Wow, spammers have hit a new level of stupid

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11-30-2003
Thantos

Wow, spammers have hit a new level of stupid

I got TWO spam emails that stood out from the rest today. They were both obvious porn ones that had an attachment. Being the interested person I am I decided what the hell I'll take a look at the email.

Interesting parts:
1) had a "normal" email name. Though they had a female first name and were from aol.com and yahoo.com.
2) a some what normal subject line. Not the lewt spelling, or "hey" or "take a look at this" like most have
3) the attachment had a .zip file of all things. So I decided to open it (who knows maybe they are sending me free porn pics). Well much to my dismay its not pics but an exe. Hmmm to run a exe sent to me by someone I don't know or not... I think not.

If it hadn't been for the parse errors in the message body (had = all over the place) I might not have been 100% of its spam status till I opened the attachment.

Moral of story: none, just bored :)
11-30-2003
joshdick

Congress is debating what like ten different anti-spam bills? I say that the only way to stop this scourge on the internet is to execute spammers.
11-30-2003
Xei

Quote:

Originally posted by joshdick
I say that the only way to stop this scourge on the internet is to execute spammers.

Either that or at least a large fine. If they cannot pay the fine then they should have to do community work or simply prison time. Spammers, including 'advertising comanies', all need an ass-kicking or worse.

You know what I hate even more? When a company sends you a spam mail and it says "____ corp. are mailing this in accordance of the law blah blah. To remove yourself from this list press the following link." Then it sends you to a page which you are allowed to remove your address. 1 week later you get another one from another corporation that has the EXACT same thing written at the end of the mail, which also sends you to the same page. All these advertising corporations are doing is 'twisting' the law by 'advertising' through thousands of different names.

You know what other corporation owners who should be shot on sight? The ones who advertise through the 'Messenger service'. They are advertising to millions of people without their permission.

I emailed an ISP in europe when I had gotten about 10 spam mails per day from one of their users and they replied something like "There is nothing that we will do. It is not illegal here and since your problem does not occur in our area it is not our problem.". I think they should be shot, too. In fact, in order to save resources, we could line up all offenders and shoot one bullet at every line-up of 6 or so to purge the world of spammers.
12-01-2003
adrianxw

There are new anti-spam laws coming into force in the Eu shortly. It will be illegal for a business to send un-solicited mails - you need to "opt in" to receive mails. Naturally, what the spammers will do is move their sending station to a non EU country - so it will have little impact.

Most of my spam comes from the US. If they regulate there as well, then those spammers will move as well.
12-01-2003
ober

Quote:

Originally posted by joshdick
Congress is debating what like ten different anti-spam bills? I say that the only way to stop this scourge on the internet is to execute spammers.

One passed, but it is so worthless that it will hardly make a dent.
12-01-2003
Kinasz

...

..... just spamming the forum.
12-01-2003
EvBladeRunnervE

as long as there is one country that allows spamming, spammers will move there. the thing that sucks is that in another year or two, email will cease to be a proper mode of communication due to all the spam.--
12-01-2003
ober

Quote:

Originally posted by EvBladeRunnervE
the thing that sucks is that in another year or two, email will cease to be a proper mode of communication due to all the spam.--

Not true. Spam filters will become more robust. Legislation will make a small dent because some companies will fear being sued. And most home users will figure out how to set up filters on their inboxes. I personally have seen a lessened amount of spam as of late.
12-01-2003
nvoigt

Easiest solution: Make email costly. 1 cent per mail won't hurt anyone, heck, a short mobile phone or pager message costs 20 cent here. But if you send out 2 million... oops... that will make it not profitable because you need to send out billions to catch the few idiots who will reply. Treat the problem at the root.
12-01-2003
neandrake

Why not have regulations such as all spam mail must contain something to id them as spam, so spam filters only have to look for the id and mark it as spam. User can accept or not. Spam being any email sent to more than one person outside a lan.
12-01-2003
Thantos

Quote:

Originally posted by neandrake
Spam being any email sent to more than one person outside a lan.

So if I want to send an email to my friends I'd either have to send multiple messages or have it identified as spam?

Riiigggggghhhht
12-01-2003
ober

No, I don't think that is what he is suggesting. I think he is saying that all registered companies would be forced to abide by this or face lawsuits.
12-01-2003
Thantos

True, but if it went into law as he wrote it then that is what would happen. Have to be carefull when using worlds like "any."
12-01-2003
ober

picky picky... ;)
12-01-2003
Thantos

Dang tootin :D
12-01-2003
Lurker

Spammers who are not killed should be treated like rapists - they should register their tendancy to spam, and it should show up in the subject in the mail. Then you simply filter out all subjects like that :D . I wish it could happen :( .
12-01-2003
webmaster

One interesting solution I've seen mentioned is to make sending emails computer-time intensive. For instance, if I want to send an email to [email protected], I have to compute some kind of time-intensive mathematical formula based on bob's email address, the time the email is sent, and perhaps his name or other information given by his server. Then, when bob receives an email that doesn't have a signature, he can flag it as spam and delete it. For someone who sends fifteen or twenty emails a day, this would cost maybe a few seconds; for someone trying to send 2,000,000 emails, this would take a very long time.
12-01-2003
neandrake

Quote:

Originally posted by Thantos
So if I want to send an email to my friends I'd either have to send multiple messages or have it identified as spam?

Riiigggggghhhht

Thanks for the criticism, any ideas on your part? Not angry, but I'm interested in what you think should be done.
12-01-2003
Thantos

Honestly there is not real solution to this problem. I guess the first step is for the law to identify who owns non-commerical email addresses. More specifically ones such as my_user_name@my_isp.com.

I would say a law that requires company's that send out email with advertisments have to put something in the subject that would identify them as such would be one step.
Another would require company's to have had prior contact with the person (ie a sign up form from their site) before they could send any advertisment emails.
Another would be to have the FCC have an address to which emails that broke the laws could be sent.

I think this will be much harder to stop then telemarketer calls. Email is extremely cheap and easy to send. Unlike phone calls, sending email internationally is just as cheap and easy as domistic emails.
12-01-2003
Zach L.

Quote:

as long as there is one country that allows spamming, spammers will move there.

But the solution is so simple. Once they all move to that country, we simply refuse to recognize its government, label it a terrorist state, and then drop napalm on all of their servers. :D
12-01-2003
Thantos

napalm wouldn't be all that effective. Though carpet bombing with nukes would be :)
12-02-2003
Liger86

I think that spamers if caught should be beat on to a slow death in public so that sets an example to the rest of the world.

And the beating should also be made live all over the internet and TV and Radio (with as much verbal description as possible).

Just a suggestion, or maybe a joke.
12-02-2003
Xei

I wonder if bracing someones body down and slowly dripping water on their forehead will eventually go right through. If such a method works, which I doubt it would, it would give them a lot fo time to consider what they have done wrong.
12-02-2003
Thantos

What I have read about the water torture is that it sometimes caused a small indentation after a long period of time. But there person was usally insane by that point.
12-02-2003
Xei

Quote:

Originally posted by Thantos
What I have read about the water torture is that it sometimes caused a small indentation after a long period of time. But there person was usally insane by that point.

Okay. In that case it might be fun to set them in a room with strobe lights, but completely dark otherwise. Then with a tap that doesn't run... but every half hour or so we would run just a little bit of water then stop it - this would prevent them from sleeping in order to get water, so time would pass way slower; also they should go quite insane quickly using this method. Then after 2 weeks of this torture the ceiling should open up to show the intense bright light of the sky and clouds. Then unlock the door so that they wonder if it has been unlocked at all times... then knock them out with some sort of non-scented gas and place them in a hospital bed. They would wake up not knowing what really happened or not, they would surely be insane. I like my idea.
12-02-2003
Thantos

I perfer The Pit and the Pendulum method personally.
12-02-2003
axon

I see you guys are talking about torturing spammers; how about papercuting to death?? hehe I imagine that would be pretty painful
12-03-2003
Thantos

Only if you pour salt into the wounds afterwards.
12-03-2003
Liger86

Add pepper to that to spice things up! :D
12-03-2003
frenchfry164

and pour cayane pepper juice (spelling?) in their eyes!
12-03-2003
Xei

Have any of you ever used an electric sanding machine?
12-03-2003
Thantos

Quote:

Have any of you ever used an electric sanding machine?

You promised you wouldn't tell Xei. /cry
12-03-2003
UnregdRegd

It is received wisdom that all people are born equal, yet it seems clear to me that a select group of people has chosen to give themselves a status inferior to that of the rest of humanity. These people are, of course, the spammers, and one can be sure that their hearts are filled with but the evilest intentions and that their minds are ever fixed on the reckless pursuit of money.

Because their low status is completely voluntary, there should be no qualms about a harsh punishment for the spammers. I am, in general, repulsed by the idea of the death penalty, but it seems too little to rid society of this evil menace. It may even be just to torture the spammers before exterminating them; it would not violate any human rights agreements because, as has already been mentioned, the spammers are a subhuman group.

I suspect the great powers will inevitably convene under the auspices of the United Nations to issue an international decree forbidding the spammers from doing their evil deed and authorizing states to use even the harshest penalties to eradicate these beasts. It will, indeed, take international law to pluck these weeds from our Garden Earth.

P.S.: I hope I did not sound too much like George W. Bush, what with the constant use of words like evil, eradicate , and so on. :p
12-03-2003
Thantos

UnregdRegd for President!

God I'm tired right now
12-07-2003
itld

Howdy,
How about not opening anything in your mail box that comes from a strange address or sender. Most of the crap I get is easily picked out and dumped in the crapper with a simple clik if the mouse. If everyone wouldboycott the stuff it wouldn't be profitable anymore thus not worth the time it takes to polute the net with it.

M.R.
12-29-2003
SirCrono6

I like this post!

You guys want to see some REALLY funny spam? Check this site out: http://www.hamsterrepublic.com/james...imetravel.html
REALLY, REALLY, funny spam! :p :D ;)
12-29-2003
frenchfry164

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