Do you guys remember the story about one of the TOS (operating system) authors putting something like a 32-byte-long love note into the operating system code? Was it an urban legend or not?
Well, I don't think it's realistic to expect us to write 100's of personal emails to spammers just to eat up their bandwidth. But I like the idea. There are a few problem with it, though.
Not all spam comes from real email addresses. And most messages want you to *click* on a link, not hit the "reply" button. Also, don't they already get 1000's of auto-responder messages? They must have a procedure for dealing with those. But may be if enough of us changed our auto-responders to something non-trivial they'd get confused?
In any case, I guess there should be a way to craft a semi-automaic solution for this. But personally, I like the "turn the tables" strategy.
Well, it's not just the Japanase - it's South Korea and, quite possibly, China, too. But I think they're driven by very pragmatic desires - the need for better handling of Asian alphabets by operating systems being chief among them. I suspect that if Microsoft had spent more time building this (in a meaningful way) into Windows, the three wouldn't have the urgency that they seem to show now.
it's interesting... i actually spoke with someone from this industry (yes, the much hated direct marketing / telemarketing guys) and they kept saying two things:
a) This will drag on for a while. ("I reject your rejection of my rejection" thing)
b) Also, they keep saying this magic phrase which is apparently a telemarketers' slang - "ALL OR NOTHING". That's what they are lobbying for.
What it means is that the law the way it written right now actually allows a couple of different categories of telemarketers call - namely, POLITICIANS and NON-FOR-PROFITS.
Well, the well-connected telemarketers (he-he) claim they are pretty certain that if they push the "all or nothing" rule hard enough - again, what it means is that you either pass the law with NO exceptions (which is not going to happen - politicians will not deprive themselves of this marketing channel) or you let everybody call, then they can get the whole thing called off. They sounded pretty certain of it. I guess there's plenty of those "all or nothing" people working on it in DC.
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How could everybody forget about analog computers? Just as a concept they are probably worth a vote.
Do you guys remember the story about one of the TOS (operating system) authors putting something like a 32-byte-long love note into the operating system code? Was it an urban legend or not?
Not all spam comes from real email addresses. And most messages want you to *click* on a link, not hit the "reply" button. Also, don't they already get 1000's of auto-responder messages? They must have a procedure for dealing with those. But may be if enough of us changed our auto-responders to something non-trivial they'd get confused?
In any case, I guess there should be a way to craft a semi-automaic solution for this. But personally, I like the "turn the tables" strategy.
Well, it's not just the Japanase - it's South Korea and, quite possibly, China, too. But I think they're driven by very pragmatic desires - the need for better handling of Asian alphabets by operating systems being chief among them. I suspect that if Microsoft had spent more time building this (in a meaningful way) into Windows, the three wouldn't have the urgency that they seem to show now.
a) This will drag on for a while. ("I reject your rejection of my rejection" thing)
b) Also, they keep saying this magic phrase which is apparently a telemarketers' slang - "ALL OR NOTHING". That's what they are lobbying for. What it means is that the law the way it written right now actually allows a couple of different categories of telemarketers call - namely, POLITICIANS and NON-FOR-PROFITS.
Well, the well-connected telemarketers (he-he) claim they are pretty certain that if they push the "all or nothing" rule hard enough - again, what it means is that you either pass the law with NO exceptions (which is not going to happen - politicians will not deprive themselves of this marketing channel) or you let everybody call, then they can get the whole thing called off. They sounded pretty certain of it. I guess there's plenty of those "all or nothing" people working on it in DC.