bet my job on this, if I had one.;-)
Second, Lessig has been in the "blacklists-are-bad" camp for a while, at least since he wrote a column in 1998 called "The Spam Wars," griping about the unfairness of MIT being blacklisted due to its policies (at that time). He basically took the position that "blacklisters" need to implement an extremely complex and expensive system of notice and appeal (due process) procedures. In other words, we cannot erect fences and gates with locks, unless we agree to schedule a hearing and pay legal costs for every single person who seeks entry, even if there are millions who have no right to enter but ask anyway.
I had a very interesting (if not ultimately productive) series of email exchanges with Lessig after he wrote that column -- starting with my email noting that I might not receive his reply because I'd already blacklisted his employer (then Harvard University) because of its maintenance of open relays and absence of staffing to respond to abuse complaints.
It was that exchange that led me to adopt my "triage" theory of spam-fighting, which remains the core of my belief system today, so he helped me. My position was, and remains, that if hordes of criminals are trying to invade my property, I can erect a fence and I need not listen to individual demands for entry if I choose not to.
> Executive Summary: Any measure for stopping spam must ensure that all non-spam messages reach their intended recipients. <
Sorry, but NO. This is great in theory, but the problem is that spam shifts all costs to the victim, and the victim cannot be forced to accept unlimited costs for creation of a complex system that insures due process and appeals.
My personal mail server receives many THOUSANDS of mail delivery attempts per day, all of which come to me (or nobody). Approximately 98% of these are spam, and more than 90% are forged in multiple ways (fake headers, fake server names, invalid return addresses, and frequently forged to show MY server name as the sender).
A week ago, I turned off my server-side filtering and collected several hundred spam emails in about an hour, before re-activating the filtering.
I spend approximately 15 minutes per day managing my spam filters (mostly adding new IP addresses and domains to the filters). Whenever I skip this management for a few days, my incoming spam volume rises substantially (in other words, if I don't close the door, dozens of spams per day come into my email client through some of the doors I didn't close).
Other people have irrational filters, too. AT&T, for example, has blocked all email that contains "markwelch" as part of the source address (hence all email from my servers is refused). I'm not sure why -- it might be because I've send hundreds of spam complaints to ATT.com, or it might be because so much spam has been forged with my domain name faked as the sender ("joe jobs"). But I don't dispute AT&T's right to do this, nor do I demand that AT&T provide me with a response or explanation or oppportunity to be heard. It sucks, but responding to spam is a triage activity, you must skip over some of the complex problems and try to manage the ones you know you can.
I do not currently use any third-party RBL or listing service; I manage my own filters. It's expensive and annoying, but I do this so that I can manage the process of filtering so that I don't constantly block my friends who are stuck with ISPs who are on some other blocklists.
I periodically post my complete filter list at:
http://www.MarkWelch.com/Welch_Filters.htm so that people who can't reach me, can check to see if their IP address or domain has been blocked on my end.
I disagree with the notion that addiction to computer games is more beneficial than "addiction" to bowling, or other non-harmful physical activities. Generally, those who bowl don't do it alone; the issue is, is it better to spend time interacting with people through a very limited artificial interface that includes non-human interaction (e.g. online games) or none (non-online computer games), or to spend that time engaged in interactions that are "real" (e.g. you are face-to-face with another human being, interacting).
I'm not advocating drug use or even sexual addiction, but just disagreeing on the issue of computer game addiction. I've gone through phases when I've spent a lot of time playing computer games, mostly offline but sometimes online, and the main benefit is the sense of escape, not skill development or interaction with others.
Actually, I just received a postcard today from Hurricane Electric (he.net), touting a rate of $400 per month for a full cabinet (42U height), or $200 per month for a 7U (12 inch) space. This includes 256K bandwidth at the 95th percentile (e.g. about 70GB per month).
I was paying $200 per month to colocate a server for 11 months, ending in September. I was quite happy, but decided that the server's low usage (way below 128K at the 95th percentile) and dwindling revenue (now under $500 per month and still declining) could be served with a DSL connection. (With my web revenue shriveling, I decided to replace the combined cost of colo plus cable modem, $250, with a single business-DSL line (with dedicated IP address) for $68 per month.
When I first signed up with HE.net, the $200 rate was for 1U or 2U of rack space, but I'm quite sure they sent me a card more recently quoting the same rate for 4U of space. I think they offered a half-rack for a really good price (maybe $400 per month?). Their rates might be cheaper now, or they may have different specials. You didn't say what size or shape your three servers are, so I have no idea whether your equipment could fit in 3U of space, or might need 12U or even as much as 21U. (A rack unit, or RU, is 1.75 inches vertically, by something like 26x39 width and depth, sorry I don't have the actual dimensions handy.)
They provide all the features of a good colo facility: enclosed, locked racks (so someone servicing a machine in another rack can't knock out your cables, as sometimes happened with other colo providers I used); 24/7 staffing and access if needed; UPS and air conditioning; staff that will power-cycle your server at no charge, and they even hooked up a monitor and keyboard to see what was wrong when my server's power supply failed, and they didn't charge extra for that. I think they also have the fancy oxygen-reducing and fire-suppressing equipment.
I was extremely happy with Hurricane Electric, by far the best of my three experiences with colocating a server in the area. They have facilities in San Jose and Fremont, California.
Beware: When I was shopping for colo services, I often found that the salesman's claims were not honored in the contract or in practice. One colo provider told me for THREE months that my outages were not their fault, then when I spent money and proved they were at fault, they agreed and allowed me to terminate my contract, but wouldn't make good on any promises (thankfully I did not sue, since they filed for bankruptcy several months later).
In some cases, you may be promised 24/7 access, but when you need access at 2am you find out that there is no staff from midnight to 8am and the on-call tech just refuses to come out because he's really tired and you're not an important customer. Or they promise redundant internet connections from multiple backbone providers, but they are connected to those providers through a single Pacific Bell T1 line (e.g. they had one T1 line that connected to a facility served by multiple backbone providers, but if the T1 line is lost, your connection is lost). And of course, with the domino of bankruptcies of colo providers, many facilities close with only a week's warning, and sometimes a facility may be closed and your equipment disconnected and shipped to another facility without your knowledge -- so your server is offline for several days, and then when you want to pick it up from San Jose, you find out it was shipped to Virginia.
The author of the ZDnet article linked here made a mistake in one of his links -- changing the proposal number from 20-230 to the next sequential one -- and as a result, a number of comments clearly intended to be attached to 20-230 are attached to the next proposal in sequence.
Basically, the problem comes if someone uses the link in the article to locate the existing comments, and then submits their own comment by following links from there. I emailed the ZDnet author, so perhaps he can still correct the link.
There also appears to be some "spamming" of the correct proposed rule -- a huge number of identical comments. I'm sure that the FCC will treat all these identically-worded comments the same way your congressperson does: they count as ONE comment unless there are tens of thousands of them, in which case they count as a half dozen. Write your own reply comment in your own words!
TV Promotion for Equilibrium; compare "The Giver"
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Equilibrium
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· Score: 2
I'm not sure about the claim that there is little promotion of the film. I've seen quite a few ads for the movie on TV, probably all in the past week. The ads are not really very good -- they make this look like a low-budget cheesy rip-off of "The Matrix."
On the separate topic mentioning "The Giver" versus F451 and Brave New World -- I recently read "The Giver" for the first time (I'm looking to change careers to become an English teacher) and it was quite clear to me that Lois Lowry's goal in writing "The Giver" was essentially to address many of the same issues as in "Brave New World" (and to a lesser extent, some of the issues in "Farenheit 451"), but for a young-adult audience. "The Giver" is a book frequently used in 8th and 9th grade classrooms.
I also just watched the movie "The Handmaid's Tale" (based Margaret Atwood's book of the same title, which I haven't yet read), and some of the same issues come up there, too. The issues of forced conformity and censorship are recurring, and nobody can claim to "own" them. As I think about it, my head is swirling with all kinds of plots from books, short stories, and TV episodes (especially Twilight Zone and Outer Limits) that offer variations on these same themes.
As noted, copyright law extends to any "original work of expresssion" fixed in a tangible medium, and that includes "spam emails."
While I doubt that many spammers would actually sue, and while I doubt many judges would be sympathetic to spammers (no juries for copyright cases), copyright law applies.
There are some other complications that will surely arise, including copyright and trademark claims by non-spammers whose rights are impacted by spammers.
For example, we all know that anti-virus and anti-spamming software from major companies is frequently touted in spam emails, always against the instructions of the companies involved (they claim to terminate any affiliates who spam). Arguably, putting "Norton Anti-Virus" or similar things into a public list of spams, might offend those companies' trademark attorneys, though I don't think they could legally stop you from accurately reporting.
Another issue could be someone who copies another persons copyrighted work into a "revenge spam" -- that is, someone like me complaints about a spammer, and the spammer is angry and blames me for his woes, and sends out another spam that is simply a copy of one of my web pages.
But the real issue here is one of damages. While it is possible to obtain an award of statutory damages under copyright law, it is nearly inconceivable that any spammer would jump through the hoops required to become entitled to statutory damages, and in any event no sane judge would make such an award.
Apart from "statutory damages," it is hard to conceive of any loss or damage to a spammer arising from the copying and redistribution of a spam email. First, the original was widely disseminated without charge, and further distribution would arguably just extend the original goal of wide distribution. Second, as noted, the copying of the entire spam is arguably necessary to "fair reportage" about the spam. (Normally, copying a complete copyrighted work is NOT permitted under "fair use," but there is at least an argument to be made here that without copying the entire spam, the reportage is nearly useless.)
Alas, don't forget that spammers don't just file lawsuits to win -- people like Sanford Wallace have frequently sued opponents just to get publicity, knowing that the suit was frivolous and would quickly be dismissed (but the news media rarely reports on lawsuits that are abandoned). Wallace and other spammers just love to wave the "free speech" banner, no matter how many times judges reject those absurd claims.
The organizers of the archive certainly should look to the legal analysis that exists for web indexing and archiving by companies like Google. It certainly would be practical to implement comparable procedures to allow spam emails to include a "no-archive" tag or to submit requests for removal and blocking of certain materials for which they claim rights. I doubt that even 0.001% of spammers would ever pursue these options. But let's be fair: any archive system will inevitably include at least one email "by mistake," so there needs to be a legitimate "removal" procedure. You know that spammers will deliberately seek out ways to send non-spam to the archive, in order to damage the reputation and diminish the reliability of the system -- just as they forge my email address in spams, and take other steps to "punish" truthful reporting about spam and spammers.
Nobody should undertake a project like this without hiring a lawyer for detailed advice on a wide range of issues, including copyright and other intellectual property issues, corporate structure, liability issues, etc.
> Do you think the answer to having an massive and unreliable network is to build a second identical network? <
Of course not. Two solutions are more obvious:
Fix or replace the existing network with a more reliable one (probably one that is less centralized so outages would not affect the entire campus); or
If a second network is going to be added to provide reliable backup, then the second network should certainly not use the same technology as the first.
A third, and somewhat obvious, solution would be to make sure that
crucial data is kept on the local server farm, but also copied in real time to a remote server; and
a backup access mode (such as a public dial-up internet connection, with strong password protection and encryption) is provided for access to either or both servers, in the event of a crippling "local" network outage.
This might also be a good reminder to get very aggressive "liquidated damages" clauses in contracts like this, or to buy insurance. If a patient dies because of the network outage, I am sure that everyone in the supply chain will be named in the lawsuit.
The liquidated damage clause is intended to provide an unambiguous motivation for the technology provider to fix the problem quickly, while the insurance would cover all or a portion of the losses if there is a failure.
I would be extremely surprised if a huge campus like this one did not have a substantial number of different technologies in use, including wireless, and clearly networking them all into the same patient-records database is a challenge.
This is one of those situations where the 'victim' must act or just accept the consequences. If law enforcement won't respond (and they won't), then the solution is to hire an attorney to prepare and file a lawsuit against "John Doe" and then issue a subpoena for the server logs and other records. Yes, it will cost thousands of dollars. Yes, it is entirely possible that the person responsible is judgment-proof (has no assets to pay any damages). However, if the private lawsuit turns up clearer records of harassment and illegal conduct, then in some situations you might be able to turn them over to law enforcement and persuade them to act.
Life sucks. People do bad things. Your neighbor's kid cranks up the stereo to 180db every night at midnight, waking your kids out of a sound sleep. The same a**hole drives around traffic jams on the shoulder on the freeway every day. Your ex tells everyone lies about you. People send you spam. Telemarketers call you during dinner, even after you ask to be on their "do not call" lists.
At some point, you must choose whether to accept these offenses, or take lawful action in response. It may not be economically viable, especially if the offender's actions have cut off your income. But if you don't take appropriate action to rectify the situation, nothing will be done and the situation will continue.
If you don't like the situation, call your state legislator or congressman and try to propose a better solution than the private court system. Be prepared to explain where the money will come from.
No, not really, it is not economically feasible, and his whole goal in suing me was to get publicity, which would just continue if I sued him back. There are also some complex jurisdiction issues involved in the case - I might have to sue him in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, and then he'd just sue me again to try to extend the publicity. (This was all in 1999 so it's moot now anyway.)
HE.net included? Surprised!
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As the Spam Turns
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I was also surprised to see he.net included in a blocklist. I hosted with them for a year (until moving my server home to my DSL connection due to budget constraints) because they have consistently had one of the strongest anti-spam responses, dating back to the "Joes.com/Yuri Rutman/thinning hair/el cheepo" forged-spam attack.
I do know that one of their employees handling spam complaints did give me a reason to pause once -- she initially accepted a spammer's response, but that action was reversed as soon as I challenged it, and the customer was terminated, and I was sent an apology making clear that this was a mistake, not a new spam-tolerant policy at the company. Later complaints were promptly and properly handled.
I believe that at least three he.net customers were terminated in the past year due to complaints I submitted. (And I was a lowly $200-per-month colo customer, and at least one of the terminated customers was much bigger.)
If he.net is leaving the door open to spam-cartels, despite warnings, then of course they should be blacklisted. I just find that harder to believe. In contrast, my experience has been than Verio is extremely spam-tolerant, even balking at terminating Spamford Wallace (they finally relented and cut him off, which resulted in his filing a frivolous lawsuit against me, costing me $5,000 to get the suit dismissed).
All my more recent spam complaints to Verio have gone unanswered, and I know I have several Verio IP blocks already on my filter list, though I haven't blocked all their IP addresses.
The problem with saying "put larger files on a web site or ftp site" is that most people can't figure out how to do that properly, or if they do it, they make the file visible to ANYONE (including search engines) so that confidential data might be lost.
Do you offer "less-skilled" employees an easy tool to upload large files to a web site and assign an individual password for that file (perhaps even with a form to indicate the email address to send the file info to)?
Size Limits Depend on Industry, Tasks, and Purpose
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E-Mail Size Limits?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I most frequently encounter complaints about INDIVIDUAL email size limits (such as the 5MB limit for @home email) is when transferring large spreadsheet files, including things like:
Inventory information
Competitive Analyses
Employee Phone Directory
Customer Lists
Financial Data (budgets)
One problem, of course, is that many companies want to actually PREVENT easy transfer of some of this data (for example, worried that employees may email confidential data to themselves at home, to use when going to work for another competitor).
It is actually pretty rare that regular documents, including source code, exceed a limit like 5MB. However, when documents are created with one tool and saved with another (for example, when a web page containing a table is edited using Microsoft Word), the file size quickly bloats.
My experience has always been that a 5MB limit will need to be "worked around" several times per month by certain employees. For some things, this is easy: instead of sending a single ZIP file containing 20 huge images, break it into 5 files containing 4 each, or send each one individually. If perfect quality isn't an issue (e.g. vacation or baby pictures), run the images through a JPEG reducer.
I actually don't recall EVER sending a file larger than 10MB, and usually I encounter problems with files that are 3-5MB before encoding. I have to consider two issues for larger data transfers: my own bandwidth and the recipient's bandwidth (if the mail would be routed through a non-ISP company mailserver, they might also have bandwidth issues). When sending large batches of images or mega-spreadsheets, it usually makes more sense to send a CD-ROM. (And using CD-ROM also helps because it's harder for most folks to delete or lose than an email attachment.)
Note that all this discussion is about individual email size limits, not mail account limits or quotas. That's a whole other issue. Usually when folks encounter the mailbox quota, it's because their email client is not configured to delete email after downloading it to a PC (a practice that can make sense if you read email from multiple locations, but the art is then setting the right delay before deleting).
I suspect the real issue here is that casual and unnecessary transfer of large files can quickly tie up bandwidth -- especially for branch offices sharing a 128K DSL line, or emails that are sent to 20 or more different recipients. (Recall the Dancing Baby, and this week the various Halloween flashies.)
Auto Makers seem intent on avoiding better cars
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EBay Letting Fraud Slide?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I recently had an unpleasant eBay experience, in which eBay simply refused to answer a fraud-related question even after I repeated it six times. They kept responding without answering the question.
I auctioned off a web server on eBay, fetching a high bid of about $1,100. The high bidder promptly contacted me and submitted payment via eBay Payments (aka BillPoint).
The buyer also asked me to ship the server via overnight Saturday-delivery FedEx, using his account number. This is a huge "red flag" for fraud -- only the account holder can get proof of delivery, and the account holder can ask to redirect the delivery location. When somebody says that rush shipping costs are not important, shippers should worry that the buyer's primary goal is to get the product in hand before they are "discovered" (e.g. fraudulent credit card payment).
Since I was suspicious, I checked the online payment information carefully, and was surprised to find that my payment record reflected the occurrence of a "bypassing event" on the same day payment instructions were submitted. That sounds pretty bad -- like maybe it's a dispute or other problem that will cause the payment to be reversed (my bank confirmed that a transfer was initiated but had not yet been completed, whatever that meant).
So I called eBay, and got run around in circles before being allowed to leave a phone message (I left several messages, none of which were ever returned). And I sent email to the official eBay Payments (BillPoint) support addresses, and got autoreplies promising a response within 24 to 48 hours. After trying several strategies, I called the buyer, disclosed my concerns, and advised him that I could not ship the server until eBay Payments (BillPoint) confirmed that the payment was complete and that the "bypassing event" was not a reversal. He said he understood.
Over the course of the next two weeks, eBay responded to each email I sent, about 48 hours after I sent it, but although they quoted back my question to me, they would not answer or even discuss the issue of what is a "bypassing event." I suspect my responses were coming from a collection of boilerplate replies. Each time I received a reply, I wrote back, repeating the single question, "What is a bypassing event," and citing my transaction number and other data. Each time, they replied after 48 hours without answering the question.
Finally, after two weeks, I confirmed with my bank that the funds had been transferred and they could find no record of any attempt to cancel or reverse the transaction -- and so I shipped the server to the fellow via FedEx Express Saver (3-day delivery), using his FedEx number.
The next day (after the server was already in transit), eBay Payments finally wrote back answering my repeated question: they informed me that a "bypassing event" simply reflected that the buyer had forgotten his BillPoint password and had manually re-entered his credit card payment information.
I have closed my eBay Payments (BillPoint) account, and I will not accept payment through their payments scheme, ever again. Since eBay has acquired PayPal, I will also cease accepting PayPal as a payment method, since I assume the same inept customer service will apply there, too.
> Its only illegal if what he were to tell the VC was untrue <
No, no, no. You are missing my point: I never suggested that "telling the VC" was illegal, but that "threatening to tell the VC" would be extortion (a crime).
If I threaten to tell your wife (truthfully) that you had an affair with your secretary, unless you pay my disputed invoice, I am blackmailing you (blackmail is a type of extortion). I can tell your wife if I wish, but threatening to do so unless you do something for me, is extortion.
It does not matter that the "statement" being threatened is true, nor does it matter that you actually owe me the money.
Accurately telling the VC is NOT extortion, and probably is not a crime at all (though it might lead to lawsuits and perhaps revenge tactics). It is the threat that is illegal.
Read the statute. I posted the California statute here, and the third and fourth alternatives seem to apply here.
Again, the risk of criminal prosecution is very slight. Every day, people stand at the customer service desk at retail stores, demanding a refund and threatening to report the store's unethical practices to the Better Business Bureau or the local D.A. unless the refund is given. That is, technically, extortion.
Often, Slashdot posts come with the warning, "I am not a lawyer" (IANAL). Let me repeat: I am a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, I am doing my best to accurately state the law, as applied to the very incomplete set of facts presented.
Slashdot Mirror
10+ years ago, I bought something at CompUSA which had advertised a $50 rebate. When the store clerk handed me the rebate form, I immediately noticed that it had expired, but was reassured by the clerk AND by store manager that the expiration date had actually been extended, and the rebate would be paid (it was a CompUSA rebate, not a manufacturer's rebate). Of course, that was absolute BS, and the rebate was denied as "expired." So I posted a web page describing my experience, and within a few weeks it came up in the top few search results for "CompUSA rebate" on AltaVista, which was then the most popular search engine. Someone from CompUSA called, and asked me to take the page down; I said no. They offered to give me the $50 if I would take the page down, and I said no. Then they mailed me a $50 check, which I cashed (since they owed me $50 for the promised rebate). Then they mailed me ANOTHER $50 check, which I returned. Then they sent me a $100 check, which I returned. (It was several years before that web page disappeared in a site transition.)
About 10 years ago, I purchased a new power supply from Fry's, and it FRIED my computer's motherboard because the wires were mis-marked. I attempted to return the power supply, and the store manager (at the old Fremont location) absolutely refused to pay for anything, and he was belligerant and actually said "go ahead and sue, we won't give you a penny" or something like that. My letter of complaint to Fry's HQ was ignored. So I went ahead and filed suit in small claims court in Fremont, and within 48 hours I got a call from their legal department, agreeing to pay the full amount I'd requested, including court and process-serving costs. I got the money a day or two later, and dismissed my suit. I didn't check, but I suspect that there have been many thousands of small-claims lawsuits filed against Fry's since they began selling electronics products. I'm sure that they earn a huge profit since 90% of people won't sue. Note that in my case, the defect was absolutely a manufacturer's problem, but a retailer is equally responsible for what they sell, and in this case there was no manufacturer name, just a "made in ----" label (I'm not certain which country). To its credit, Fry's actually is quite generous in accepting returned products, probably because they know that they're playing with fire by re-shelving defective items, and not bothering to even check returned items. I've returned many dozens of products at Fry's over the past 20+ years. Why do we keep shopping at Fry's? Perhaps because of their product selection: my wife and I just bought iPhones and we're planning a trip to Fry's this evening to look at cases and car chargers. (There was once a time when Fry's offered the best prices on most products it sold, but that's long ago, and now their prices are frequently higher than the big-box electronics and office-supply retailers on many products.)
"You should see the customer returns go right back to the shelf" is absolutely right. I once purchased a product at Fry's that was shrink-wrapped with no "returned product" label. It did not work properly, and after a day or so I was talking with the manufacturer's top-tier support, who advised that there was a firmware upgrade on their web site, but I explained that my product had that firmware upgrade already (based on the version number). The technician was quite surprised, since they had not yet begun shipping any products with that new firmware upgrade. Clearly, someone else bought the product and went through this process, then found that the product was defective, and returned it -- and Fry's just put it back on the shelf. When I returned it, I insisted that they affix the "defective/return to manufacturer" label while I watched (though it wouldn't surprise me if they either peeled it off or covered it up with a "returned in good condition" label).
Nope. I called my credit-card company, and they insisted that a dispute regarding a rebate was NOT something that would justify reversing the transaction or any part of it. In fact, they insisted that I couldn't complain until after I'd applied for each rebate and not received payment -- and of course, the time to dispute the transaction would expire long before then. So I'm out the $80 that Circuit City charged as a "restocking fee," and Circuit City lost our patronage at the exact time that we received a financial windfall, which we've happily spent at other retailers.
I can't understand why some enterprising state legislators don't introduce a bill to prohibit the use of mail-in rebates entirely, or to create a "rebate death penalty" whereby no retailer or manufacturer could advertise rebates after proof that valid rebate requests were rejected. Of course, one issue is that states collect sales tax on the rebate amount (since the consumer pays the full price, and gets a rebate for the purchase price but not for the extra sales tax).
I recently returned a laptop computer ("$549 minus $200 rebates = $349") to Circuit City (this was really a $400 laptop marked up to $549 so they could boast a price of $349 "after rebates"). It was a "sham" offer. First, the two rebates ($50 and $150) were BOTH to be sent to Circuit City (at two different addresses in two different states), but although both were advertised together, each form clearly stated that only ONE rebate would be paid "at most." Then I read on, and found a complete and total disclaimer of ANY duty by Circuit City or any other entity to process or pay any rebate; there was even a provision requiring that I wait 120 days for the rebate to be issued, along with another provision provided that any claims regarding unpaid rebates would not be considered unless they were be presented to Circuit City within 90 days after purchase. When I called for clarification, I was given many reassurances that contradicted the paperwork, but a flat refusal to put anything in writing; when I returned the computer to the store, they insisted that my concerns were unfounded, but again would not put any of their reassurances in writing. Of course, Circuit City took $80 out of my refund as a "restocking fee," despite the fact that their fraud and their refusal to honor their promise was the sole basis for my return.
Fry's is certainly a "bad actor" in the rebate space; over the past 20 years, I've caught them many times advertising rebates that have expired or combining mutually-exclusive rebates together. But in fairness, Fry's Electronics seems to offer FEWER "deals" that include rebates than the larger chains like Best Buy, Circuit City, and CompUSA. I have lots of reasons to dislike Fry's, but I can only think of ONE product that I purchased at Fry's that had a rebate -- and I bought it because the price before rebate was still lower than the competing products. (I probably wouldn't have spent the postage to mail the rebate form if the purchase weren't on behalf of our 12-year-old child; getting the crumpled-postcard $5 check four months later was a nice, unexpected bonus.)
In terms of fairness and honesty, one of the new "scams" is the use of "debit cards" to fulfill rebate promises; these are a huge hassle and are intended to create additional profit, and I was outraged to receive one of these instead of a check (as promised) from Symantec a couple years ago; I won't buy another Symantec product.
I now mentally edit out rebates whenever I look at any offer. In the cell-phone store, I ignore the large bold price because I know it reflects the application of one or more rebates which might or might not be paid.
The Final Value Fee for these sale amounts would increase as shown:
High Bid - Old Fee - New Fee - Increase
$10.00 - $0.53 - $0.80 - 51%
$20.00 - $1.05 - $1.60 - 52%
$25.00 - $1.31 - $2.00 - 53%
$50.00 - $2.00 - $3.25 - 63%
$100.00 - $3.38 - $5.75 - 70%
$500.00 - $14.38 - $25.75 - 79%
$1,000.00 - $28.13 - $50.75 - 80%
The total eBay fees (minimum insertion fee + computed final value fee) for these sale amounts would increase as shown:
High Bid - Old Fee - New Fee - Increase
$10.00 - $0.83 - $1.10 - 33%
$20.00 - $1.35 - $1.90 - 41%
$25.00 - $1.61 - $2.30 - 43%
$50.00 - $2.30 - $3.55 - 54%
$100.00 - $3.68 - $6.05 - 64%
$500.00 - $14.68 - $26.05 - 77%
$1,000.00 - $28.43 - $51.05 - 80%
http://www.markwelch.com/perspective/ebay-fees.htm
For reasons I can't comprehend, there appears to be a total stop on all my email. My own mail server is receiving nothing -- strange, since normally I get about 50 spam emails per hour. Likewise, email is not coming into my yahoo mailbox, nor my ISP mailbox. I triggered some third party sites to send email to various accounts, and it does not come in, to any of my three different email servers (of course, my own mail server and my ISP's are just a couple hops apart, and mail.yahoo.com is notoriously slow at times, so I dunno what's up). Is anyone else seeing a "total stop" in internet email activity? I was worried that this was a virus on my mail server, so I ran a different virus check -- and it reports a "possible" infection of the file slmail.cpl. And of course, Google blocks my attempts to search for references to that file name, although when I search for "slmail cpl" I was able to find a reference to a "hack" for SLmail. I've uninstalled and re-installed SLmail but the same alert comes up, which makes me think it may be a false alarm, but of course I can't tell, and the slmail.com web site is not responding. (I chose to use SLmail because it's not often targetted by virus and trojan writers -- was I wrong?) Any advice on the slmail.cpl issue would certainly be appreciated.
I run my own mail server on a "business DSL" connection with a static IP address, but it runs to my home and I doubt there is any genuine distinction between "residential" and "business" DSL lines. I run my own server, of course, so that I can have a fairly powerful set of spam filters at the server side, in addition to a complex set of client-side spam filters -- all because I receive hundreds of spam emails per day, including dozens that I can identify as coming from AOL-owned servers.
I assume that AOL has only disabled receipt of email from DSL lines, and continues to send its customers' spam to folks like me. It's hard to know, since my filters already reject more than 98% of incoming email delivery attempts.
Let's at least try to be fair to AOL: they are just like the rest of us, forced to seek out triage solutions to the increasingly aggressive strategies used by spammers. Until a new structure is widely adopted for exchange of email (something that allows for true source verification and financial compensation for abuse), triage is the only solution that will work. Hence I block nearly all email from earthlink servers and customers, as well as juno.com and HUNDREDs of other domain names and IP addresses.
Of course, it's extremely likely that this suit will be promptly settled -- none of the software makers want a EULA case to go forward in California.
Second, Lessig has been in the "blacklists-are-bad" camp for a while, at least since he wrote a column in 1998 called "The Spam Wars," griping about the unfairness of MIT being blacklisted due to its policies (at that time). He basically took the position that "blacklisters" need to implement an extremely complex and expensive system of notice and appeal (due process) procedures. In other words, we cannot erect fences and gates with locks, unless we agree to schedule a hearing and pay legal costs for every single person who seeks entry, even if there are millions who have no right to enter but ask anyway.
I had a very interesting (if not ultimately productive) series of email exchanges with Lessig after he wrote that column -- starting with my email noting that I might not receive his reply because I'd already blacklisted his employer (then Harvard University) because of its maintenance of open relays and absence of staffing to respond to abuse complaints.
It was that exchange that led me to adopt my "triage" theory of spam-fighting, which remains the core of my belief system today, so he helped me. My position was, and remains, that if hordes of criminals are trying to invade my property, I can erect a fence and I need not listen to individual demands for entry if I choose not to.
Sorry, but NO. This is great in theory, but the problem is that spam shifts all costs to the victim, and the victim cannot be forced to accept unlimited costs for creation of a complex system that insures due process and appeals.
My personal mail server receives many THOUSANDS of mail delivery attempts per day, all of which come to me (or nobody). Approximately 98% of these are spam, and more than 90% are forged in multiple ways (fake headers, fake server names, invalid return addresses, and frequently forged to show MY server name as the sender).
A week ago, I turned off my server-side filtering and collected several hundred spam emails in about an hour, before re-activating the filtering.
I spend approximately 15 minutes per day managing my spam filters (mostly adding new IP addresses and domains to the filters). Whenever I skip this management for a few days, my incoming spam volume rises substantially (in other words, if I don't close the door, dozens of spams per day come into my email client through some of the doors I didn't close).
Other people have irrational filters, too. AT&T, for example, has blocked all email that contains "markwelch" as part of the source address (hence all email from my servers is refused). I'm not sure why -- it might be because I've send hundreds of spam complaints to ATT.com, or it might be because so much spam has been forged with my domain name faked as the sender ("joe jobs"). But I don't dispute AT&T's right to do this, nor do I demand that AT&T provide me with a response or explanation or oppportunity to be heard. It sucks, but responding to spam is a triage activity, you must skip over some of the complex problems and try to manage the ones you know you can.
I do not currently use any third-party RBL or listing service; I manage my own filters. It's expensive and annoying, but I do this so that I can manage the process of filtering so that I don't constantly block my friends who are stuck with ISPs who are on some other blocklists.
I periodically post my complete filter list at: http://www.MarkWelch.com/Welch_Filters.htm so that people who can't reach me, can check to see if their IP address or domain has been blocked on my end.
I'm not advocating drug use or even sexual addiction, but just disagreeing on the issue of computer game addiction. I've gone through phases when I've spent a lot of time playing computer games, mostly offline but sometimes online, and the main benefit is the sense of escape, not skill development or interaction with others.
Actually, I just received a postcard today from Hurricane Electric (he.net), touting a rate of $400 per month for a full cabinet (42U height), or $200 per month for a 7U (12 inch) space. This includes 256K bandwidth at the 95th percentile (e.g. about 70GB per month).
When I first signed up with HE.net, the $200 rate was for 1U or 2U of rack space, but I'm quite sure they sent me a card more recently quoting the same rate for 4U of space. I think they offered a half-rack for a really good price (maybe $400 per month?). Their rates might be cheaper now, or they may have different specials. You didn't say what size or shape your three servers are, so I have no idea whether your equipment could fit in 3U of space, or might need 12U or even as much as 21U. (A rack unit, or RU, is 1.75 inches vertically, by something like 26x39 width and depth, sorry I don't have the actual dimensions handy.)
They provide all the features of a good colo facility: enclosed, locked racks (so someone servicing a machine in another rack can't knock out your cables, as sometimes happened with other colo providers I used); 24/7 staffing and access if needed; UPS and air conditioning; staff that will power-cycle your server at no charge, and they even hooked up a monitor and keyboard to see what was wrong when my server's power supply failed, and they didn't charge extra for that. I think they also have the fancy oxygen-reducing and fire-suppressing equipment.
I was extremely happy with Hurricane Electric, by far the best of my three experiences with colocating a server in the area. They have facilities in San Jose and Fremont, California.
Beware: When I was shopping for colo services, I often found that the salesman's claims were not honored in the contract or in practice. One colo provider told me for THREE months that my outages were not their fault, then when I spent money and proved they were at fault, they agreed and allowed me to terminate my contract, but wouldn't make good on any promises (thankfully I did not sue, since they filed for bankruptcy several months later).
In some cases, you may be promised 24/7 access, but when you need access at 2am you find out that there is no staff from midnight to 8am and the on-call tech just refuses to come out because he's really tired and you're not an important customer. Or they promise redundant internet connections from multiple backbone providers, but they are connected to those providers through a single Pacific Bell T1 line (e.g. they had one T1 line that connected to a facility served by multiple backbone providers, but if the T1 line is lost, your connection is lost). And of course, with the domino of bankruptcies of colo providers, many facilities close with only a week's warning, and sometimes a facility may be closed and your equipment disconnected and shipped to another facility without your knowledge -- so your server is offline for several days, and then when you want to pick it up from San Jose, you find out it was shipped to Virginia.
Read the fine print in your contract.
Basically, the problem comes if someone uses the link in the article to locate the existing comments, and then submits their own comment by following links from there. I emailed the ZDnet author, so perhaps he can still correct the link.
There also appears to be some "spamming" of the correct proposed rule -- a huge number of identical comments. I'm sure that the FCC will treat all these identically-worded comments the same way your congressperson does: they count as ONE comment unless there are tens of thousands of them, in which case they count as a half dozen. Write your own reply comment in your own words!
On the separate topic mentioning "The Giver" versus F451 and Brave New World -- I recently read "The Giver" for the first time (I'm looking to change careers to become an English teacher) and it was quite clear to me that Lois Lowry's goal in writing "The Giver" was essentially to address many of the same issues as in "Brave New World" (and to a lesser extent, some of the issues in "Farenheit 451"), but for a young-adult audience. "The Giver" is a book frequently used in 8th and 9th grade classrooms.
I also just watched the movie "The Handmaid's Tale" (based Margaret Atwood's book of the same title, which I haven't yet read), and some of the same issues come up there, too. The issues of forced conformity and censorship are recurring, and nobody can claim to "own" them. As I think about it, my head is swirling with all kinds of plots from books, short stories, and TV episodes (especially Twilight Zone and Outer Limits) that offer variations on these same themes.
While I doubt that many spammers would actually sue, and while I doubt many judges would be sympathetic to spammers (no juries for copyright cases), copyright law applies.
There are some other complications that will surely arise, including copyright and trademark claims by non-spammers whose rights are impacted by spammers.
For example, we all know that anti-virus and anti-spamming software from major companies is frequently touted in spam emails, always against the instructions of the companies involved (they claim to terminate any affiliates who spam). Arguably, putting "Norton Anti-Virus" or similar things into a public list of spams, might offend those companies' trademark attorneys, though I don't think they could legally stop you from accurately reporting.
Another issue could be someone who copies another persons copyrighted work into a "revenge spam" -- that is, someone like me complaints about a spammer, and the spammer is angry and blames me for his woes, and sends out another spam that is simply a copy of one of my web pages.
But the real issue here is one of damages. While it is possible to obtain an award of statutory damages under copyright law, it is nearly inconceivable that any spammer would jump through the hoops required to become entitled to statutory damages, and in any event no sane judge would make such an award.
Apart from "statutory damages," it is hard to conceive of any loss or damage to a spammer arising from the copying and redistribution of a spam email. First, the original was widely disseminated without charge, and further distribution would arguably just extend the original goal of wide distribution. Second, as noted, the copying of the entire spam is arguably necessary to "fair reportage" about the spam. (Normally, copying a complete copyrighted work is NOT permitted under "fair use," but there is at least an argument to be made here that without copying the entire spam, the reportage is nearly useless.)
Alas, don't forget that spammers don't just file lawsuits to win -- people like Sanford Wallace have frequently sued opponents just to get publicity, knowing that the suit was frivolous and would quickly be dismissed (but the news media rarely reports on lawsuits that are abandoned). Wallace and other spammers just love to wave the "free speech" banner, no matter how many times judges reject those absurd claims.
The organizers of the archive certainly should look to the legal analysis that exists for web indexing and archiving by companies like Google. It certainly would be practical to implement comparable procedures to allow spam emails to include a "no-archive" tag or to submit requests for removal and blocking of certain materials for which they claim rights. I doubt that even 0.001% of spammers would ever pursue these options. But let's be fair: any archive system will inevitably include at least one email "by mistake," so there needs to be a legitimate "removal" procedure. You know that spammers will deliberately seek out ways to send non-spam to the archive, in order to damage the reputation and diminish the reliability of the system -- just as they forge my email address in spams, and take other steps to "punish" truthful reporting about spam and spammers.
Nobody should undertake a project like this without hiring a lawyer for detailed advice on a wide range of issues, including copyright and other intellectual property issues, corporate structure, liability issues, etc.
Of course not. Two solutions are more obvious:
- Fix or replace the existing network with a more reliable one (probably one that is less centralized so outages would not affect the entire campus); or
- If a second network is going to be added to provide reliable backup, then the second network should certainly not use the same technology as the first.
A third, and somewhat obvious, solution would be to make sure thatThis might also be a good reminder to get very aggressive "liquidated damages" clauses in contracts like this, or to buy insurance. If a patient dies because of the network outage, I am sure that everyone in the supply chain will be named in the lawsuit.
The liquidated damage clause is intended to provide an unambiguous motivation for the technology provider to fix the problem quickly, while the insurance would cover all or a portion of the losses if there is a failure.
I would be extremely surprised if a huge campus like this one did not have a substantial number of different technologies in use, including wireless, and clearly networking them all into the same patient-records database is a challenge.
Life sucks. People do bad things. Your neighbor's kid cranks up the stereo to 180db every night at midnight, waking your kids out of a sound sleep. The same a**hole drives around traffic jams on the shoulder on the freeway every day. Your ex tells everyone lies about you. People send you spam. Telemarketers call you during dinner, even after you ask to be on their "do not call" lists.
At some point, you must choose whether to accept these offenses, or take lawful action in response. It may not be economically viable, especially if the offender's actions have cut off your income. But if you don't take appropriate action to rectify the situation, nothing will be done and the situation will continue.
If you don't like the situation, call your state legislator or congressman and try to propose a better solution than the private court system. Be prepared to explain where the money will come from.
No, not really, it is not economically feasible, and his whole goal in suing me was to get publicity, which would just continue if I sued him back. There are also some complex jurisdiction issues involved in the case - I might have to sue him in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, and then he'd just sue me again to try to extend the publicity. (This was all in 1999 so it's moot now anyway.)
I do know that one of their employees handling spam complaints did give me a reason to pause once -- she initially accepted a spammer's response, but that action was reversed as soon as I challenged it, and the customer was terminated, and I was sent an apology making clear that this was a mistake, not a new spam-tolerant policy at the company. Later complaints were promptly and properly handled.
I believe that at least three he.net customers were terminated in the past year due to complaints I submitted. (And I was a lowly $200-per-month colo customer, and at least one of the terminated customers was much bigger.)
If he.net is leaving the door open to spam-cartels, despite warnings, then of course they should be blacklisted. I just find that harder to believe. In contrast, my experience has been than Verio is extremely spam-tolerant, even balking at terminating Spamford Wallace (they finally relented and cut him off, which resulted in his filing a frivolous lawsuit against me, costing me $5,000 to get the suit dismissed). All my more recent spam complaints to Verio have gone unanswered, and I know I have several Verio IP blocks already on my filter list, though I haven't blocked all their IP addresses.
Do you offer "less-skilled" employees an easy tool to upload large files to a web site and assign an individual password for that file (perhaps even with a form to indicate the email address to send the file info to)?
- Inventory information
- Competitive Analyses
- Employee Phone Directory
- Customer Lists
- Financial Data (budgets)
One problem, of course, is that many companies want to actually PREVENT easy transfer of some of this data (for example, worried that employees may email confidential data to themselves at home, to use when going to work for another competitor).It is actually pretty rare that regular documents, including source code, exceed a limit like 5MB. However, when documents are created with one tool and saved with another (for example, when a web page containing a table is edited using Microsoft Word), the file size quickly bloats.
My experience has always been that a 5MB limit will need to be "worked around" several times per month by certain employees. For some things, this is easy: instead of sending a single ZIP file containing 20 huge images, break it into 5 files containing 4 each, or send each one individually. If perfect quality isn't an issue (e.g. vacation or baby pictures), run the images through a JPEG reducer.
I actually don't recall EVER sending a file larger than 10MB, and usually I encounter problems with files that are 3-5MB before encoding. I have to consider two issues for larger data transfers: my own bandwidth and the recipient's bandwidth (if the mail would be routed through a non-ISP company mailserver, they might also have bandwidth issues). When sending large batches of images or mega-spreadsheets, it usually makes more sense to send a CD-ROM. (And using CD-ROM also helps because it's harder for most folks to delete or lose than an email attachment.)
Note that all this discussion is about individual email size limits, not mail account limits or quotas. That's a whole other issue. Usually when folks encounter the mailbox quota, it's because their email client is not configured to delete email after downloading it to a PC (a practice that can make sense if you read email from multiple locations, but the art is then setting the right delay before deleting).
I suspect the real issue here is that casual and unnecessary transfer of large files can quickly tie up bandwidth -- especially for branch offices sharing a 128K DSL line, or emails that are sent to 20 or more different recipients. (Recall the Dancing Baby, and this week the various Halloween flashies.)
I auctioned off a web server on eBay, fetching a high bid of about $1,100. The high bidder promptly contacted me and submitted payment via eBay Payments (aka BillPoint).
The buyer also asked me to ship the server via overnight Saturday-delivery FedEx, using his account number. This is a huge "red flag" for fraud -- only the account holder can get proof of delivery, and the account holder can ask to redirect the delivery location. When somebody says that rush shipping costs are not important, shippers should worry that the buyer's primary goal is to get the product in hand before they are "discovered" (e.g. fraudulent credit card payment).
Since I was suspicious, I checked the online payment information carefully, and was surprised to find that my payment record reflected the occurrence of a "bypassing event" on the same day payment instructions were submitted. That sounds pretty bad -- like maybe it's a dispute or other problem that will cause the payment to be reversed (my bank confirmed that a transfer was initiated but had not yet been completed, whatever that meant).
So I called eBay, and got run around in circles before being allowed to leave a phone message (I left several messages, none of which were ever returned). And I sent email to the official eBay Payments (BillPoint) support addresses, and got autoreplies promising a response within 24 to 48 hours. After trying several strategies, I called the buyer, disclosed my concerns, and advised him that I could not ship the server until eBay Payments (BillPoint) confirmed that the payment was complete and that the "bypassing event" was not a reversal. He said he understood.
Over the course of the next two weeks, eBay responded to each email I sent, about 48 hours after I sent it, but although they quoted back my question to me, they would not answer or even discuss the issue of what is a "bypassing event." I suspect my responses were coming from a collection of boilerplate replies. Each time I received a reply, I wrote back, repeating the single question, "What is a bypassing event," and citing my transaction number and other data. Each time, they replied after 48 hours without answering the question.
Finally, after two weeks, I confirmed with my bank that the funds had been transferred and they could find no record of any attempt to cancel or reverse the transaction -- and so I shipped the server to the fellow via FedEx Express Saver (3-day delivery), using his FedEx number.
The next day (after the server was already in transit), eBay Payments finally wrote back answering my repeated question: they informed me that a "bypassing event" simply reflected that the buyer had forgotten his BillPoint password and had manually re-entered his credit card payment information.
I have closed my eBay Payments (BillPoint) account, and I will not accept payment through their payments scheme, ever again. Since eBay has acquired PayPal, I will also cease accepting PayPal as a payment method, since I assume the same inept customer service will apply there, too.
No, no, no. You are missing my point: I never suggested that "telling the VC" was illegal, but that "threatening to tell the VC" would be extortion (a crime).
If I threaten to tell your wife (truthfully) that you had an affair with your secretary, unless you pay my disputed invoice, I am blackmailing you (blackmail is a type of extortion). I can tell your wife if I wish, but threatening to do so unless you do something for me, is extortion.
It does not matter that the "statement" being threatened is true, nor does it matter that you actually owe me the money.
Accurately telling the VC is NOT extortion, and probably is not a crime at all (though it might lead to lawsuits and perhaps revenge tactics). It is the threat that is illegal.
Read the statute. I posted the California statute here, and the third and fourth alternatives seem to apply here.
Again, the risk of criminal prosecution is very slight. Every day, people stand at the customer service desk at retail stores, demanding a refund and threatening to report the store's unethical practices to the Better Business Bureau or the local D.A. unless the refund is given. That is, technically, extortion.
Often, Slashdot posts come with the warning, "I am not a lawyer" (IANAL). Let me repeat: I am a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, I am doing my best to accurately state the law, as applied to the very incomplete set of facts presented.