What would you do?

If you had the oppertunity to sit down with a known spammer for 20 minutes, what would you like to tell him?:kill:

'Tell him'? I could think of better ways of teaching them a lesson other than vocally :kill:

Part of me wants to explain how expensive his pranks are and how much more valuable the internet would be without the spam. How worthless the spams are in the overall scheme of things.


...But I doubt he would hear me, laying there all unconscious and all...

I don't know. I doubt it wouild be a worthwhile conversation regardless. I mean, afterall, it's just a video game to the spammer. Plus for all of *our* frustration, he actually *is* making money with his spam (assuming he is actually selling something) with very little overhead...

Originally posted by jflis
But I doubt he would hear me, laying there all unconscious and all...

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ROTFLMAO!!!!

Originally posted by flying_silverad
If you had the oppertunity to sit down with a known spammer for 20 minutes, what would you like to tell him?:kill:

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I'm not sure what I would say but it would be the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

Andrew

What I would tell them, and do to them, I can't put into print on this forum without getting into trouble with the mods.

Why not just take the easy way out and delete him or her?

A few news programs up here ahve had interv9ews with known 'spammers'. The reporter asking quesitons & such.

They just come across as nice guys, arrogant, but overall nice. They're providing a service, a business in advertising & marketing. They provide a service to big people, as a sales tool, to get their products in front of us. Of course, it is always a third person, so teh big companies can deny thier use.

But it's [apparently] usually our fault for gettign spam. We are supposed to know that some sites might tag us, and then put us on mailing lists.

Their biggest argument, is why we are soo riled up about spam, yet accept the daily deluge we get in our 'snail mail' mailboxes..

To them, there is no difference in snail mail ads & e-mail ads..

The interviews usually end withthem making some promice to li\mit or curtail their activites.

There is usally an addenda late on in the season with 'Little has been done by Joe Spam, and has since closed shop, and moved on.."

Originally posted by Dr Wogz
But it's [apparently] usually our fault for gettign spam. We are supposed to know that some sites might tag us, and then put us on mailing lists.

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Such as, for example, your own site if you put your e-mail address on it and spammers find it. In any case, that argument makes about as much sense as saying that it's your fault if you get mugged because you should know that muggers go out at night.

Their biggest argument, is why we are soo riled up about spam, yet accept the daily deluge we get in our 'snail mail' mailboxes..

To them, there is no difference in snail mail ads & e-mail ads..

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The difference is volume. When most of the snail mail hitting your mailbox is junk; when the flood of junk mail is so bad that you're at serious risk of throwing out genuine mail with the junk by mistake; when you need to have someone or some system to filter out the junk just so you can even find the real mail; then that comparison will be valid.

If that happens, paper mail will become almost useless for any form of communication except advertising. If the spammers get their way, that is also the fate of e-mail.

Meanwhile, here's something to keep you amused:
Spamwars

What would I do?

I'd invite him to my house and every time he tried to walk in the door I'd slam it into his face...Spam Blocker!

Honestly I would have nothing to say to a spammer. All of my arguments would be fruitless.

Never try to teach a pig to sing...It wastes your time and it will only p*** off the pig.

Yeah, I wouldn't have to much to "say," either. ;-)

If you've ever clicked on a link or responded in any way to a spam message then you really are partly responsible for spam. Here's how it typically works: a spammer gets a fixed rate of a few pennys for every response he generates. Even though it's only a few pennys at a time, all he needs to do is scale up and make it a high volume business. With a good quick computer and a nimble access connection (that may span several systems, or by taking advantage of your grandmother's always-on-DSL-connected-and-never-patched system) a spammer can blast a million (literally) messages in a very few minutes. So if he gets just a one percent response, that's 10,000 replies. Multiplied by a few pennies, multiplied by several clients, works out to big money. Several hundred grand yearly, easily.

The best way to fight spam, then, is to delete it without even opening it; and tell everyone you know to do the same. This would result in no profits and the spammer would find something else to do. Unfortunately in the real world, a one percent response rate is low . . . .

The second thing you can do is make every effort to keep your computer up to date, and your grandma's, and anyone else you have even a little influence with. The current very popular but insecure-by-design (monolithic) OS doesn't help matters much.

Delete him.

Tie him to a chair, and do one of a set of trivial and annoying things over and over again. Wet willies, popping paper bag behind his ear, spraying water in his face, etc.

Yup. That seems to be the best option. Repetition of annoying things.

I think burning arm and knuckle hairs would work too.

Jason

I would think that the best solution to spam would be bounties on spammers. They send out SO much crap and we spend SO much time and money coping with it that it would be very easy to come up with a significant award for anyone bringing a spammer's days to an end (take that however you like). We have to come up with some way to make spamming extremely expensive, and a constant threat to one's life seems like a leading contender.

Yes, I'm 100% serious.

Ask him what he would like for breakfast:

Egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam;spam spam spam egg and spam; spam spam spam spam spam spam baked beans spam spam spam.

-Paul

Heh. Bounties and death threats seem to be a punshment that far exceeds the crime. I get more upset at the guy who cuts me off on the highway than I do at hitting the delete key a bunch of times.

From Paulk:

Egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam;spam spam spam egg and spam; spam spam spam spam spam spam baked beans spam spam spam.

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I can't see the screen; I have too many tears and can no long breathe!

I'd like to lock them into a very small, dark room with only a 9" color televison and an Atari 2600.

Spammers are one thing...

If I could have a few hours of "quality time" with a known adware developer, the kind that renders a PC nearly useless and continuously re-installs itself whenever you try to get rid of it...

(Al Pacino voice) "Say hello to my leetle friend!"

I would tell him/her that I do not need Viagra, my credit is fine, I am not into porno, and to quit having that guy in India asking me for my bank account to deposit his $20 million dollars he is smuggling outta his country.

Speaking of spam... I don't get any!

Originally posted by sylvie369
I would think that the best solution to spam would be bounties on spammers. They send out SO much crap and we spend SO much time and money coping with it that it would be very easy to come up with a significant award for anyone bringing a spammer's days to an end (take that however you like). We have to come up with some way to make spamming extremely expensive, and a constant threat to one's life seems like a leading contender.

Yes, I'm 100% serious.

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It could be combined with a season on lawyers in the same way Texas combines deer and turkey hunting season.

Joe W

:kill: spammers

Originally posted by Nuke Rocketeer
It could be combined with a season on lawyers in the same way Texas combines deer and turkey hunting season.

Joe W

:kill: spammers

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Throw telemarketers in there and I'm in.

As far as spam being just a matter of hitting the delete key a few times, tell that to the IT guys. Spam costs all of us a bundle.

Originally posted by m85476585
Speaking of spam... I don't get any!

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But it still affects you. It slows down the network. All of them to some degree.

It's a traffic problem that affects everyone.

A frustration is that the makers of the OS itself could eliminate it (easily). Since they do not, it seem clear (to me) that they, themselves, are getting something out of it and are part of the problem themselves.

As for the argument that we seem to live with junk mail in our snail-mail box, why do we have a problem with SPAM mail in our E-mail box? Well, my counter argument is why can we not have (and expect) a form of media that is junk/spam free?

We have phones, faxes, email, snail mail, etc, etc, etc... ALL are subject to wasteful spam and junk. All I would ask is simply to be presented with one form of mass communication that is spam/junk free, under law.

As for suitable punishment, I agree that capital punishment is far too excessive, however I *do* beleive that first offenders of any such laws should be permanantly banned for life from the media they abused. Be it phone, internet, snail-mail, whatever.

Second offense is contempt of court and jail time...

just rambling thoughts. It'll never happen as it brings in revenue and that revenue is taxed, so even Uncle-Sam likes it...

Originally posted by sylvie369
Throw telemarketers in there and I'm in.

As far as spam being just a matter of hitting the delete key a few times, tell that to the IT guys. Spam costs all of us a bundle.

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Telemarketers are a frustration, to be sure. But at least with *them*, you can have fun

We have an aluminum siding place in Manchester (about 15 miles north) who used to call us every 6 months asing about siding (we have a brick home) and when we say no, he asks about windows, when we say no he goes on to roofing, then lawn care, etc, etc, a never ending list of vital services, none of which we want...

The solution? When he called and asked about a free quote for alum siding I responded YES! This got him all excited! (must be a commision sales job...) so he took my information and I said that I would be home Sat morning.

I was out raking and he showed up, got out and kept reading his clip board and looking at my brick house. He asked why I wanted a quote for siding and I said that I didn't as I had a brick house.

Then he asked the $64,000 question: "Then why did you ask us to come out here?"

To which I answered "because that got your guy off the phone in record time!"

They haven't called back now in over 10 years.

Look at telemarketers as an opportunity. Waste their time, have fun, enjoy the moment.

Next time one calls, sound all excited and say "Hang on! Let me get my credit card!"

Then set the phone down and check every 15 min or so to see if he's still on the line...
great fun

Ya Jim! Great One!

If I've got the time and am in the mood I make it my point to get the telemarketer to hang up on me by asking many spontaneous silly questions about their products. I really like it when they begin to get testy with me and I remind them that they called me! Another great line (which I co-opted from Spanky on the Little Rascals) is when I pick up the phone and the first question is "who is this?"...The answer is "I DON'T KNOW I CAN'T SEE YA!"

planet out

Put the spammer in a locked room and play Weird Al Jankovic's "Spam" (parody of REM's "Stand") over and over and over and over and . . .

Here's how one guy deals with the Nigerian bank money scam: Reverse Scam

just a note to any of you perusing this thread - please check out the link RimFireJim posted.

I just read the Hameed letters and I am sitting hear with tears in my eyes from laughing so hard. This is seriously funny stuff!

I am (was) tasked with dealing with SPAM in my organization. We have 200 users with email accounts and maintaining the email server is part of my job. For the past 3 years I have tried to manage the onslaught of SPAM hitting our email server on my own using features built into our email software. I have some users getting 300+ junk emails a day. The worst part is that I had to go through ALL the trapped emails, every day, to make sure there were no legitimate emails trapped by mistake. What a nightmare. While I do enjoy working in IT, this task quickly became a most hated part of my job.

A few months ago I was finally given the OK to outsource

(after begging repeatedly to be taken out and shot rather than have to look through another hundred SPAM emails)

all our SPAM filtering to a third party (Securence) and I no longer have to deal with it. They do such a good job that after monitoring the trapped items for a few weeks we found only 1 legitimate emial trapped by mistake.

This isn't a commercial for Securence, there are many others out there that provide this service including many local ISPs.

And then there's the BLACKLIST issues...oh man I'd better not get going on that. Suffice it to say that if your IP address ever makes its way onto a SPAM BLACKLIST you're in for an ordeal.

The real sad part to me is that SPAM costs businesses, large and small, real $$. These are dollars that are not being used to create jobs or expand the business.

I have come to despise the people who SPAM and those who plant zombies and SMTP engines on private computers to relay SPAM and if I were put in a room with any of them I'd joyfully and enthusiastically beat them senseless with rectangular tins of processed pork. And then make them eat it.

Originally posted by stevem
just a note to any of you perusing this thread - please check out the link RimFireJim posted.

I just read the Hameed letters and I am sitting hear with tears in my eyes from laughing so hard. This is seriously funny stuff!

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One of my favorites on that site is the letter exchange between "Dike" and "Captain George Blackbeard - S.S. Valdez Pirate Ship Captain" - hard to believe the scammers go along with such an outrageous farce as long as they do. -Jim

frankly while spammers are an annoyance, which indeed inject a certain amt of irritation and wasted time into my life, it is incomparably small compared to the pollution on tv and radio with ads taking 15 min or more from every hour. I went two years w/o watching/listening to any commercial tv/radio and it was a friggin amazing experience. Relearned how to read, enjoyed a heretofore unknown peace of mind, no impulse buys on crap I didn't need, etc, etc. A community radio station provided news of higher quality and diversity than anything I had experienced prior. Life changing event. And while I now watch the sci channel, national geo, a few sporting events, etc...the glass teat is mostly absent frommy life. XM and community radio only.

Actually IMHO a bigger threat to the internet are big corps who want to take it in the direction of tv/radio. Those with the big $$ can have fast lanes to real info, the rest will be redirectd into approved sites and see pop-ups every step of the way. Yucck and dbl yucck.
JS