His message was invalid by the middle of the second paragraph. The poster seems to conclude it's the fault of the people who voted AND the fault of those who did not vote. You either voted the mess in, or didn't vote and let the mess in. Sorry, but that's pretty weak. What is the GPs suggested correct course of action then?
It seems like the suggestion is total uprising of the entire nation, bar none based on his blame of anyone in the country. We all know that is not even statistically feasible; people never agree on action to that degree. People protest the current state by the thousands every day and get little real attention and change almost nothing. Is the GP really saying the only correct course of action is to not vote and spend every day protesting or using violent revolt?
Sounds like someone blaming everyone bu themselves to me.
Re:All-time favorite interaction with a spammer
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Interview With a Spammer
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Yea, the funny thing about this particular first person interaction with a live spammer is I also know the guy too. Richard Cobert was trying to set my company up with a marketing campaign, buy some of the customer database software we sell, and I had to deal with him. I still have his purchase info for what he did buy.:-)
This guy is a total sleaze. I felt slimy just talking to the guy. It's spammers like this guy that cause all the problems. I mean, he has no qualms about how he makes a buck. He even tried to get chummy with me in order to land the deal. He told the most whacked stories about his "old" golf career as a potential pro and how he knew Bill Gates (another reason he's a moron) and could have been rich with him. If he really did know Gates, I can see where he gets his "do anything to make $$$" mentality from. A little later, we found out he was working for Keith Taubb and America Int., another shady list dealer.
He was just to slimy and we decided he was probably lying that his campaign was totally "opt-in." I cut him loose as soon as possible, and it was so funny to hear about him the next year as one of the biggest spammers on our little rock. This was over 2 years ago now, but even now thinking about talking to him makes me shiver. For once, I understand why tigers eat their young...
And the fact is they're still spamming, and would still be affected by the law.
Huh? I kinda think that is the point of the issue. The law only effects what it can get it's hands on. If you don't know who the spammer is, the law does not effect them. If they VNC to an over seas machine via an anonymous proxy, then have that machine blast mail out through relays and other anonymous proxies, what are the chances of getting the spammer? Would the cost of arranging the intergovernmental support and legal fees in even identifying the spammer be worth it to even a group of effected people? And that is just to identify the guy. I mean, CC fraud is rampant and hard to catch, we have a Mafia still alive and well, we have tons of info on them, and they are committing crimes that are crimes in almost every country, so why do they still exist? Spammers will be no different. The law will not effect many important ones.
Why, exactly? Spam is a social problem, just like any other type of fraud.
Why is spam social? The only social issue I see with spam is that people will abuse any under guarded resource available in the name of making money. I mean, you call it a social problem, but how the hell is spam directly a social issue? The social issues in spam that are immediately at hand are ingrained in human nature : Greed, Sloth, Envy, and the particular skill of the human race to not give two shits about hurting someone else as long as they don't know who it is. Spam is a technical issue, brought about by a lack of safeguards in the initial construction of the email system. No one really thought of this abuse at first, and now here we are. I'll bet you I can clear up spam with a technical solution long before you can cure one spammer of the social issues that pertain to spam.
Anti-spam laws will never do much in today's world. There are to many places to hide, and it's to easy to avoid getting caught on the net because there is always someone who will give you your privacy and delete the connection logs for a server. Laws only work if you can catch the spammer. Yea, I believe there should eventually be some regulatory laws, but I don't expect them to help the current problem. They may help some newbies to the game start on the right path, but the existing power 200 players will still crap in your mailbox any way they can to sell one bottle of their penis pills. More drastic technical changes need to be made as opposed to trying to half-heartedly stop it with an easy to dodge US only law.
All to true. I work for an online software company, and our biggest issue is chargebacks. We have EULA's, we have phone verification on ALL orders, but the only thing we don't have is a signature as we found most people will go elsewhere to avoid the hassle of faxing in a signed order if they can do it all online at another website. We also find this is not exactly effective either, which I will explain later.
This results in some amount of trouble. If the person simply feels like it, they can deny the charge. If they decide tech support did not kiss their @$$ enough, they can chargeback. If they don't want to pay for it but want to keep the software, they can deny the charge. There is no real penalty for perjury on a chargeback form because in most cases it's a matter of "he said, she said". Proof is nearly impossible in cases where the person is complaining about the quality of service. It's software. People devise bugs out of their own ignorance, and never have a clue as to what they are buying. The merchant bank is just as dumb too, and will believe almost anything the customer says because it pertains to that nebulous field of "compu-tators." Hyuk.
While in some cases they may not be able to say "It wasn't me", which is the most common by the way, they can simply say "The merchant did not deliver as promised." No matter what EULA or signature we provide in response to the merchant bank, they have told us they will always side with the consumer in these cases. Unless your a very large company who has already worked out an airtight agreement with the bank, your screwed.
We have been told this 3 times when asked why we do not respond to most chargebacks. Our response is usually "We were told it does not matter because you always side with the customer. Besides, you make money off chargebacks, so you don't care who the money goes to. Should we really bother?" They say "Well, your right. Ok, nevermind." *click* That last item is a quote from the last time we were contacted.
If it's near impossible to handle chargebacks in this country, why accept purchases from even higher risk locations? Going after someone in this country (US) for payment would cost more than the software in legal fees. If it's even possible in the target country, you can triple the legal costs.
In my business, we wouldn't accept a purchase from the original poster. We will sell to some other countries, but not many. Netherlands, UK, Spain, Russia, Croatia, Georgia, NIGERIA, most of Europe, Africa, and Asia, actually, are all places where we simply delete the purchase. In our 7 years of business, not 1 single good purchase has resulted from those countries. Not one. All have charged back as being fake.
Until merchants can be better secured against fraud and weak chargeback claims from @$$hole customers, then I doubt you will be seeing US companies offering much international service. I know it's a two edges sword, as I have seen it needed to chargeback myself a few times when companies screwed me. As much as I would hate to see my power to do so diminished, I do realize that many small merchants are getting porked by the current setup. So, the system can be left as is for now, but definitely do not expect service from the US as long as it does.
Re:Scelson, as all spammers, is a liar
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I, Spammer
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· Score: 1
"It's a.sig, dolt."
What part of my statement cared if it was a sig? It's still uncalled for. I believe torture and killing are not thought of highly by most of society as it is considered barbaric and un-needed in cultures striving to grow past what they are.
"From what I gather Scelson claimed he bought the entire AOL subscriber db from AOL. This is not going to happen for any amount of money Scelson can afford. I'm putting my money on Scelson being a liar, especially since he's already been proven, many times, for being one.
"
Granted. That is more specific, and yes, a realistic guess. Nothing like your last wordy turd.
"oh, and, btw, slashdot is an anti-spammer haven for the same reason the entire Internet is an anti-spammer haven."
As far as "anti-spammers", I do not believe everyone is such a person. I believe "anti-spammer" implies more pro-activity, as in posting here, or doing something actively helpful about the situation. I believe many people don't like spam, but very few are active about it. "Anti", in this case, insinuates an active despising of a things existence. Much like spam, I may not like you, but I'm not "anti-gorbachev". That requires to much active work. Ask anyone, they probably don't like spam. Ask, anyone what they do about it, and most will simply tell you they hit he delete key. That is not active to me.
"BTW, there is no such thing as "non-evil spammer". They're all scum. Some are just more polite than others."
Someone could say the same about anti-spammers.
Re:Scelson, as all spammers, is a liar
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I, Spammer
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· Score: 4, Informative
Now I KNOW the/. crowd is a haven for anti-spam vigilantes. You spout total anti-spam crap and get modded up for it like mad. Your making statements as if they are defined fact and there are no two ways about it. You show you know very little about spam, or even AOL for that matter.
Let's start with AOL. You say there is no way AOL sells their info. Well, I know 3 local businesses here who bought AOL member addresses from AOL, buying only the sections of our local town even. AOL will not only sell you their members, they will offer targeted selections.
Now, I doubt AOL puts this on their site next to their member sign-up, but from what I have seen, they sure do sell your addresses. In fact, I'll bet you did not know AOL tracks where their users go on the web for marketing purposes. Yup, if you visit a mortgage site, they immediately sell your info to their list of mortgage lead buyers. By morning, you will have several offers for mortgages in your inbox. And this happens for all kinds of businesses. I mean, they control your email and your net connection, why not market accordingly. I'm sure a few of you AOL users have experienced this before, or perhaps could try it?
Now, as far as all spammers being liars, I see you are just one of the anti-spam flock, spouting propaganda. It's disappointing no one on/. actually reads the articles, or can remembers ones from a few weeks ago. You might remember a bit on Spamhaus showing the top 200 spammers causing 90% of the spam. Well, I know 2 of those people. I know one because they live 3 towns over from me, running a small PC shop in Halifax, MA. If you email me, I'll send you their business address, directions, even their home info.:) The other one I met because of them. I can tell you they are unscrupulous, a bit dumb, and have no troubles telling lies. The ones I know are total dicks. The issue is the remaining 90% of small time spammers, some of whom who are actually ok guys.
Granted, they should be paying for their use of email, yata-yata. Case in point, the 3 shop owners I know locally who bought those bits of AOL's lists. They offer honest products, they try and target locally, so they don't send people who can't possibly use their service an ad, and they honor remove requests. They even offer their shop info in the email so they can be contacted directly. The system could be better, but at least they try. They do not fit your bill of the evil spammer. Some really are pretty bad. Some are not. Your sweeping statements of ignorance and promises of murder at the end are totally unwarranted.
I will be sure to remember to offer to murder you next time I disagree with the way you do business. How you got modded +5 for this steaming pile of flaimbait is beyond me, but I'll certainly burn some karma to put out an opposing statement. I guess that is what public forums are all about.::drinks a little more distilled Usenet post evil:: Cheers.
Thank you for the lesson on what spam is, but that does not answer the question. I'm not looking for an anti-spam rant. In fact, if your plan on responding with another, don't bother, it's very off topic. I'm not talking about spam. The issue at hand is charging for sending email. The proposed major benefit would be to curb spam some. And actually, this particular sub thread is about how this fee system could effect newsletters and listservs.
Your still using heavier than normal bandwidth, as well as cycle time for all the backbone servers along the way. I'm not sure how many member you have that you mail to, but say it's only 400.
Well, if there were some sort of lower limit, you would probably not be paying anything extra, or at least not much. This lower limit could even be based on the bandwidth your paying for. T1 lines would have a higher "prepaid" email amount than a common Cable/DSL/56K consumer line. Then all forms of normal use, even for businesses, would probably still be free. Only people using the bandwidth specifically for mailing would end up paying anything. Maybe even allow non-profit or educational sites or corporations to be exempt from the fee. That might add a charitable side to it.
I don't care if your spamming or not, if your using more than everyone else, why should you not pay a little extra?
I mean, heck, if I use your definition of spam, if that is what I can call the above, then I could grab 100 names out of an appropriate Mac Convention/. thread, and email them about a small user group convention I'm hosting online this weekend. It may be unsolicited, but it's not unrelated. It's called targeted emailing. I'm still advertising my event, but it's not spam by your definition. Should I have to pay for those email if only spam was charged a fee in the proposed system? I doubt the above is your definition of spam though, and I'm willing to bet your real definition mostly relegated to unsolicited email.
Finally, I'm not sure what you mean by your last bit. I mean, all forms of communication are taxed or involve a fee of some sort, except for those forms of communication you do with your own body, like simple speech or sign language. Cable, Phones, Internet, especially postal mail, all give a cut to government as a whole in some way. As it stands now, technically almost all communication is taxed, but there seem to be a lot of people saying a lot about everything.
Well, a spammer is *ALREADY* paying for his bandwidth usage, and probably owns the box he uses to send. What's your point? His content might suck, but someone might say the same for your content if they don't like it. My point is that heavy use is not just a spam thing, though they are the heaviest and most problematic. You can't simply stick one group wit the bill for everyone and call it fair. Why not have everyone chip in a usage fee if they exceed a certain usage amount? If the ISP's or some other regulatory non-government body is properly collecting and distributing these fees, what is the problem? How is that a police state? From a spammers point of view, it might look like your trying to push a police state on them. But then again, their spammers, and they deserve it, right? Boy, I can't wait till someone starts saying the same thing about you and your ways some day. Who will be left to speak out for you then?
That's the problem with people. I see it every day. They want their life improved, they want things they don't like fixed, but they want someone else to pay for it. What would be wrong with some kind of fee for email? Perhaps a system with a lower limit even? I mean, there are a lot of stipulations you could drop in a fee system like this that would keep common users free from charges. Fee would only fall to the heavier users, both spammers and non-spammers alike. Yes, listservs and newsletters would be charged, but they are heavy users of the system. The cause may be benevolent in your mind, and thusly should be free from charges, but that same fluff is in the minds of the spammers as well. I mean, your still using bandwidth, and still using up cycle time on the routing servers, so why shouldn't you have to pay like the spammers? You know spammers would be paying way more than a listserv anyway. A simple fee based on a (monetary cost) per (measurable unit) could be charged by the sending ISP, who keeps track of the recipient server AND every server it passes, and divides the payment accordingly. Of course, it would only amount to anything over a long enough time, or when enough is sent (heavy users). Single emails would not be a big burden, and so could escape the charge. This could really help cover costs that anti-spammers say is destroying the net and their lives.:) Granted there are issues trying to enforce this, etc, but if it was run at the ISP and backbone level, they could certainly deny mail that was not headered as a paying customer, thus keeping a good deal of the international spammers at bay as well. Having the government control the fee would probably be a bad idea, but leaving it to the ISPs or another regulatory body my work.
True, inflation causes prices to rise. But my "dig", as you put it, was not at the basic inflation inherent in an economy. It's the fact that the Post Office is the only profit making entity in the government, and that other government bodies skim some of that profit to help cover their costs, until that profit is gone and then some. The post office keeps raising it's prices to keep up with this. Do you really think all the recent increases in postage have been because of inflation? Another government controled money maker like an email tax would be would certainly be just as abused as a the our postal systems profits have been.
Hmm, perhaps to clarify a bit. A fee of some sort would be a good idea. It does not have to be a goverment imposed tax, as we all know how much they enjoy raising costs drasticly over time (*ahem* post office *ahem*), but some sort of fee from some body that could enforce it. And maybe not a penny, but some (monetary cost) per (measurable unit). Include a lower bounds on this, so common users would not end up paying anything, such as the suggested less than 5000 email a year.
Your already paying the ISP to use their services. The issue currently is that there is to much abuse for that fee to be enough in some cases. A tax, were it to actually end up being followed and effective, would severely reduce the number of abuse cases done to local ISPs. The ISPs monthly fee would actually cover most costs, and you have generated another revenue stream that could be dished out to needy portions of the net, as well as a small bit back to ISPs.
I don't know about you guys, but the leaked demo has been out for a while now, even posted on/. I've tried it and even though the memory use has not been refined yet ( takes up about 700MB of RAM ), I was able to run it in 1280*1024, all the bells and whistles, with 4x AA without a hitch, and I'm running a 9700 on a dual MP 2100 system. My guess is most machines today running a Geforce 3 with at least 256MB of memory and a 1.5Ghz or better CPU could at least play the game. I would tend to lean toward them actually finishing the game, rather than holding out for political (M$) or marketing reasons. The models and textures are incredible, but probably take a great deal of time to create. If you could be a fly on the wall in their dev center, I'd give really good odds it would be a bunch of geeks franticly coding away at the main product rather than a few guys messing around with an XBox port.
"ANNs have nothing to do with what's really going on in a biological brain, except that they are made of many interacting simple processing elements."
I'm not sure quite how this can be. ANNs are inspired by and based on the biological brain. But they are not related? ANNs are just pattern matchers, and our brains are nothing like that? I beg to differ. ANNs are very similar to our brains. Humans are giant pattern matchers. How do we learn? Does stuff just pop into out heads and !BANG! we know it? No, we discover it or are told first. Science is based on being able to reproduce the results of an experiment, matching a cause->effect pattern. Speech is matching sound to meanings. Not everyone equates a sound to the same meaning, as patterns that people learned can be different. Animals are great examples of pattern machines. How are animals trained? Most often, by positive and negative reinforcement, which is essentially, conditioning. We do the same thing to our ANNs, you get a cookie if it's right, nothing if it's wrong. The close matches are kept, the others are thrown out. So, in what way are ANNs nothing like a biological brain? To me, it seems that they are incredibly similar, just on different scales. Our ANNs today are tiny and don't do to much as compared to the standard of a brain, which is layers upon layers of interlaced patterns. ANNs use simple structures as the basis for their overall structure, are our brain cells not very similar? To me, it seems that they are incredibly similar, just on different scales.
I do tech support for a software company, and I swear that most of my customers are the laziest people out there. Not only do they use 1337, they drop words to shorten a sentence and just hope I can understand. We primarily serve well educated coperations and business people/professionals. With all their vast experience, I swaer they are the worst. I added a few examples of my wonderful customers!
(These are actual email, the whole of which have been provided to you. This is the extent of what they send me when they need help.)
** found everything except code for mailbox addon can you help ** well after 3 days of of trying to get your program to work i give up i expect u will remove credit card charge i can not afford 2 pay for something i can not use
(This guys problem was that he did not know how to copy and paste the registration code.) ** when i register it won't let me paste the reg number if i fill in my name and click it says not the right license no it pretty much impossible to type the reg no in the problem is i used the trial and it is perfect for get what i need grr when i unpack the update the error is a file is null and i should bring up the binary something or other
(??? Anyone else get that?) ** do u have a reaseler in mass ?? nor will u like 2 have one ? what is the total product cost of sftwre mail me back ** BUYING UR SOFTWARE
(She was really descriptive. She ended up needing help registering the software.) ** i hvae query if u don mind please consider this matteris any tool 2 find out all incomming and out going mail from my net work(ie all the mail should stored in to one place)..................
(Spying on your employees? Naughty naughty.) **
Well, you get the idea. It seems that communication simply breaks down more and more the longer people go uncorrected in their grammer through mostly impersonal email. Scholls should definetly be nailing this down now before kids get used to it and my job gets all the more difficult.:-)
Wow, it seems everyone really missed the point of that post. From what I gather, he/she was suggesting that the system is totally messed as it is now and needs a revamp. All the response posts so far were about what we already know of the current system. By implementing control and policy, the system could work. Immediatly fine or disconnect all abusers; ADV: in the subject; A way to be removed from a list that must be honored; etc. I hate spam, I get almost 10 an hour in my account. Yes, I sometimes delete non-spam stuff and that sucks, but once again, that is the current system. I think if the system were regulated like every other, it would be fine.
I also do not see anywhere that says this person says that spam does not cost anyone anything. To the contrary, this posts states that it costs EVERYBODY something, including time. Spam is a problem, just like telemarketing and junk mail used to be before the governement imposed regulatory laws. Imagine a world where removal lists were honored and ADV: denoted every advertisement email. Life would be a lot easier and this crap could stop. Hell, spam must work, no one would do it if it didn't. I have seen several of the examples above in action. My friend lost his site because his site was mentioned on a site that was advertised at some point by spam. All of the sudden, every dumb spam cop style script was saying he was a spammer, and no one would take him off their black list when he told them he didn't do it. But once again, this is in the current system. People, could you please read the whole post before commenting, and then comment on the post, not on a sentence? You sound like troll otherwise...
Slashdot Mirror
His message was invalid by the middle of the second paragraph. The poster seems to conclude it's the fault of the people who voted AND the fault of those who did not vote. You either voted the mess in, or didn't vote and let the mess in. Sorry, but that's pretty weak. What is the GPs suggested correct course of action then?
It seems like the suggestion is total uprising of the entire nation, bar none based on his blame of anyone in the country. We all know that is not even statistically feasible; people never agree on action to that degree. People protest the current state by the thousands every day and get little real attention and change almost nothing. Is the GP really saying the only correct course of action is to not vote and spend every day protesting or using violent revolt?
Sounds like someone blaming everyone bu themselves to me.
Not the every larger database!
This guy is a total sleaze. I felt slimy just talking to the guy. It's spammers like this guy that cause all the problems. I mean, he has no qualms about how he makes a buck. He even tried to get chummy with me in order to land the deal. He told the most whacked stories about his "old" golf career as a potential pro and how he knew Bill Gates (another reason he's a moron) and could have been rich with him. If he really did know Gates, I can see where he gets his "do anything to make $$$" mentality from. A little later, we found out he was working for Keith Taubb and America Int., another shady list dealer.
He was just to slimy and we decided he was probably lying that his campaign was totally "opt-in." I cut him loose as soon as possible, and it was so funny to hear about him the next year as one of the biggest spammers on our little rock. This was over 2 years ago now, but even now thinking about talking to him makes me shiver. For once, I understand why tigers eat their young...
Huh? I kinda think that is the point of the issue. The law only effects what it can get it's hands on. If you don't know who the spammer is, the law does not effect them. If they VNC to an over seas machine via an anonymous proxy, then have that machine blast mail out through relays and other anonymous proxies, what are the chances of getting the spammer? Would the cost of arranging the intergovernmental support and legal fees in even identifying the spammer be worth it to even a group of effected people? And that is just to identify the guy. I mean, CC fraud is rampant and hard to catch, we have a Mafia still alive and well, we have tons of info on them, and they are committing crimes that are crimes in almost every country, so why do they still exist? Spammers will be no different. The law will not effect many important ones.
Why, exactly? Spam is a social problem, just like any other type of fraud.
Why is spam social? The only social issue I see with spam is that people will abuse any under guarded resource available in the name of making money. I mean, you call it a social problem, but how the hell is spam directly a social issue? The social issues in spam that are immediately at hand are ingrained in human nature : Greed, Sloth, Envy, and the particular skill of the human race to not give two shits about hurting someone else as long as they don't know who it is. Spam is a technical issue, brought about by a lack of safeguards in the initial construction of the email system. No one really thought of this abuse at first, and now here we are. I'll bet you I can clear up spam with a technical solution long before you can cure one spammer of the social issues that pertain to spam.
Anti-spam laws will never do much in today's world. There are to many places to hide, and it's to easy to avoid getting caught on the net because there is always someone who will give you your privacy and delete the connection logs for a server. Laws only work if you can catch the spammer. Yea, I believe there should eventually be some regulatory laws, but I don't expect them to help the current problem. They may help some newbies to the game start on the right path, but the existing power 200 players will still crap in your mailbox any way they can to sell one bottle of their penis pills. More drastic technical changes need to be made as opposed to trying to half-heartedly stop it with an easy to dodge US only law.
This results in some amount of trouble. If the person simply feels like it, they can deny the charge. If they decide tech support did not kiss their @$$ enough, they can chargeback. If they don't want to pay for it but want to keep the software, they can deny the charge. There is no real penalty for perjury on a chargeback form because in most cases it's a matter of "he said, she said". Proof is nearly impossible in cases where the person is complaining about the quality of service. It's software. People devise bugs out of their own ignorance, and never have a clue as to what they are buying. The merchant bank is just as dumb too, and will believe almost anything the customer says because it pertains to that nebulous field of "compu-tators." Hyuk.
While in some cases they may not be able to say "It wasn't me", which is the most common by the way, they can simply say "The merchant did not deliver as promised." No matter what EULA or signature we provide in response to the merchant bank, they have told us they will always side with the consumer in these cases. Unless your a very large company who has already worked out an airtight agreement with the bank, your screwed. We have been told this 3 times when asked why we do not respond to most chargebacks. Our response is usually "We were told it does not matter because you always side with the customer. Besides, you make money off chargebacks, so you don't care who the money goes to. Should we really bother?" They say "Well, your right. Ok, nevermind." *click* That last item is a quote from the last time we were contacted. If it's near impossible to handle chargebacks in this country, why accept purchases from even higher risk locations? Going after someone in this country (US) for payment would cost more than the software in legal fees. If it's even possible in the target country, you can triple the legal costs.
In my business, we wouldn't accept a purchase from the original poster. We will sell to some other countries, but not many. Netherlands, UK, Spain, Russia, Croatia, Georgia, NIGERIA, most of Europe, Africa, and Asia, actually, are all places where we simply delete the purchase. In our 7 years of business, not 1 single good purchase has resulted from those countries. Not one. All have charged back as being fake.
Until merchants can be better secured against fraud and weak chargeback claims from @$$hole customers, then I doubt you will be seeing US companies offering much international service. I know it's a two edges sword, as I have seen it needed to chargeback myself a few times when companies screwed me. As much as I would hate to see my power to do so diminished, I do realize that many small merchants are getting porked by the current setup. So, the system can be left as is for now, but definitely do not expect service from the US as long as it does.
What part of my statement cared if it was a sig? It's still uncalled for. I believe torture and killing are not thought of highly by most of society as it is considered barbaric and un-needed in cultures striving to grow past what they are.
"From what I gather Scelson claimed he bought the entire AOL subscriber db from AOL. This is not going to happen for any amount of money Scelson can afford. I'm putting my money on Scelson being a liar, especially since he's already been proven, many times, for being one. "
Granted. That is more specific, and yes, a realistic guess. Nothing like your last wordy turd.
"oh, and, btw, slashdot is an anti-spammer haven for the same reason the entire Internet is an anti-spammer haven."
As far as "anti-spammers", I do not believe everyone is such a person. I believe "anti-spammer" implies more pro-activity, as in posting here, or doing something actively helpful about the situation. I believe many people don't like spam, but very few are active about it. "Anti", in this case, insinuates an active despising of a things existence. Much like spam, I may not like you, but I'm not "anti-gorbachev". That requires to much active work. Ask anyone, they probably don't like spam. Ask, anyone what they do about it, and most will simply tell you they hit he delete key. That is not active to me.
"BTW, there is no such thing as "non-evil spammer". They're all scum. Some are just more polite than others."
Someone could say the same about anti-spammers.
Let's start with AOL. You say there is no way AOL sells their info. Well, I know 3 local businesses here who bought AOL member addresses from AOL, buying only the sections of our local town even. AOL will not only sell you their members, they will offer targeted selections.
Now, I doubt AOL puts this on their site next to their member sign-up, but from what I have seen, they sure do sell your addresses. In fact, I'll bet you did not know AOL tracks where their users go on the web for marketing purposes. Yup, if you visit a mortgage site, they immediately sell your info to their list of mortgage lead buyers. By morning, you will have several offers for mortgages in your inbox. And this happens for all kinds of businesses. I mean, they control your email and your net connection, why not market accordingly. I'm sure a few of you AOL users have experienced this before, or perhaps could try it?
Now, as far as all spammers being liars, I see you are just one of the anti-spam flock, spouting propaganda. It's disappointing no one on /. actually reads the articles, or can remembers ones from a few weeks ago. You might remember a bit on Spamhaus showing the top 200 spammers causing 90% of the spam. Well, I know 2 of those people. I know one because they live 3 towns over from me, running a small PC shop in Halifax, MA. If you email me, I'll send you their business address, directions, even their home info. :) The other one I met because of them. I can tell you they are unscrupulous, a bit dumb, and have no troubles telling lies. The ones I know are total dicks. The issue is the remaining 90% of small time spammers, some of whom who are actually ok guys.
Granted, they should be paying for their use of email, yata-yata. Case in point, the 3 shop owners I know locally who bought those bits of AOL's lists. They offer honest products, they try and target locally, so they don't send people who can't possibly use their service an ad, and they honor remove requests. They even offer their shop info in the email so they can be contacted directly. The system could be better, but at least they try. They do not fit your bill of the evil spammer. Some really are pretty bad. Some are not. Your sweeping statements of ignorance and promises of murder at the end are totally unwarranted.
I will be sure to remember to offer to murder you next time I disagree with the way you do business. How you got modded +5 for this steaming pile of flaimbait is beyond me, but I'll certainly burn some karma to put out an opposing statement. I guess that is what public forums are all about. ::drinks a little more distilled Usenet post evil:: Cheers.
Your still using heavier than normal bandwidth, as well as cycle time for all the backbone servers along the way. I'm not sure how many member you have that you mail to, but say it's only 400.
Well, if there were some sort of lower limit, you would probably not be paying anything extra, or at least not much. This lower limit could even be based on the bandwidth your paying for. T1 lines would have a higher "prepaid" email amount than a common Cable/DSL/56K consumer line. Then all forms of normal use, even for businesses, would probably still be free. Only people using the bandwidth specifically for mailing would end up paying anything. Maybe even allow non-profit or educational sites or corporations to be exempt from the fee. That might add a charitable side to it.
I don't care if your spamming or not, if your using more than everyone else, why should you not pay a little extra?
I mean, heck, if I use your definition of spam, if that is what I can call the above, then I could grab 100 names out of an appropriate Mac Convention /. thread, and email them about a small user group convention I'm hosting online this weekend. It may be unsolicited, but it's not unrelated. It's called targeted emailing. I'm still advertising my event, but it's not spam by your definition. Should I have to pay for those email if only spam was charged a fee in the proposed system? I doubt the above is your definition of spam though, and I'm willing to bet your real definition mostly relegated to unsolicited email.
Finally, I'm not sure what you mean by your last bit. I mean, all forms of communication are taxed or involve a fee of some sort, except for those forms of communication you do with your own body, like simple speech or sign language. Cable, Phones, Internet, especially postal mail, all give a cut to government as a whole in some way. As it stands now, technically almost all communication is taxed, but there seem to be a lot of people saying a lot about everything.
Well, a spammer is *ALREADY* paying for his bandwidth usage, and probably owns the box he uses to send. What's your point? His content might suck, but someone might say the same for your content if they don't like it. My point is that heavy use is not just a spam thing, though they are the heaviest and most problematic. You can't simply stick one group wit the bill for everyone and call it fair. Why not have everyone chip in a usage fee if they exceed a certain usage amount? If the ISP's or some other regulatory non-government body is properly collecting and distributing these fees, what is the problem? How is that a police state? From a spammers point of view, it might look like your trying to push a police state on them. But then again, their spammers, and they deserve it, right? Boy, I can't wait till someone starts saying the same thing about you and your ways some day. Who will be left to speak out for you then?
That's the problem with people. I see it every day. They want their life improved, they want things they don't like fixed, but they want someone else to pay for it. :) Granted there are issues trying to enforce this, etc, but if it was run at the ISP and backbone level, they could certainly deny mail that was not headered as a paying customer, thus keeping a good deal of the international spammers at bay as well.
What would be wrong with some kind of fee for email? Perhaps a system with a lower limit even? I mean, there are a lot of stipulations you could drop in a fee system like this that would keep common users free from charges. Fee would only fall to the heavier users, both spammers and non-spammers alike.
Yes, listservs and newsletters would be charged, but they are heavy users of the system. The cause may be benevolent in your mind, and thusly should be free from charges, but that same fluff is in the minds of the spammers as well. I mean, your still using bandwidth, and still using up cycle time on the routing servers, so why shouldn't you have to pay like the spammers? You know spammers would be paying way more than a listserv anyway.
A simple fee based on a (monetary cost) per (measurable unit) could be charged by the sending ISP, who keeps track of the recipient server AND every server it passes, and divides the payment accordingly. Of course, it would only amount to anything over a long enough time, or when enough is sent (heavy users). Single emails would not be a big burden, and so could escape the charge. This could really help cover costs that anti-spammers say is destroying the net and their lives.
Having the government control the fee would probably be a bad idea, but leaving it to the ISPs or another regulatory body my work.
True, inflation causes prices to rise. But my "dig", as you put it, was not at the basic inflation inherent in an economy. It's the fact that the Post Office is the only profit making entity in the government, and that other government bodies skim some of that profit to help cover their costs, until that profit is gone and then some. The post office keeps raising it's prices to keep up with this. Do you really think all the recent increases in postage have been because of inflation? Another government controled money maker like an email tax would be would certainly be just as abused as a the our postal systems profits have been.
Hmm, perhaps to clarify a bit. A fee of some sort would be a good idea. It does not have to be a goverment imposed tax, as we all know how much they enjoy raising costs drasticly over time (*ahem* post office *ahem*), but some sort of fee from some body that could enforce it. And maybe not a penny, but some (monetary cost) per (measurable unit). Include a lower bounds on this, so common users would not end up paying anything, such as the suggested less than 5000 email a year.
Your already paying the ISP to use their services. The issue currently is that there is to much abuse for that fee to be enough in some cases. A tax, were it to actually end up being followed and effective, would severely reduce the number of abuse cases done to local ISPs. The ISPs monthly fee would actually cover most costs, and you have generated another revenue stream that could be dished out to needy portions of the net, as well as a small bit back to ISPs.
I don't know about you guys, but the leaked demo has been out for a while now, even posted on /. I've tried it and even though the memory use has not been refined yet ( takes up about 700MB of RAM ), I was able to run it in 1280*1024, all the bells and whistles, with 4x AA without a hitch, and I'm running a 9700 on a dual MP 2100 system. My guess is most machines today running a Geforce 3 with at least 256MB of memory and a 1.5Ghz or better CPU could at least play the game. I would tend to lean toward them actually finishing the game, rather than holding out for political (M$) or marketing reasons. The models and textures are incredible, but probably take a great deal of time to create. If you could be a fly on the wall in their dev center, I'd give really good odds it would be a bunch of geeks franticly coding away at the main product rather than a few guys messing around with an XBox port.
"ANNs have nothing to do with what's really going on in a biological brain, except that they are made of many interacting simple processing elements."
I'm not sure quite how this can be. ANNs are inspired by and based on the biological brain. But they are not related? ANNs are just pattern matchers, and our brains are nothing like that? I beg to differ. ANNs are very similar to our brains. Humans are giant pattern matchers. How do we learn? Does stuff just pop into out heads and !BANG! we know it? No, we discover it or are told first. Science is based on being able to reproduce the results of an experiment, matching a cause->effect pattern. Speech is matching sound to meanings. Not everyone equates a sound to the same meaning, as patterns that people learned can be different. Animals are great examples of pattern machines. How are animals trained? Most often, by positive and negative reinforcement, which is essentially, conditioning. We do the same thing to our ANNs, you get a cookie if it's right, nothing if it's wrong. The close matches are kept, the others are thrown out. So, in what way are ANNs nothing like a biological brain? To me, it seems that they are incredibly similar, just on different scales. Our ANNs today are tiny and don't do to much as compared to the standard of a brain, which is layers upon layers of interlaced patterns. ANNs use simple structures as the basis for their overall structure, are our brain cells not very similar? To me, it seems that they are incredibly similar, just on different scales.
I do tech support for a software company, and I swear that most of my customers are the laziest people out there. Not only do they use 1337, they drop words to shorten a sentence and just hope I can understand. We primarily serve well educated coperations and business people/professionals. With all their vast experience, I swaer they are the worst. I added a few examples of my wonderful customers!
:-)
(These are actual email, the whole of which have been provided to you. This is the extent of what they send me when they need help.)
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found everything except code for mailbox addon
can you help
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well after 3 days of of trying to get your program to work i give up i
expect u will remove credit card charge i can not afford 2 pay for
something i can not use
(This guys problem was that he did not know how to copy and paste the registration code.)
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when i register it won't let me paste the reg number if i fill in my name and click it says not the right license no it pretty much impossible to type the reg no in the problem is i used the trial and it is perfect for get what i need grr when i unpack the update the error is a file is null and i should bring up the binary something or other
(??? Anyone else get that?)
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do u have a reaseler in mass ??
nor will u like 2 have one ? what is the total product cost of sftwre
mail me back
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BUYING UR SOFTWARE
(She was really descriptive. She ended up needing help registering the software.)
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i hvae query if u don mind please consider this matteris any tool 2 find out all incomming and out going mail from my net work(ie all the mail should stored in to one place)..................
(Spying on your employees? Naughty naughty.)
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Well, you get the idea. It seems that communication simply breaks down more and more the longer people go uncorrected in their grammer through mostly impersonal email. Scholls should definetly be nailing this down now before kids get used to it and my job gets all the more difficult.
Wow, it seems everyone really missed the point of that post. From what I gather, he/she was suggesting that the system is totally messed as it is now and needs a revamp. All the response posts so far were about what we already know of the current system. By implementing control and policy, the system could work. Immediatly fine or disconnect all abusers; ADV: in the subject; A way to be removed from a list that must be honored; etc. I hate spam, I get almost 10 an hour in my account. Yes, I sometimes delete non-spam stuff and that sucks, but once again, that is the current system. I think if the system were regulated like every other, it would be fine. I also do not see anywhere that says this person says that spam does not cost anyone anything. To the contrary, this posts states that it costs EVERYBODY something, including time. Spam is a problem, just like telemarketing and junk mail used to be before the governement imposed regulatory laws. Imagine a world where removal lists were honored and ADV: denoted every advertisement email. Life would be a lot easier and this crap could stop. Hell, spam must work, no one would do it if it didn't. I have seen several of the examples above in action. My friend lost his site because his site was mentioned on a site that was advertised at some point by spam. All of the sudden, every dumb spam cop style script was saying he was a spammer, and no one would take him off their black list when he told them he didn't do it. But once again, this is in the current system. People, could you please read the whole post before commenting, and then comment on the post, not on a sentence? You sound like troll otherwise...