If you were legitimate (and if you claim to be garnishing SSI and disability, I doubt you are) then you could set it up to show your 800 # when you call out.
That isn't a very good example. You would, in that case, be giving out your own information. I have no qualms about people giving out their own information.
This service is designed so that you can pretend to be someone else. And honest people don't need to do that, so it's only the scam artists that will gain from it.
Bail bondsmen, PI's, and Repo men can block their caller ID information without pretending to be someone else.
If the "small company" feels a need to pretend they are Microsoft or IBM (your "small company pretending to be a big company") then they are just scam artists. They have no legitimate reason to pretend to be a different company.
Jokes are about the only "legitimate" use I can see for this, and the abuse that it allows is just ridiculous. I'm all in favor of it going away, and the phone company fixing their system so that you can't pretend to be someone else.
If everyone listened to you, nobody would bother to try and fight spam. You seem to believe that since we can't perfectly stop it, we shouldn't try. You are, however, an idiot, so I doubt that many people will listen to you.
Spammers who want to keep registering new domains, set up SPF records, and spam using those until they end up on blocklists, then repeat, at least have more out of pocket costs. That's a good thing.
Spammers who stop forging other peoples domains is a good thing.
I added SPF records for my domain recently. Before that, I had been receiving 30-40 bounces every day due to spammers forging my domain name. Within a few days of publishing the SPF records, those bounces stopped coming in. Since then, I've gotten a few (no more than 2 or 3) a day on some days, and none on others. Compared to the 30-40 a day average before, that looks like an improvement. My guess is that some of the spammers have software that checks for SPF records. They don't want to forge my domain and have an SPF check (which several of the larger ISP's use) block the mail due to their obvious forgery.
SPF isn't going to stop spam cold. It wasn't designed to do so, and the people who designed and promoted it never claimed that it would.
That doesn't mean that, as you say, it won't help anything.
At one point in time, I was getting 0% of my postal mail. For several months. Contacting the post office got me nowhere.
The house was a duplex. I thought the jerk in the other house was taking it, just to be a jerk. (We, obviously, didn't get along well.)
I went to the local post office, with a big red envelope - a birthday card kind of thing, easily visible. I explained my problem again, and asked when it should arrive. The next day, I was told. So I found a good spot and sat watching for the postman to deliver it. He delivered to the house next door, came out to the street, passed my house and the next, then started delivering mail again. I caught up to him and asked about the red envelope - and was told that he didn't deliver to those two housed (my duplex, and the house next door) because of a dog. Somebody elses dog. A dog that didn't even live at either house.
Back downtown to the post office, and they were trying to stall me when I told them I needed to see the local postmaster. I told them that they had been refusing to deliver my mail, with no warning, for months, that they hadn't told me that when I'd come to them to question it, and that I damn well wasn't leaving without talking to the postmaster. Sure enough, it turns out that he was available after all. They gave me my back mail, which they had been holding, and my mail started coming again the next day.
I've got to agree with you about the USPS having the worst service around. Without a government imposed monoploly, they wouldn't have a business at all.
if he's invoking the First Amendment on us, there's not much we can do
You obviously don't understand the first amendment.
Spammers claim that their spew is "free speech", but it isn't. They also claim that they are running honest businesses, but they are not. And that they run "opt in" lists when they don't. And all kinds of things.
Rule #1, Spammer Lie.
Instead of trusting the spammers, lets see what the courts have said, shall we?
U.S. Federal Judge Stanley Sporkin:
[Spammers] have come to court not because their freedom of speech is threatened but because their profits are; to dress up their complaints in First Amendment garb demeans the principles for which the First Amendment stands.
Chief Justice Berger, U.S. Supreme Court:
Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit. We categorically reject the argument that a vendor has a right under the Constitution or otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another. If this prohibition operates to impede the flow of even valid ideas, the answer is that no one has a right to press even ?good? ideas on an unwilling recipient. The asserted right of a mailer, we repeat, stops at the outer boundary of every person?s domain.
SPEWS on the other hand, those guys are pricks, one of my servers was recently listed because I happened to have a client who apparently works some with spammers, he has been a client for 2 years with me and has caused no issues, suddenly I find my NOC unplugging me because of this even though no spam originated from my servers.
If the spam "originated" from windows machines that have been hacked into unwilling spambots, and your server is hosting the spamvertised website, then you damn well *should* be listed. If your client is advertising his site via spam, and you are hosting it, then you *should* be listed. Because any way you look at it, you are aiding and abbetting the spammer.
Similarly teenagers are literally incapable of realising that there are consequences to their actions
If they don't, then it's damn time they started learning.
I knew there were consequences to my actions long before I was his age. In times past, men married much younger than we do in the USA today - and dealt with the fact that they had to be an adult earlier. The idea that you can do anyting you want (shoot people, steal, write viruses, whatver) until you are 25 (or 30 or 40 or 50 - it always seems to rise) just leads more and more people into arguing "I was yound, so it's OK". You know what? When the kids at Colombine shot other kids, I didn't blame the gun manufacturer, I blamed the kids. Telling me "They were young" doesn't take the blame away from them - they did it.
Kids need to learn that lesson, and saying "It's OK, they were young" doesn't take the problem away, or convince other kids that *they* should be responsible.
We need to rethink how we deal with this sort of headache so that we encourage kids not to mess with worms and stuff, without treating them worse than violent criminals. I don't have the answers, but I can't see how throwing the book at this kid is going to solve much.
You seem to think that telling the other kids "He did it, cause trouble, on purpose, and we're just going to let it slide" is a good plan. I don't. I'm one of those guys that played with things - that's how I learned. (That's *still* how I learn.) But there is a lot of diffence between figuring out what you can do with a computer and intentionally causing problems with everyone elses that you can.
I grew up around guns, too. Hunting, target shooting, that sort of thing. But if I took one of those same guns and started shooting at people, just 'cause I could, I should be arrested. This kid did the same thing - took what he had, and used it to screw up other people.
I know how to do a lot of things. I could write something, turn it loose, and end up "owning" a lot of computers, which I could then use to run a DoS attack. Inovative? No, not really. Good for anyone? No, not really. Screw them up? yes, it would. Should I be punished if I did? Yes, I should. Neither shooting people "because you can" nor screwing up their computers "because you can" should be acceptable. If I did this, I should be punished.
Him too. If you can't behave in a responsible manner, then you need to have your behavior controlled. Millions of dollars? He doesn't have it, so it's pointless to talk about it. Punishement? Sure, he deserves it.
You are pretending that if the landlord were perfect (and nobody is) that no one else could set the place on fire even if they tried. The twin towers were not slums - but when people put enough effort into it, they came down.
There are a jillion kinds of attacks available on a computer. Some are software specific. Most are aimed at MS, because that's the most common, and easliy broken, software. But bottom line, the kid didn't do this by accident, he was trying to find a way to cause problems, he did, he got caught. And you're defending him.
If MS went away, it wouldn't stop people from trying to find ways to be jerks, just like this kid. Are you always going to blame it on the fact that it's easier to start a fire than it is to build a building that can't harmed no matter how hard you try?
The "complexities...in the real world" don't give a good goddamn what your intentions are.
I'm 99% convinced that his intentions were to screw up other peoples computers just because he thought he could get away with it. I see no upside, I see no reason he should get off. Bust his ass.
Comparing this kid to Mitnick is like comparing Burt Ward to Bruce Lee. Seriously--all the kid did was made a few minor changes to an already successful virus. Mitnick was doing something relatively new, and he did a lot of original 'work' in doing so. All this idiot did was make a few changes to somebody else's virus, hit send, and get caught.
But the kids primary purpose was to cause problems. He learned little, gained nothing, yet caused a lot of problems, and he did it intentionally. That *should* be punished.
Mitnik isn't, IMO, in the same group at all. If I were running a company, I *might* trust Mitnik. No frickin way I would trust a script kiddie like this. MItnik might be able to help - this kid can only cause trouble, and he can only do it if someone else shows him how, 'cause he just isn't bright enough to do it on his own.
He started with code from a virus, modified it, turned it loose because he thought that fucking other peoples systems up is a K001 thnk to do (or something like that.) No sympathy for him here. If he knows how to code, let him write something useful. If his goal is to screw up as many newbies as he can catch (the goal of most virus writers, as best I can tell) then I'd just as soon him be off the streets (and off the "Information Highway").
Any treatment of them other than obtaining their presence in the justice system, which could prove their guilt, is unacceptable, and threatens us all.
I agree with you - until convincted, making this sort of information public should not be allowed. Apparently the judge who decided this issue also agrees.
The
Dallas Police Department however, don't seem to hold the same view. They are posting names, pictures, and other information about people they have arrested (but not yet charged or convicted) of sex related crimes to their website (see the link above.)
You'll find an article about it here.
The article is from last June, but so far as I know, the practice continues.
I'm normally opposed to hacking websites, but in this case,
I think it would be funny if someone hacked the site to put
pictures of the Dallas Mayor, City Council, Chief of Police,
etc onto the site in place of the people they are attempting
to humiliate without a trial.
If these were people who had been convicted, I may see things
differently, but the cops can arrest anyone for anything, and
this is essentially punishment prior to a trial. It goes against
everything we are told about justice in the US.
Except that Microsoft and Apple actually want to lose. They can afford to pay a billion dollars or so to these guys--but free software will be totally screwed (in America and any place else insane enough to emulate our software patent system).
I'm more worried that MS won't fight to discredit the patent, but will instead buy the patent rights from the company, and then use their clout and lawyers to try to defend the patent with them as the patent owner.
It was filed in 2000? Windows 98 (and I think 95) had the Windows Update feature in them before that.
I, personally, wrote some software at my job which would breach this patent. I think that was in 1999, but it may have been in 2000.
Software patents are just plain wrong. I've yet to see a single one that should have been allowed. The stated goal of the patent system is to encourage R&D, but the actual effect is that you essentially can't do any software development without some company claiming that you owe them money because they have more lawywer than you.
no ISP in their right mind would blackhole comcast.net
I dunno about that. Comcast has been hosting many of the spamvertised sites that I've checked lately, and they don't seem to do anything about spam reports.
I know there are products like ZoneAlarm and such to try and make it easier for non technical users to use them, but Joe Average people will be baffled by them since they don't understand how networks work and everything that goes with that.
Disagree.
Last christmas, I cleaned up my parents computer, ran spybot, adaware, and that kind of thing. Nothing major found, but lots of small stuff. After I did that, I DL'd ZoneAlarm and installed it. Being a geek, I did this in the middle of the night, so I hadn't explained it to my parents.
My dad is about the least technical person you can imagine. And I hadn't told him about it. But the next morning, he got up, started to check Email, and ZoneAlarm is promting him about "Do you want to allow this program to access the internet". He figured it out on his own, no problem. He realized that I must have added something to the machine, and correctly configured it to allow his mail program to work.
When we talked later, I explained that if ZoneAlarm popped up asking about a program he hadn't heard of, especially if he hadn't intentionally added any software that should connect over the net, that he should say no, and why. And I think he got it.
If my dad can figure out how to use ZoneAlarm, then anyone can.
Thanks. I did a google on it, and found some screenshots. Yes, that looks much more like a text editor.
The screenshot at http://www.nano-editor.org/nanodefault2.png does bring up one question. It shows, at the bottom, that Ctrl-Y is previous page, and Ctrl-V is next page. Do the cursor keys and page-up, page down work? Seems silly to ignore them and make people learn new keymapping. Obviously, Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V for cut-n-paste operations have been done differently from what I consider standard. But even so, it looks better than a line editor.
So, should the dumb couple be sued for everything they own? Should I turn them over to the FTC? How do you separate the willful from the dumb?
If I get 10 people to sell drugs for me, and tell them that the drugs they are distributing are legal, the cops are *not* going to give a shit about their "But I thought this was legal" story when they bust the idiots. And I, in turn, am likely to be busted. That is what should have happened in the case you describe. Both the spammer and the brick-and-mortar that hired them were responsible.
I think that the spammer in your case knew damn well what he was doing. He may not have understood the details, but he knew he was finding open relays, etc, to send his spam, and he knew that the spam wasn't wanted by the recipients.
Jeeze, now I've heard everything. "Have mercy on the poor, uneducated spammer, who didn't know they were doing anything wrong when they hijacked my mail server..." Kill 'em all, let God show 'em mercy.
Slashdot Mirror
That isn't a very good example. You would, in that case, be giving out your own information. I have no qualms about people giving out their own information.
This service is designed so that you can pretend to be someone else. And honest people don't need to do that, so it's only the scam artists that will gain from it.
If the "small company" feels a need to pretend they are Microsoft or IBM (your "small company pretending to be a big company") then they are just scam artists. They have no legitimate reason to pretend to be a different company.
Jokes are about the only "legitimate" use I can see for this, and the abuse that it allows is just ridiculous. I'm all in favor of it going away, and the phone company fixing their system so that you can't pretend to be someone else.
I use justthe.net, and have for some time. Steve has set up SPF records for my domain - I'm sure he would do it for others if you need a new host.
If everyone listened to you, nobody would bother to try and fight spam. You seem to believe that since we can't perfectly stop it, we shouldn't try. You are, however, an idiot, so I doubt that many people will listen to you.
Spammers who stop forging other peoples domains is a good thing.
I added SPF records for my domain recently. Before that, I had been receiving 30-40 bounces every day due to spammers forging my domain name. Within a few days of publishing the SPF records, those bounces stopped coming in. Since then, I've gotten a few (no more than 2 or 3) a day on some days, and none on others. Compared to the 30-40 a day average before, that looks like an improvement. My guess is that some of the spammers have software that checks for SPF records. They don't want to forge my domain and have an SPF check (which several of the larger ISP's use) block the mail due to their obvious forgery.
SPF isn't going to stop spam cold. It wasn't designed to do so, and the people who designed and promoted it never claimed that it would.
That doesn't mean that, as you say, it won't help anything.
The house was a duplex. I thought the jerk in the other house was taking it, just to be a jerk. (We, obviously, didn't get along well.)
I went to the local post office, with a big red envelope - a birthday card kind of thing, easily visible. I explained my problem again, and asked when it should arrive. The next day, I was told. So I found a good spot and sat watching for the postman to deliver it. He delivered to the house next door, came out to the street, passed my house and the next, then started delivering mail again. I caught up to him and asked about the red envelope - and was told that he didn't deliver to those two housed (my duplex, and the house next door) because of a dog. Somebody elses dog. A dog that didn't even live at either house.
Back downtown to the post office, and they were trying to stall me when I told them I needed to see the local postmaster. I told them that they had been refusing to deliver my mail, with no warning, for months, that they hadn't told me that when I'd come to them to question it, and that I damn well wasn't leaving without talking to the postmaster. Sure enough, it turns out that he was available after all. They gave me my back mail, which they had been holding, and my mail started coming again the next day.
I've got to agree with you about the USPS having the worst service around. Without a government imposed monoploly, they wouldn't have a business at all.
But then he started sending email spam, and look where he is now. Do I feel bad for him? Not a bit.
You obviously don't understand the first amendment.
Spammers claim that their spew is "free speech", but it isn't. They also claim that they are running honest businesses, but they are not. And that they run "opt in" lists when they don't. And all kinds of things.
Rule #1, Spammer Lie.
Instead of trusting the spammers, lets see what the courts have said, shall we?
U.S. Federal Judge Stanley Sporkin:
Chief Justice Berger, U.S. Supreme Court:
I think you had a typo. You must have meant to write "there has been one (admittedly lame) federal law passed to legalize spam".
If the spam "originated" from windows machines that have been hacked into unwilling spambots, and your server is hosting the spamvertised website, then you damn well *should* be listed. If your client is advertising his site via spam, and you are hosting it, then you *should* be listed. Because any way you look at it, you are aiding and abbetting the spammer.
If they don't, then it's damn time they started learning.
I knew there were consequences to my actions long before I was his age. In times past, men married much younger than we do in the USA today - and dealt with the fact that they had to be an adult earlier. The idea that you can do anyting you want (shoot people, steal, write viruses, whatver) until you are 25 (or 30 or 40 or 50 - it always seems to rise) just leads more and more people into arguing "I was yound, so it's OK". You know what? When the kids at Colombine shot other kids, I didn't blame the gun manufacturer, I blamed the kids. Telling me "They were young" doesn't take the blame away from them - they did it.
Kids need to learn that lesson, and saying "It's OK, they were young" doesn't take the problem away, or convince other kids that *they* should be responsible.
You believe that no matter how hard a criminal tries, the victim (or anyone other than the criminal) should take all the blame.
He isn't getting 3 years because other people screwed up, he's getting 3 years (assuming he does) because he tried to screw up other people.
You seem to think that telling the other kids "He did it, cause trouble, on purpose, and we're just going to let it slide" is a good plan. I don't. I'm one of those guys that played with things - that's how I learned. (That's *still* how I learn.) But there is a lot of diffence between figuring out what you can do with a computer and intentionally causing problems with everyone elses that you can.
I grew up around guns, too. Hunting, target shooting, that sort of thing. But if I took one of those same guns and started shooting at people, just 'cause I could, I should be arrested. This kid did the same thing - took what he had, and used it to screw up other people.
I know how to do a lot of things. I could write something, turn it loose, and end up "owning" a lot of computers, which I could then use to run a DoS attack. Inovative? No, not really. Good for anyone? No, not really. Screw them up? yes, it would. Should I be punished if I did? Yes, I should. Neither shooting people "because you can" nor screwing up their computers "because you can" should be acceptable. If I did this, I should be punished.
Him too. If you can't behave in a responsible manner, then you need to have your behavior controlled. Millions of dollars? He doesn't have it, so it's pointless to talk about it. Punishement? Sure, he deserves it.
There are a jillion kinds of attacks available on a computer. Some are software specific. Most are aimed at MS, because that's the most common, and easliy broken, software. But bottom line, the kid didn't do this by accident, he was trying to find a way to cause problems, he did, he got caught. And you're defending him.
If MS went away, it wouldn't stop people from trying to find ways to be jerks, just like this kid. Are you always going to blame it on the fact that it's easier to start a fire than it is to build a building that can't harmed no matter how hard you try?
I'm 99% convinced that his intentions were to screw up other peoples computers just because he thought he could get away with it. I see no upside, I see no reason he should get off. Bust his ass.
But the kids primary purpose was to cause problems. He learned little, gained nothing, yet caused a lot of problems, and he did it intentionally. That *should* be punished.
Mitnik isn't, IMO, in the same group at all. If I were running a company, I *might* trust Mitnik. No frickin way I would trust a script kiddie like this. MItnik might be able to help - this kid can only cause trouble, and he can only do it if someone else shows him how, 'cause he just isn't bright enough to do it on his own.
He started with code from a virus, modified it, turned it loose because he thought that fucking other peoples systems up is a K001 thnk to do (or something like that.) No sympathy for him here. If he knows how to code, let him write something useful. If his goal is to screw up as many newbies as he can catch (the goal of most virus writers, as best I can tell) then I'd just as soon him be off the streets (and off the "Information Highway").
May I quote the First Amendment? Hell no! What do you think this is, America!
I agree with you - until convincted, making this sort of information public should not be allowed. Apparently the judge who decided this issue also agrees.
The Dallas Police Department however, don't seem to hold the same view. They are posting names, pictures, and other information about people they have arrested (but not yet charged or convicted) of sex related crimes to their website (see the link above.)
You'll find an article about it here. The article is from last June, but so far as I know, the practice continues.
I'm normally opposed to hacking websites, but in this case, I think it would be funny if someone hacked the site to put pictures of the Dallas Mayor, City Council, Chief of Police, etc onto the site in place of the people they are attempting to humiliate without a trial.
If these were people who had been convicted, I may see things differently, but the cops can arrest anyone for anything, and this is essentially punishment prior to a trial. It goes against everything we are told about justice in the US.
I'm more worried that MS won't fight to discredit the patent, but will instead buy the patent rights from the company, and then use their clout and lawyers to try to defend the patent with them as the patent owner.
I, personally, wrote some software at my job which would breach this patent. I think that was in 1999, but it may have been in 2000.
Software patents are just plain wrong. I've yet to see a single one that should have been allowed. The stated goal of the patent system is to encourage R&D, but the actual effect is that you essentially can't do any software development without some company claiming that you owe them money because they have more lawywer than you.
I dunno about that. Comcast has been hosting many of the spamvertised sites that I've checked lately, and they don't seem to do anything about spam reports.
Disagree.
Last christmas, I cleaned up my parents computer, ran spybot, adaware, and that kind of thing. Nothing major found, but lots of small stuff. After I did that, I DL'd ZoneAlarm and installed it. Being a geek, I did this in the middle of the night, so I hadn't explained it to my parents.
My dad is about the least technical person you can imagine. And I hadn't told him about it. But the next morning, he got up, started to check Email, and ZoneAlarm is promting him about "Do you want to allow this program to access the internet". He figured it out on his own, no problem. He realized that I must have added something to the machine, and correctly configured it to allow his mail program to work.
When we talked later, I explained that if ZoneAlarm popped up asking about a program he hadn't heard of, especially if he hadn't intentionally added any software that should connect over the net, that he should say no, and why. And I think he got it.
If my dad can figure out how to use ZoneAlarm, then anyone can.
The mafia has never been as stupid as the 419 scammers, and if the 419 scammers messed with the mafia in any way, I'm pretty sure of the end result.
That being said, anyone wanting to toy with the 419 crowd *should* be careful.
Thanks for the info.
If I get 10 people to sell drugs for me, and tell them that the drugs they are distributing are legal, the cops are *not* going to give a shit about their "But I thought this was legal" story when they bust the idiots. And I, in turn, am likely to be busted. That is what should have happened in the case you describe. Both the spammer and the brick-and-mortar that hired them were responsible.
I think that the spammer in your case knew damn well what he was doing. He may not have understood the details, but he knew he was finding open relays, etc, to send his spam, and he knew that the spam wasn't wanted by the recipients.
Jeeze, now I've heard everything. "Have mercy on the poor, uneducated spammer, who didn't know they were doing anything wrong when they hijacked my mail server..." Kill 'em all, let God show 'em mercy.