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Spammer Gets Spammed
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Thu Jan 18, 2001 02:45 PM
from the allright-thats-pretty-funny dept.
from the allright-thats-pretty-funny dept.
William L. Jones sent us a link to a wired story about spammers getting what they deserve: it amused me. What also amuses me is my new hobby:
I now send the postage-page envelopes back from junk mailers. Empty. Eat that! 30 cents out of your pocket! Yeah! I guess now that we've evolved past sword fights, I need something to vent steam.
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Re:Remember... (Score:4)
Kintanon
Don't send empties (Score:2)
For phone soliciters, passing them off just isn't fun. You've gotta play with them for a while first. I usually give them a quiz about their product/service they'd like to sell (throwing in my own made up words as I go along) and see how well they do. Usually, they hang up before me
As for the spammers, those bastards got what was coming to them.
Re:Awesome link! (Score:2)
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Yeah, yeah (Score:3)
Note that this is probably not "an eye for an eye", in that nobody spammed them specifically to punish them for their previous spammer-friendly behavior; it appears that they just got buried in a normal spam run, the same kind of spam run that originates from their network all too frequently.
This is more akin to a policeman on the night watch who parks his squad car and takes an illicit nap, finding on waking that somebody stole his tires. There is a certain poetic justice that's less "an eye for an eye" than "what goes around, comes around".
Few would vote for raping the rapist, but equally few will shed tears for the rapist who, in spite of our efforts to prevent rape, is raped by a bigger, meaner rapist. Buddhists work to end the suffering of all sentient beings, but that doesn't mean they can't appreciate the beautiful symmetry of karmic balance.
How is it morally bankrupt? (Score:2)
And of course the Golden Rule is also reflected in Kant's Categorical Imperitive. When deciding if something is ethical, ask yourself "what if everybody did it?"
And another reflection: Axelrod's work on the Prisoner's Dilemma. Someone who knows the phrase "Lex Talionis" has probably heard about this, so I'll leave you with this unexplained remark: Tit for Tat won.
Philosophers and scientists agree, an eye for an eye is OK and workable. Get into the 21st Century, man.
--
MailOne [openone.com]
empty? wuss... (Score:2)
35 cents out of their pockets, plus whoever unstuffs those envelopes gets a lapful of shredded paper. or, better yet, if they're done by machine, maybe my little act of revenge clogs up their cogs for a few minutes, and in the meantime, the machinery of junkmailing grinds to a halt.
i can dream, can't i?
Send Them Porn (Score:2)
Once Again, FYI (Score:2)
JunkMail Removal Info [talboa.com]
=-=-=-=-=
"Do you hear the Slashdotters sing,
Re:Junk mail subsidizes first class mail (Score:3)
Other types of mail income are used to offset these costs. 2nd class postage is a great example: a new subdivision called "Priority 2nd Class" has been given to monstrous magazines (think: U.S. News, Time, etc) To get their business, the USPS has given special treatment and costs, while those not qualifying (any magazine/newspaper under a zillion subscribers) have seen significant increase in postage. Example: 14% increase every other year. The post office has made it clear that these types of mailers are a hindrance, and a pain in the ass to the USPS. They would rather deliver sorted pallets by the truckload than break it down further.
On a smaller scale you'll see the same with 1st class. It's harder for the USPS to do this, because every citizen is affected by increases in 1st class mail, while only publishers are affected by 2nd class increases...Fewer people can complain..and so the raping of 2nd class continues.
Anyway, in the beginning, the USPS was in business to deliver your personal mail. As they grew, and tried to take more money, get more customers (Like all the dirty tricks they used to (and still do) against UPS) and allow bulk mail, etc, etc, they have since had to buy more facilities, more equipment, and many many many more employees. As they continue to make better bottom lines on large customers, they will continue to abhor your mail and mine. Our costs will increase. Eventually the cost will make us cut down our mailing. It already has. How many stamps can you get for $1. Ooops, not even 3 now.
I remember back in the '80s, once a month, letter mail that used to take 1 day to get here, took 2 days instead. What was going on? Turned out that it was all related to the day the new Playboy issue came out. Playboy paid a cheap automation rate that covered the automation costs of the USPS, but it was our 1st class mail that suffered, and paid for the extra employees and leg work that was needed.
Rader
Re:Dude, evolve some more (Score:2)
Re:Credit card/solicitation calls (Score:2)
There's more information at Junkbusters.com [junkbusters.com] which is very good for this kind of information. Incidentally, the fine is federally mandated (ie you and the marketer don't need to "negotiate", it's $500 per offense.) There are, I believe, lawyers who specialise in collecting the funds for a large cut, so if you're prepared to do the auditing, you can just report incidents of abuse and see the money roll in with no further intervention on your part.
Me, I just put the phone down on them. It's usually pretty easy to detect they're calling as the first few seconds of the call are usually complete silence, followed by background noise of other telemarketers in the same complex (prison?) at work.
The most important thing for people to realise is that these people are scum. Despite the obsession with some of the belief that if something is legal, then it is right, most people follow the basic rule that anything that directly reduces another person's quality of life for a minor gain on the part of the actor is an act of selfishness. Disturbing someone, intruding into their private time, with no regard to what they're doing or what effect it would have on them, is basically completely wrong. That's why we hate the calls.
It is legitimate to put the phone down without saying anything. It's also legitimate to (without resorting to abuse) tell the scumbag exactly what you think of them and tie up their time so they cannot abuse someone else and so they're made fully aware of the effect they're having.
If I were President, I'd cut their goolies off, but that's just me.
--
Remember... (Score:4)
a buddy of mine: "oh really? well let me tell *you* about the *great* anal sex I had last night" ... click.
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Re:Remember... (Score:2)
I love to ask questions like these to telemarketers and refuse to tell them who they are speaking with unless they first tell me who they are. Unfortunately, they usually hang up before you can get your questions answered. That is why I wish there was some way to tell where they were calling from and who was calling. Telemarketers should be forced to use Caller ID that spans all phone companies so you never see the "Out of Area" message on your Caller ID display just because the telemarketer has another phone provider or is in another state. That's my $0.02.
Re:Postage-paid (Score:2)
Remember that the USPS makes a profit on delivering that postage-paid card. You're helping employ that postal employee
I disagree that Lex Talionis is... (Score:2)
So what you're saying is that it is more humane to lock people away from 'normal' people, congregating them amongst a brutish populace administered by people who must for their own protection assume the worst of those they supervise, for an arbitrary amount of time determined by how much money they had and how well-spoken their attorney was and perhaps how politically distasteful their crime was.
No, I'm sorry. What you're saying is that we should realize that the perpetrator of the crime is a victim who must be treated and trained and assisted, who must be understood when they backslide and recommit the crime because of course the treatment is still in process, that we should not use punishment because it is damaging to the psyche - and of course the victims of the crime (other than the criminal victim) will have to recover as best they can without the cathartic closure of punishment but will have to gain strength from the knowledge that their pain was the first step to the recovery of another human being.
As opposed to a swift, certain, relevant punishment which provides the catharsis and the preventive measure, which can then be followed with treatments for both committer and victim of the crime.
What kind of giddy moral superiority do you get from assuming I like to see people hurt?
Re:Empty (Score:2)
Be sure to put something in the envelope. Confetti or paper chips are good, they can jam up the machine. Crumpled paper won't stack neatly in their machines. Small metal strips will jam the envelope slitting machine but since most machines slit the top and since the envelopes can be inserted either face up or face down, you have to tape a metal strip inside the envelope at both the top and bottom to be successful. Use brass or aluminum, they check for magnetic metal and reject those envelopes. You can also tape a bunch of papers to the envelope, it makes it so the machine can't separate the papers from the envelope.
(Info from a friend who used to work at one of these places.)
Re:Lex Talionis is a morally bankrupt code (Score:2)
Re:Remember... (Score:2)
Re:Remember... (Score:2)
Convince me that there are NO other choices for this person and maybe I'll listen to you play the violin a while.
If you take a job telemarketing, you KNOW that you're doing something to inconvenience them. There is ZERO sympathy deserved by these people, regardless of how little they earn.
I usually leave telemarketers off with something along the lines of, "Hey, buddy - is this really what you wanted to do when you grew up? Put me on your no-call list."
To digress - word to the wise: the wording you should use is "put me on your don't call list," not "take me off your call list." Telemarketers are required to keep a list of numbers not to call. Taking you OFF the list just means that you're not getting called again this cycle... which they wouldn't have done anyway.
Photo of someones arse (Score:2)
When I was at uni in England the T.V. Licensing Board kept sending me nasty letters telling me to buy a T.V. License, despite the fact we already had one for the address. Eventually we got such a photo (which a friend had kindly left on a housemates camera that was laying around during a house party) and sent it to them in their reply paid envelope.
Fighting Back: At War With Telemarketers (Score:2)
Click here to read it [sexcowairlines.com].
IRNI
Expansion on CmdrTaco's idea (Score:2)
Here's a way to make that method even better: instead of sending back the envelopes empty (which I assume you are doing), stuff them. Preferably, stuff them with some heavy objects. That way, it'll cost more than 30 cents to get them sent back.
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Check in...OK! Check out...OK!
Re:Stupid and persistent (Score:2)
Re:Dude, evolve some more (Score:2)
In Canada I understand this to be untrue - ANYTHING with an address and put in a PostOffice Box MUST be delivered - no matter what it is. Im almost certain its federal law. This is why you can send mail without a stamp - it still gets delivered.
Oh - and I do the same thing with them, ive mailed shoeboxes filled with dirt
Re:Remember... (Score:2)
And that's all good with me. I haven't a significant beef with the employees. I've had shitty jobs from time to time when hungry enough so I appreciate their position.
Just so long as I get to slow them down.
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Re:How is it morally bankrupt? (Score:2)
That is a truly ridiculous argument for "an- eye-for-an-eye", mate. Do you think it is ethical for you to go down to the market for a bottle of Pepsi? Well, according to the Categorical Imperitive, no, because if EVERYONE when down to the market anarchy would ensue with riots and murders leading to pitched battles as the supplies of Pepsi dwindled, and could eventually lead to the downfall of Western Civilization. Give a break.
As for your, er, analysis of the Prisoner's dilemma, "tit for tat" maximizes only the two prisoner's COLLECTIVE expected utility. The best result for a given prisoner is to sell out the other prisoner given that the other prisoner doesn't talk. That's why it's called a dilemma, mate. Tit for Tat did NOT win, because if you believe the other prisoner is honest, you can screw him and do better for yourself than if you were honest.
I am a scientist and I don't believe an eye for an eye is OK or workable. We live in an obstensibly civilized society, and to forgive is divine.
The best mailing list there is for junk mail (Score:2)
Yes, this is the list you can submit your name and address to indicate that you don't want to receive unsolicited commercial postal mail. And to some extent it will cut down on certain types of regular junk mail.
But my old boss at Working Software [working.com], Dave Johnson, who wrote the chapter on direct mail in The High-Tech Marketing Companion [fatbrain.com], says that the Mail Preference Service has the very highest response rate of all - for certain kinds of product offers.
(For a long period of time Working Software made most of its sales through direct mail, and Dave became quite an expert on direct mail. This was after he nearly went bankrupt listening to "channel people".)
What kind of product offers sell through this list?
Studded dog collars, burglar alarms, personal security devices, gun magazines and in general products that are aimed at people who are concerned with personal security and just want to be left alone.
Being on the DMA opt-out list doesn't actually prevent you from receiving mail. Instead, members who care to bother (usually because they don't want to waste money sending mail to people who won't respond) get the list periodically and use it to prune their in-house lists. So for lists whose owners bother to go to the trouble, you will be taken off some lists.
But studded dog-collar vendors just take the list and print up mailing labels!
Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc
Re:Lex Talionis is a morally bankrupt code (Score:2)
The irony is simply amusing, that's all.
Re:Remember... (Score:5)
Me: "May I ask your name?"
Telemarketer: "Joe...I have a great dea..."
Me: "May I ask your last name Joe?"
Telemarketer: "I don't see why you'd need that."
Me: "May I remind you that under FCC regulation you are required to state your first and last name upon request?"
Telemarketer: "..I didn't know that...Joe Doe."
Me: "Then I guess I can inform you that it is your employer's responsibility to inform you of FCC regulations, and that if you're going to making these calls, the FCC requires you to know these regulations. If your employer does not inform you of the regulations, they are committing a felony. May I ask your employers name?"
Telemarketer: "Wow... I didn't know that. I work for Credit Card Company X."
Me: "Joe, I asked YOUR employer. You work for a telemarketing firm, not a credit card company."
Telemarketer: "I'm not allowed to tell you that.
Me: "Then I may remind you that under FCC regulation that you MUST state your employer's name as well as your immediate supervisor's name upon request."
Me: "Furthermore, if I request to be added to your 'Do not call' list, you MUST add me to the list. If your employer is not keeping a list, they are subject to fines up to $500,000, and I am entitled to a $500 voucher."
Telemarketer: "Sir, I just called to ask..."
Me: "You never stated your employers name. Please don't commit a felony, Joe."
Telemarketer: "Phone Services X."
Me: "Please add me to your do not call list. If I get a call from Phone Services X within the next 5 years, I will hold you, Joe Doe, and your employer, Phone Services X, responsible. I will contact the FCC and you will be prosecuted."
*click*
Re:Jeovah (was Re:Remember...) (Score:3)
A friend of mine gave me a very simple approach to get to leave temporiarily: Answer the door with your phone in your hand.
For a more permanant solution, answer the door with the lower receiver of your AR-15 in one hand, and your cleaning cloth in the other.
I actually did a variant of this once: I lived in an apartment with an exterior landing that was shared with another apartment. In that other apartment lived (as near as I could tell) a large number of jail-bait teenybobbers who thought they were God's gift to the universe. They would
(Before anybody makes the obvious comment: I don't mess with jailbait.)
One day, my friends and I had gone shooting at one of their farms, and we had returned to my place to clean the weapons. The teeny's were doing their usual, hanging around being in everybody's way.
Funny, how people get out of your way when you have a rifle over one shoulder, a shotgun in one hand, an ammo can in the other, and have two holsters on your belt.
After the six of us had each made three trips from the cars, and had finally finished carrying the firearms into the apartment, and had started on the reflex weapons (longbows, crossbows, etc.), the teeny's disappeared into their apartment.
Funny, ever since then the aways got out of our way, never bothered my friends or me, and kept their music at a reasonable level....
Re:Remember... (Score:3)
telemarketer : Let me tell you about our new deal which allows you to pay multiple credit card bills on one monthly bill, while we take a 50% cut.
You : Wow, that sounds like a GREAT deal. I can't believe it. Honey, come here and listen to this.
telemarketer : Yes, all we have to do now is get all your credit card information, including card number and expiration date.
You : This is a great deal, tell me how to sign up. I can't wait to reap the rewards!
Keep it up, and just like politicians, just avert all questions leading for information with remarks of how great a deal it is. Eventually either the telemarketer gets frustated and hangs up, or you get bored. Sometimes the telemarketers even laugh and voluntarily let you go.
Or you can just follow the information at the JunkBuster's telemarketing-reduction page [junkbusters.com].
Dude, evolve some more (Score:3)
--
MailOne [openone.com]
before the web... (Score:5)
he finally started saying "Oh, you need to talk to the corporate office, and ask for Mr. Wolf."
Of course, he gave them the ph. number of the local zoo...
Re:Credit card/solicitation calls (Score:3)
Recording, disclosure of do-not-call requests:
If a person or entity making a telephone solicitation (or on whose behalf a solicitation is made) receives a request from a residential telephone subscriber not to receive calls from that person or entity, the person or entity must record the request and place the subscriber's name and telephone number on the do-not-call list at the time the request is made.
[junkbusters.com]
This seems to say that even if they have some processing to do, they are liable the instant you notify them. Try quoting this section to them and see how they respond.
Re:spam fighting (Score:5)
So do something positive (but annoying) (Score:3)
One Mormon guy I know starts telling telemarketers about his religious beliefs -- annoying, yes, but at worst he's annoying, and at best he can hope he's changing someone's life. So why not try evangelizing YOUR favorite cause, religion, book, band, or whatever you think might make the world a better place!
TELEMARKETER: I'm calling to inform you about HomeSelect, a brand new program from MegaCard...
YOU: That's great! You know, I have something I'm really excited about too -- have you ever used the open source text editor vim? I've been using things like BBEdit and CodeWrite for a while, but vim is amazing.
(And now the question is, who will flame me first? People who don't like Mormonism? People who don't like vim? BBEdit Bigots? CodeWrite haters? I love slashdot! )
--
Other proven uses of post-paid envelopes and cards (Score:5)
What we did was go to all the libraries and workplaces we could, gather all the postage-paid subscription cards, and write various different economic messages, asking the magazines and software companies to use recycled paper for some of their material. For software companies, it was the manuals; for magazines it was just the insert cards (paper plants to produce clay-content magazine picture quality paper did not exist in North America at the time).
One of the reasons it worked was we had a limited targetted message asking for something that was not only acheivable, but was cheaper too.
For some of these we made stamps to stamp all the cards. Then when our group had collected a few thousand of the cards, we'd send off bundles of 100 or so in different mailboxes throughout the city. For a period of five to ten days. Which meant that thousands of these postage-paid cards would flood the target for weeks on end, from various places, and various people, all at the cost of the magazine which published them.
As a result, a number of positive things happened. Magazines started to send only three or four of those post-paid insert cards in the magazine (before we'd get 20-30 per issue, which kept falling out). They started using recycled paper for the inserts, and sometimes even the magazine (e.g. Science News). And software manuals started being printed on recycled paper.
And since demand for recycled paper increased ten-fold, new non-chlorine recycled paper plants were built in the US and Canada, saving untold forests from being logged.
If only everyone were like me.... (Score:4)
The point is not to piss off the telemarketer, that's just fortuitous. The point is to take up as much time on a fruitless call as possible.
Telemarketers' business models depend on their getting through the negative calls in as little time as possible. That is, they *depend* on us snarling and hanging up on them. If instead, the custom were to chat with them indefinitely, the business would become unprofitable, because they couldn't cycle through the negative calls quickly enough to get to a profitable margin of positives. In a polite society, telemarketing doesn't work.
Re:Remember... (Score:5)
The same can't be said for spammers, though, since they typically are self-employed jerks...
Spam revenge (Score:3)
Did it work? Maybe. The Annals of Improbable Research (www.improb.com), formerly the Journal of Irreproducible Results (URL to hijacked IP denigrated), published a study in which they had mailed odd and bulky items with correct postage and addresses. The USPS seems to have been imperfectly willing to maintain their unflappable image (what unflappable image!), so not everything got to where it was supposed to.
--Blair
"The bison's in the mail."
Re:Remember... (Score:3)
They show the current rules there and explain how they are trying to get complete coverage of these rules. There's also a link to the document, but this press release sums it up quitenicely.
I found it interesting that they prefer HTML for electronic comments...
Don't just send them empty! (Score:5)
- Little plastic army men.
- Out of focus photographs.
- Change. (Costing more in postage than it's worth)
- Lettuce.
- A printed warning about the Goodtimes virus.
Re:Remember... (Score:3)
That "poor guy" made the decision to take a job as un-ethical as telemarketing. He knows going into the job he will get abuse, and personally, I think he deserves it.
I consider telemarketing to be the worst kind of spam... at least with postal spam or email spam I can easily dismiss it, and it ususally doesn't interrupt what I'm doing at the moment.
Re:Lex Talionis is a morally bankrupt code (Score:5)
We're in our cushy air conditioned offices working on computers and suddenly exacting retribution on a spammer is "brutish"? It's like a playful slap on the wrist, which will perhaps make them a little wiser.
Re:Dude, evolve some more (Score:5)
I think flat scrap iron would be the thing. That way it will fit *inside* the envelope. See this article [improbable.com] for more info about what you might be likely to get away with mailing. And be sure to give your postal servant a small box of chocolates as a thanks.
Re:Remember... (Score:4)
Sorry, there's no ethical "get out of jail free" card for the poor. Just because someone is willing to pay for a service doesn't make it right.
--G
Awesome link! (Score:3)
--
MailOne [openone.com]
Don't respond! (Score:4)
This may be a way for them to confirm.
If they have a domain, trace it back to their provider! Let their provider cut off the service or their provider's provider do it.
I have called spammers and they hang up, so I call back and explain to them how rude it is.
What we have to do is to stop the people providing the SPAM lists. What about the SPAMMERs using open relays being charged with the computer tresspass statute--for using a mail relay w/o authorization?
Send "sparkles" (Score:4)
They are stick tenaciously to EVERYTHING, including the scan heads of the mail sorters, and jam up the works. Word has it that it takes about 1/2 hour to clean up after this happens
Re:Dude, evolve some more (Score:4)
Sorry.
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