Some Spammer Has a Crush on You 283
A friend of mine and I were bit by SomeoneLikesYou in the last week. The scam is elegant in its simplicity. The site teases you with an email claiming to know someone who likes you, then makes you guess who it might be by submitting their email address(es). Each of those addresses receives a teaser email just like yours. Rinse, repeat. I ignored the message -- obviously a fake; I couldn't possibly be anyone's crush :-) -- but my friend took the bait and fed it some demographic data and email addresses. Once she realized what was going on, she wrote to everyone apologizing for any spam they may have received. She also sent a nastygram to the site's operators.
It should be pointed out that there is no proof that SomeoneLikesYou is doing anything nefarious with the data they're collecting. However, their credibility is not strengthened by their faked WHOIS records and their meaningless doubletalk on privacy issues (the declaration, "We send precisely zero e-mail advertisements," says nothing about the behavior of their partners/affiliates.)"
awwwww damn (Score:5, Funny)
i wonder if you ever find out... (Score:1)
Re:i wonder if you ever find out... (Score:2)
Re:i wonder if you ever find out... (Score:2, Informative)
Now, the site just gave me another one of those "Try again" or "Think Harder" messages, however, a few hours later, both my real account and the fake one received a message saying there was a match on the list I'd submitted. One assumes the delay is to keep you entering email addresses even after you've entered the correct one.
It should be noted, however, that the match message didn't say who it was. It promised to reveal that if I signed up for some service. Since I already knew, I didn't bother, my best guess would be that, yah, once they've managed to get you to provide them with a big list of working addresses, and signed up for a service, generating income for them, they probably would have told me who it was.
Incidently, they don't tell you it someone removes you from their match list. Presumeably they don't want you to know they someone doesn't like you anymore. Perhaps we need a SomeHatesYou.com for this vital service... :)
As for the original message, this is problematic. The address is unfortunately both one that a lot of people, particularly someone matching the profile I got back mining for hints, might send me mail at. At the same time, it's also listed on a college website I admin, so it may have just been harvested. Who knows. If someone in that particular circle of friends likes me, they're going to have to be a bit more forward. The hints are vague enough to be almost useless if you have a large enough circle of friends. Basicly, if it's real, it's one of my "college friends", which I already knew based on the email address they used...
Eh bien, c'est la vie...
Re:i wonder if you ever find out... (Score:4, Interesting)
So when my address was spammed by SomeoneLikesYou, I got on the phone. Sure enough, the one person who actually did it was my not-so-security-minded girlfriend.
So when I hit the site, I entered only one email address--hers. The site didn't like that, and since it doesn't like bounces either, I just started registering aliases on my linux box. So we had a@mybox.net, b@mybox.net, c@mybox.net, and d@mybox.net.
And, sure enough, when it finally accepted that, it said I had a match! (I also had some 4 more emails popping up in my inbox....)
Since the site demanded that I pay up-front or sign up for affiliate info, I went on my merry way, happy to know I hadn't offended anyone else.
About a month later, though, I got this email "Are you sure this loser Sara is right for you?" which told me to come back and visit the site again, threatening to remove my information and promising not to spam me again. I received a second mesage, again titled "Are you sure this loser Sara is right for you?", before I created a new procmail rule.
I figured I was lucky, I got everything I wanted to know without it costing me anything but the time. I doubt many others were so lucky.
Re:i wonder if you ever find out... (Score:2, Funny)
Are you sure? Do you know if this loser Sara is right for you?
Oh No! (Score:3, Funny)
Those things are spam + social engineering (Score:5, Informative)
Argh, I hate spam.
Re:Those things are spam + social engineering (Score:2)
Lucky me I guess.
Re:Those things are spam + social engineering (Score:2)
How?
If you don't give the spammers your e-mail address, they can't spam you!!
The only provisio's are that your e-mail address isn't guessable, that you don't use your primary e-mail address with companies/sites that you don't trust (almost all web forms that you fill in for any purpose), and that your e-mail provider isn't scum (like Hotmail).
Just don't give away your email address (Score:5, Insightful)
- you have a job that requires that you post on public, technical mailing lists.
- you have a job where your email address ends up in whois records.
- you're the postmaster, hostmaster or any other sort of contact for a company.
- you don't need your email address to be publicly available for business reasons.
- somebody forwards an email that you sent them to a public mailing list.
- you've had the same, well-known email address since the days when it was considered a good thing to publicize your address.
- one of your friends or business associates gets a virus that causes your email address to end up getting sent off to a mailing list or something.
- your dipshit ISP allows VRFY.
- etc, etc, etc.
There's not always an easy way to keep from getting spam, even if you're relatively careful with your addresses.Re:Those things are spam + social engineering (Score:2)
I don't know who hosts your email, but it's quite possible they already have a spam filter in place. Evidently a quite good one.
Disposable addresses and Spamgourmet (Score:5, Informative)
Instead, get an account on Spamgourmet [spamgourmet.com], and you'll have as many disposable email addresses as necessary, that will work only as many times as you want. Then they become a direct link to
Seriously. This service rocks.
Re:Disposable addresses and Spamgourmet (Score:2)
This system makes it relatively easy for me to receive email from people who don't abuse the fact that they know my address, and extremely easy to filter the spammers to /dev/null, or better yet, set them up as spamassassin spamtraps, which will make it so incoming mail messages get automatically added to things like Vipul's Razor before they delete them.
Re:Disposable addresses and Spamgourmet (Score:2)
That's one of the things I do whenever I give an address to someone I don't trust, but it still doesn't stop other people from giving out a main address that you want to use.
That's one of the irritating and arguably unethical things that sites like crushmaster and someonelikesyou do -- they corner people in such a way that they can't find out if it's you without entering your real address.
This is obviously a ploy. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:This is obviously a ploy. (Score:5, Funny)
We did this in primary school (Score:5, Funny)
ME: Oh yeah? Who?
SOME GIRL: Will you pay me if I let you have a guess?
ME: I don't care, I'm rich, there you go. Is it SHE?
SOME GIRL: No. Nice try, though.
[later...]
SOME GIRL: Hey OTHER GIRL, I know somebody who likes you
SHE: Oh yeah? Who?
SOME GIRL: Will you pay me if I let you have a guess?
SHE: There you go. Is it stere0?
(note: I didn't have facial hair in primary school)
SOME GIRL: No.
I overheard them, and this is how SOME GIRL got rich by doing this to the whole school and how I got my first kiss a couple of weeks later.
Re:We did this in primary school (Score:3, Funny)
Re:We did this in primary school (Score:2)
Which one did you get your first kiss from,
SOME GIRL, or OTHER GIRL?
And no, I'm not gonna pay you for a hint...
[OT] My first real, true Kiss (Score:2)
It was from the other girl, Caroline. We were both nine; she had brown hair that went down to her neck, good grades in class, brown eyes and a gorgeous smile. We started "going out together" (read: spending time together holding hands and being too embarassed to say anything) after I sent her a love letter I had written on thick, orange paper. I think I still have the reply she sent me somewhere.
Anyway, we started spending time together, and one day we went up to her bedroom. We were both standing in a corner; she convinced me that I should go first. We closed our eyes and I gave her a peck on the cheek, then a rash kiss on her mouth. I didn't know what to say for a couple of minutes, and neither did she.
Well, that's it. I haven't seen her for a couple of years but I still remember how we both felt. What about you?
P.S.: This will probably get moderated down, but thinking about it made me feel great. Thanks! :-D
It's FAKE?! (Score:3, Funny)
Look at the bright side (Score:2)
Re:It's FAKE?! (Score:2)
So... what's a guy like you doing in a joint like this?
in Germany they do this on mobile phones (Score:5, Interesting)
To find out dial: 0190-whatever
0190 is in Germany the dialing prefix for Premium rate-services (from 1 to 10 euros/minute)
I didn't call but looked in the newsgroups if someone has: works exactly the same way you described:
- please give us some mobile numbers from persons you guess that might be it..
Someone's operating the scam in Holland too (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, speaking of googling, there was a hilarious spelling mistake at the end "Wil je weten wie je geheime *aanbieder* is?" ("Do you want to know who your secret admirer is", except they put an 'e' in "aanbidder" where a 'd' should be, "aanbieder" means "provider")
I couldn't find a reference on the internet to this operation, so I figured it might be legit. I called to the number they gave: 09062001372 (couple dozen eurocents a minute). They pulled the same routine as described above. I had to enter my own phone number (as if they didn't have it) then take a guess as to who left my number in the first place (I gave a bogus number). Then I was promised they'd SMS the number of my secret provider, but of course they never did.
I suppose this scam pays off quite well. I'm a pretty suspicious person as a rule, but in this case, especially after I couldn't find any information about it on the internet, I just had to check it out. They got about 3 minutes worth of high phone rates out of me.
Re:in Germany they do this on mobile phones (Score:2)
I tracked Googled for the postcode, tracked the number down to somewhere in a shady area of London where - how shall this? - desperate single folks would be guaranteed a choice from a variety of alternative "good times"... Quite a few interesting organizations all within the same block of town.
Funny that, they didn't get my business...
One time e-mail addresses (Score:3, Informative)
Read is once for your password. If you start receiving spam you know the originator and can iglore that address.
Spammotel provides in such a service. Also some providers allow you to use alias@your_name.your_isp.com, making it simple to track the origin of spam and making it easyer to filter (loveletter.com@my_name.my_isp.com)
Hotmail serves the purpose of one-time accounts very well. How hard is it to forget about a hotmail account anyway?
Re:One time e-mail addresses (Score:5, Informative)
Well.... (Score:2)
Get a domain, with catch-all email. If you mail to joe, send it with a return address of joe@myemaildomain.com. If you fill out a web form at sears, mark your address as sears@myemaildomain.com. My personal favourite is to mark the email address on my WHOIS form as dontspam@myemaildomain.com. When I go after a spammer, I can refer to that email address, and say that it only exists on my WHOIS form, and that they must be scooping emails from the WHOIS database. Poetic justice.
Re:Well.... (Score:2)
Like it or not, your close friends and family have to have your correct address, and in my family's case they are clueless enough to a) include that address in the cc line of some dopey "pass it on" email that goes to a bunch of stupid lamers that don't trim the headers and then my email address goes all over AOL and onto the spammers' lists and b) they use all this dopey poll site where you have to enter the email address of your friends and family so they can go answer your poll about what your favorite flavor of ice cream is. Conveniently, the privacy policy of that site even says (if you read it closely) we can use the info you submit however we want, but does the family read or even care about the privacy policy? Noooooooooo, and when I point it out they call me paranoid. Yeah, that's right kids, there are people out there who have made this nifty little poll site just so you can have fun, it doesn't have anything to do with them selling ads or collecting email addresses... and Santa put all those nice presents under the tree last year.
There is NO way to protect your preferred email address, but thank TPTB for good filters. And if the occasional "This is funny" email from my sister in law ends up in the junk bin, unread... well, that's where it belongs anyway.
Re:One time e-mail addresses (Score:2)
All my "friends" just happen to be spammers themselves.
"Here's my list of friends."
Re:One time e-mail addresses (Score:2)
And, american spammers, I don't give a shit about your laws on spam when you send me an email to my _swedish_ address. Come on people, there is something wrong here...
Re:One time e-mail addresses (Score:2)
Re:One time e-mail addresses (Score:2)
The FTC is acting against spam, at least scamming spammers, though not as much as you or I might like. I used to post in newsgroups with .gov addresses, but really -- what benefit is there in further bogging down the agencies that we'd like to help us?
Re:One time e-mail addresses (Score:4, Informative)
1. Register a username like "foo".
2. Register at the MegaSpam forum.
3. Tell them your e-mail address is megaspam.2.foo@spamgourmet.com.
4. You will be forwarded the next 2 mails from the MegaSpam forum, probably containing password details as such things.
5. Spamgourmet will then eat all mails from the MegaSpam forum.
They also allow you to list trusted senders, which don't advance the message count for your temporary address, reply address masking, and password prefixes so others can't make up new addresses with your username.
Pretty nice, especially as it's free and no ads or other catches. They have around 14,000 accounts as of today and eats about 12,000 spams/day.
And there's also despammed.org where any mails to that address will be filtered from spam before it's sent to your primary address or the web service. Everything on that site is free (and ad free) as well.
Re:One time e-mail addresses (Score:2)
Of course I've been using the same userid online since 95 and its in every spamer database in the world but I've also have a few thousand fake address that are out there just to slow down the spamers.
Re:One time e-mail addresses (Score:2)
It is pretty good. You can create a fake e-mail address like osifj823494@sneakemail.com and allows unlimited number of e-mails forwarded to your real email address.
You can easiliy detect if you are receiving spam from the fake e-mail address you created and easily realize which website sold your e-mail address to spammers. You can later delete that fake e-mail address and stop the spam.
The laws prove true once again... (Score:2)
(In case you're wondering, the other laws on spammers:
2 - Recursive, If spammer seems to be telling the truth, see Rule 1.
3 - Spammers are stupid.
And ofcourse, the uberrule (rule 0): Spammers are thieves)
You gotta be a sucker (Score:2, Insightful)
How many, "I love you's", "look at my pics", etc. does it take before the suckers of the world wake up??
Re:You gotta be a sucker (Score:2, Insightful)
or just plain lonely.
There are a lot of extremely lonely people around who figure "what have I got to lose; it's worth a try" and there you go.
You don't have to be stupid to be lonely.
Nothing immoral about this at all (Score:5, Funny)
"Mass email marketer ISO young, wealthy singles with low self-esteem and money to burn. Low IQ is a plus, gullibility even better. Turn-ons: making telephone calls at dinnertime, taking long walks on the beach with your money."
This is great (Score:2, Interesting)
Despite the fact people are getting unsolicited email from a company that they have had no business dealings with (and the fact that that is illegal...) this does seem to be an unique business tactic. Unique but sleazy and underhanded as well.
Re:This is great (Score:2)
This is NOT a scam. It is NOT a pyramid selling scheme. Use this proven technique and you could soon have a mailing list full of people to spam!
All you have to is follow the steps listed and you could turn your pathetic mailing list into as much as 30,000 or 40,000 people desperate to be spammed. I know it sound incredible but it's simple mathematics if you follow the steps listed.
Step 1.
Send an e-mail with a valid e-mail address attached to each person on the list.
1. XXX Teens! Animals! Wireless Networking! XXX
madeupname5435843529843@hotmail.com
2. Hey, just responding to your mail! fyt74
funkyluvva_98@yahoo.com
3. Great business opportunity!
bruoigf3@scam.com
4. Make $$$ FAST!
<>
5. Viagra onling!
<The Internet Chemist>
Step 2.
Now remove the top name from the list and add your name to the bottom of the list in the #5 position and move the other names up accordingly.
Step 3.
Post the article to at least 250 e-mail marketing companies. There are at least a million of these scum at any given time so try to post to as many of them as you can. Remember, the more you post to the bigger your potential return.
Step 4.
You are now an evil spammer yourself and should be seeing a huge list of victims within 7 to 14 days of your postings.
REMEMBER--- Honesty is the best policy! You really don't need to cheat to make this investment work for you. Please play fair and you too can and will make some real money by fleecing the gullible.
Business Model? (Score:2)
Karma: NaN (mostly due to meddling Slashcode programmers)
They're sleazy alright... (Score:2, Interesting)
Now I sometimes get junk from them, or from > their other alias [greetingwishes.com] in my hotmail account, which - interestingly - gets very little spam otherwise. Maybe because it 10+ chars long. Some of them were from legitimate companies too - some college in the UK even got duped into using their service to advertise itself.
A spammer using fraudulent advertising practices?! (Score:2)
Funnycard (Score:3, Informative)
Message from person_you_know via the FunnyCard Network.
It comes with a forged header, that says it's sent from the person_you_know (of course it was my sister). Clicking on the link then requires you to put in 4 (fake of course) email addresses to see the card. As soon as you submit it, it sends the same email to all 4 addresses with a forged return address of YOU (you get back the send errors that the fake users you sent to, don't exist). Displays some lame joke (that the sender never saw), and says goodbye.
Obviously fake (Score:2)
It was then it dawned on me that there was no identification code in the message ! If I dialed this number, how would the service know who I was ? How would it identify me, so that I could listen to my personal message ?
After that realisation, I dumped the message straight in trash, as I have done with the numerous follow ups.
Grats to ewhac! (Score:2)
Very cool. (:
Deduce the rate at which suckers are born (Score:5, Interesting)
$100 gets 10 million addresses. It costs $3,000 to send these 10 million messages. Let's assume a capital outlay of $3,100 per week, which seems reasonable.
A "positive response rate" of 0.1% to 1% is expected. Say 0.1%, since this scam is especially egregious, that's 10,000 responses per week, is 10,000 suckers per 60 * 24 * 7 = 10,080 minutes.
That means a sucker is born every minute (every 59.52 seconds, actually), which we already knew.
Re:Deduce the rate at which suckers are born (Score:2)
Even if you are forced to buy a T1 line to do it, at $1500/mo, you're still talking only $350-$400 a week, and you'll be able to send out about 8 times as much spam. Of course, all the costs go up with the size of the email, but you get the idea.
At these low rates, its obvious why you see so much spam. As long as the operating costs are so obscenely low, they don't need a high response rate. 1 out of 10,000 is enough. And there will always be enough suckers to satisfy the spammers. One of my ex girlfriend's family would spend around $300/mo on get rich quick schemes that were mailed to them (in the pre-spam days). They never seemed to get the hint. I'm sure there are are plenty of others who are the same way. Heck, I've even known people who make 6 figures who have bought into this crap. Not the same TYPE of crap mind you, but scams and spams all the way.
There's always enough gullible people out there who will believe anything. And as long as they have money to spend, the spammers will be out there fishing.
-Restil
The same has happened from other sources... (Score:2, Interesting)
However, I have managed to trace this guy to a limited company, and trace the premium rate number that he asks you to dial. Hopefully, the premium rate number will be shut down, his company can be had for false advertising, and his ISP's account will also be shut down.
Only on Slashnerd (Score:2, Insightful)
I've always thought so... (Score:2)
Does this mean... (Score:5, Funny)
Someone has a crush on the debian project (Score:3, Funny)
http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2001/deb
Re:Someone has a crush on the debian project (Score:2)
99.9% confidence (Score:2)
I sent a complaint to an address I found on the site, but quite predictably got no response. The sending of unsolicited email is illegal; all we have to do is prove they've been doing this beyond reasonable doubt. I think a class-action full of slashdotters who quite evidently nobody has a crush on will more than fulfil that requirement. Who's up for it?
I'm too smart to fall for this (Score:2, Funny)
Some addresses to feed into their system (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, if it's addresses they want, why not give them some addresses to play with...
This could be "educational"...
My solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Instead of putting down bogus addresses, I submitted every abuse@{$insert ISP here} address and anti-spam address that I could think of. That'll give them something to think about.
wait a minute, you mean (Score:2)
I want revenge, and I bet I'm not alone. (Score:2)
I want revenge. I want to make them pay. I want to find a hole in their system that allows me to exploit *their* resources. Why not write a bot that logs on to their website and enters believable, false email addresses, making their spam lists worthless and chewing up their processor time? There must be a legal way to exact at least an ounce of flesh from these manipulative, bottom-feeding insults to civilized human beings, and I want to hear suggestions.
This girl sent me a message that she had.. (Score:2)
Alice [slashdot.org] is a tease!
other uses for 'Directed Relationship Graphs' (Score:2)
They could learn a lot about you and your contacts without much effort: It's completely automated; no human interaction required.
Is there any rule against it? You're not opening the e-mails.
What would you do with the info? I can't think what marketers would do -- maybe target people who have more friends. A business might benefit from a study of how communication and info really flows in their company. For law enforcement, the info could be invaluable in trying to put together a picture of a criminal organization. And don't forget the true innovators, virus writers!
Re:other uses for 'Directed Relationship Graphs' (Score:2)
Reminds me of a law enforcement tactic that they bring out every few years.
Publish in the newspaper a list of names that include some people wanted on outstanding warrants that can't be tracked down, have no fixed address, etc.
But the advertisement is not "Wanted" rather, it's "Winners of Prizes in our Store Competition! Show up Saturday at 10 am to claim your prize!"
People actually deliver themselves to the right address, where they are cuffed.
Just block them... (Score:2)
Another day I received almost 50 e-mails (I have multiple addresses) including one at an address I haven't used since 1995. And yet, amazingly I am still single..
Suspicious Biographies (Score:2)
The main worry here is Mitre. If they are involved in government research, what are these guys up to? Is our government playing games with spam or is there some real, nefarious purpose here?
Re:Suspicious Biographies (Score:2, Informative)
I've worked for MITRE [mitre.org] for the past 11 years. We don't do spam. We do systems engineering, R&D, and IT support for the government: originally for the Air Force, then the other armed services, the FAA, and the IRS. MITRE is not an ordinary defense contractor; it comprises three Federally Funded Research and Development Centers [mitre.org]. The idea is to provide expert, unbiased technical advice which the customers can't keep in-house and which they can't get from for-profit contractors.
We always have a bunch of part-time undergraduate co-op students around -- I had one working for me in 2000. The two people named in the Salon article were co-ops in the nanotech research department in 1999. I'm quite sure that their duties didn't include a "someone likes you" spam engine, and I imagine they'll get an earful -- if they are still working for us, three years later -- from their unlucky manager.
I don't think it was very nice of Salon to link MITRE into this story. If you google for Tseng and Schleier-Smith, you find the MITRE link. If you paste that link into your story, it looks like MITRE is somehow connected. But we aren't.
The thing is (Score:2)
I almost worked for one of these companies, but I remembered that I have a concience.
How do these companies manage not to get blacklisted by lots of mailservers?
"See my vest see my vest, made from real gorilla chest"
I spoke with this guy (Score:2)
Too bad to see that he's still scamming -- he was very smooth, and I hoped he'd graduate and go into something more innocuous, like pimping.
They work at Mitre? (Score:2)
Do you have a crush on the CrushLink founder? (Score:2, Informative)
"Disclosure to Third Parties [crushlink.com]
We may occasionally, for entertainment purposes, disclose non-personally identifiable information to registered Crushlink users about other users.
We do not share our mailing list with any other company, person or entity."
For your entertainment purposes, the CrushLink founder Greg Tseng's contact emails at Stanford (physics dept.) and his Harvard alum email:
gytseng@stanford.edu [mailto]
gtseng@post.harvard.edu [mailto]
Show him you have a crush on him too by offering him things like "Free Inkjet Printer Cartridges", the "Lowest Mortgage Rates Around", how to make "$204,000 in 2 months", and hell how to "Increase Your Energy and Sex Drive!"
-fren
and here's a picture of the CrushLink founder (Score:2, Informative)
looks like he needs all the help he can get
-fren
Re:Do you have a crush on the CrushLink founder? (Score:2)
Old news... to me, anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
In general, you should never give anyone's email address out. Ie, treat it like a phone number; it's not yours to give out, it's the owner's.
I treat the 'send this to a friend' thing in the same way. If you read the privacy statements of a lot of web sites, you'll see that it refers to your privacy, but doesn't mention anything about the privacy of your friends' email addresses that you happen to type into those 'send this to a friend' boxes.
old news (Score:2)
Perfect for your own Blacklist (Score:2)
The way you *should* respond to spam (Score:2)
SomeoneLikesYou... (Score:2)
I got "bit" by SomeoneLikesYou repeatedly. Someone (who I don't even know) sent someone a legitimate crush, and they guessed a friend's address, who guessed me and all my friends... In my idiocy, I put in a list of addresses. They all got mail. I figured it out, and had a friend with his own domain setup some test accounts. I "guessed" their addresses, and, sure enough, they got mail right away.
I quickly sent mail to RackSpace, informing them that it was sending 'fraudulent' mail, and that I was 95% sure that it was being used for nothing other than address harvesting. I also mentioned the clearly-falsified headers. All I ever received was an automated reply. And... The site is still up.
Other people have said before that RackSpace knowingly harbors a bunch of spammers. I really would have no regrets blocking the entirety of RackSpace's netblocks.
This is surprisingly brilliant for a spammer, but that only makes me more angry. However, I created an account with them, and checked "Do not send me mail" option -- and have not received mail from them since. (In addition, the account they have gets NO spam.) So, while it's likely that they're making a huge database of spam addresses, I haven't gotten spammed yet (or else my hosting company has some REALLY good spam filters that I don't about), and they even seem to take removal requests.
Directed Relationship Graphs (Score:2)
Back in school, one evening, for entertainment, a few of us made a directed relationship graph of the people in our student house (about 60 or 70 people). An arrow from X to Y meant that X was interested in Y in more than a just friendly way.
We then made a copy, with the vertices of the graph unlabeled, and posted it on the house bulletin board, as a puzzle.
People did a lot better than I would have expected at finding their vertice on the unlabeled graph.
That was easy (Score:2)
Winners unite (Score:2)
Re:Winners unite (Score:2)
Re:Winners unite (Score:2)
Okay then, "contestants". Actually the award does not say they have to die, only ruin their reproductive organs thru dumb but purposeful behavior.
The SMS lover scam (Score:2)
Re:The SMS lover scam (Score:4, Informative)
At the bottom, it adds "The call is charged as a long distance call - For UK the charge is 2.5 Pence/sec" which is £1.50 per minute. Even then, I don't think that's enough to cover them legally, as I beleive they have to state the cost as a per-minute rate.
Fortunately, I'm not stupid enough to believe that these messages are for me. No-one I know sends messages in bright yellow with red and blue headings.
Just remember how UK phone charges work:
01/02 - standard long distance geographic number. Basically cheap.
05 - I don't think this is used, except 0500 which is free
07 - mobile, going to be quite expensive
08 - information. Generally increasing in cost as number increases, except for 0845 charged as local
09 - premium rate. Cost determined by operator, without limit.
00 - international. Again expensive.
If you don't know what the number is, don't dial!
Phone numbers (vaguely offtopic) (Score:2)
I didn't realise that 03 had already been designated as geographic. I thought it was just reserved. Good to see a comprehensive list anyway - I remember seeing a very old version of this list once back when phone numbers were simple.
Interestingly, I notice that there aren't any Birmingham 0121 8xx or 0121 9xx numbers, so I wonder how long it'll be before Birmingham numbers migrate to 0121 8xxx yyyy and so that can be renumbered 024 8xxx yyyy. That'd be good.
I found another page [oftel.gov.uk] that looks pretty interesting too.
Re:Just reward... (Score:2, Insightful)
Face it, people are stupid, and the internet is the place where they all meet.
Re:a question (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:a question (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:a question (Score:2)
Re:a question (Score:2)
I'll keep the amount and hostnames secret to protect the guilty ;) (yes, even the guys at M$ had a go at it, see here [hackerheaven.org])
Re:a question (Score:2)
Re:I've seen these for match.com and (Score:2)
'honey, I swear I didn't do anything, it's just spam, honest!'
Re:Same as MCI (Score:2)
No, that was not a pyramid scheme. A pyramid scheme requires you to get more people signed up under you. With friends and Family even if you were the last in the family/friend circle to sign up you got the better rates. A pyramid collappes as eventially there is nobody to sign up. Friends and family doesn't have to collapse, eventially everyone is saving money on the plan. A rather cool marketing scheme.
Mind you MCI wasn't always the best deal, and there are plenty of reasons to hate MCI. That scheme wasn't one (unless you got asked to switch and didn't want to).
Re:Who has a message for you (Score:2)
Re:temerity (Score:2)
Re:Her dog gets email? (Score:2, Informative)