Now, only two posts show up, both spam, with a list of new posts down the side. When I click on one of those, I get an "all posts have expired or been deleted."
A little less point to this every day, at least with Google.
I mostly lurk, but I have learned much from this NG.
It would be an awful shame to let it go to the SPAM trash without a fight. I really do not understand why more is not being done by all levels to fight the SPAMMERs. All they do is destroy. They need to be destroyed... or at least put out of buisness. Same goes for the countries that host or harbor them.
Axel
Since most have been coming from Google Mail I have been forwarding them to snipped-for-privacy@google.mail , but without success. Maybe if others would complain also.
Charley
When my cable internet connection dropped usenet, I used Usenet Monster (cost about $3 a month) for several months with good results. Then was able to get high speed through BellSouth and they offer usenet so dropped the stupid cable.
Charlie I think that while this crap is going on a lot of us are not posting as much. When this crap dies down, and it will as it always has, I think the more relevant posting will pick up again. I have not been seeing many new posts lately either.
Google will do nothing, usenet peers of google will do nothing. But if it were to affect Googles bottom line they might do something. Unfortunate but it is the ads on Googles sites that make them money that they care about not how much garbage they spew out of they're ports. Nor do they care if they violate copyrights.
Mark (sixoneeight) = 618
Leon, I'm sure you're right, but the Google header shows 212,xxx posts, 10 per page, with only two up. Now, it's showing 10.
I'm halfway convinced it's the idiots running my satellite set-up, anyway. I get 404 errors on about every fourth page change, in most programs.
I forgot about you having satellite service, you have my sympathy on the matter. It's a shame that you cannot simply access directly with OE and not have to go through a 3rd party.
SFWIW, until recently, had Earthlink.net on dail-up, using O/E for newsgroups and T/B for mail.
E/L does a pretty good job filtering out the crap.
Lew
Which countries do think host or harbor spammers?
Now check out the top ten here:
Even worse, they must be getting some customers. Why would you continue to spam unless you got positive responses and made money? I can't imagine people supporting these bastards.
What legislation? Virginia recently sent one to jail. I'm no longer in favor of jail terms for spammers. Fine 'em the total amount of everything they own, and then execute the bastards.
What legislation would that be, Fred? Be specific.
I refer to the aptly named CAN SPAM act of 2003. Apropos as it protects spammers from state prosecution for spamming per se.
If you google the news.admin.net-abuse.email newsgroup for
2003 you will find that anti-spam activists had successfully killed S-877, a bill that would regulate, rather than prohibit spam. It was opposed by anti-spam (actually, I prefer the term pro-internet) advocates becuase of a highly unusual (for consumer protection legislation, it included a provision expressly pre-empting stricter state laws. As woowdorkers in California know, states may in general impose and enforce stricter regulations on products and service within their own borders, even if those same products and services are involved in interstate commerce.However in the Fall of 2003, California passed legislation scheduled to take effect January 1, 2004, that prohibited the act of sending unsolicited commecial email to or from a computer that was physically located in California.
S-877 was hastily revived and passed unanimously by the Senate, and less than a half dozen Congressmen (Kucinich among them) voted agains the House counterpart. S-877 thus became the (they) CAN SPAM (you) act of 2003, taking effect on January 1, 2004.
Like gall, nearly all spam may be divided into three types [1].
1) from major Spam Gangs. There are a little more than a hundred of these, down from nearly 200 a few years ago probably as a result of takeovers by the Russian mafia which now dominates this category. About 80% of spam comes from these organizations. They probably do make money from direct marketing of their spamvertized products, or indirectly after establishing a 'business' relationship. These include the Nigerian 419 spammers. 2) from ;'Chickenboners'. The term was coined for 'affiliate' spam based on the image of a part-time spammer who, on his way home from flipping burgers at his daytime job, stops off at a fired chicken place and then 'works' late into the night eating chicken while spamming from his PC in his bedroom down in his Mother's basement. These guys probably lose money, but the parent organization that sold them their 'affiliate' status as part of a pyramid scheme probable makes makes money. While specific chickenboners most likely have fairly short careers, there is a sucker born every day producing an endless supply of chickenboner trainees for the sellers of get rich quick schemes like buying judicial judgements, or pre-paid legal services.Probably some of the stock price pump and dump spam is sent by chickenboners too, though that scam does require some capital, credit, or at least leverage.
3) from Mainsleaze. This is the spam promoted by the Direct Marketing Association. Essentially it is spam sent by or on behalf of otherwise supposedly legitimate companies. MOST of those terminate their spamming after being in- undated by complaints and threatened with blacklisting. Kraft Foods, notorious for it's Gevalia Coffee spam is the most noteworthy exception, even using auto-lie software to respond to complaints.Of these three groups, only the third can be kept in check by legislation and public outcry. The second come and go too fast and the first survive by hiding in plain sight on the world's major ISPs.
One of the most common, if not the most common, misconceptions about spam is that the ISPs don't konw who or where the spammers are. If Spamhaus can find them, surely their own hosts can too. If nothing else, they only have to visit the Spamhaus.org webpages and look themselves up in the tables.
The (they) CAN SPAM (you) act of 2003.
Spammers who are prosecuted under state laws are prosecuted for other crimes incidental to the spamming, typically some variation on fraud or theft of service from an ISP, but never for spamming per se. Many COULD be prosecuted by the Feds because they stupidly fail to comply with the provisions in the Federal law.
I wonder if anyone, anywhere, has ever done a study on the effectiveness of spam. I know it must be cheap, but is it at all effective? You'd think that anyone in the world with even minimal brain wave activity wouldn't respond, particularly since the odds are probably even or better that it's some other kind of SOB loading up to lay a virus or other fun program on the responder.
Charlie Self wrote in news:922f9c55-865b-4f31-9856- snipped-for-privacy@k13g2000hse.googlegroups.com:
Charlie, If you think about it, spam is very much like telemarketing or mass mailings. I don't know how net savvy you are, but sending a million or ten million mailings is not expensive nor difficult (especially going through certain countries). If just 1 percent (only a number, not meant to be accurate) respond, you can do well on little investment. I would guess there are many men with small peckers (in their own mind) or have difficulty getting it up. I don't know about you, but at least twenty thousand spammers thought I did and offered me many costly ways to solve the problem. They keep doing it because enough people will buy. I know you wouldn't, but I did. Now I can't find a pair of trousers large enough to contain my massive member. Reminds me of an old story.
An old gunny is sitting in a club in Diago slopping down suds and notices this young marine a few stools down eyeing every woman that enters the place. Every time the boot saw a woman he liked, he would say to them "tickle your ass with a feather, lady?". The woman would reply with "What did you say?" and the young marine would say "mighty bad weather we've been having lately". The woman would reply "yes it is" and continue on. A few more Sam Magoos later the old gunny went up to the young marine grabbed him by the stacking swivel and said "what is this shit you're pulling on these women?". You say to them "tickle your ass with a feather lady" and then when they say "what did you say" you say "mighty bad weather we've been having lately". The young marine shakingly said "I ask every woman I see if I can tickle their ass with a feather; most say what did you day? And I reply "mighty bad weather we've been having lately", but at least one will say yes you can and I have a great night. The gunny thought for a minute and told the youngster he was a disgrace to the Corps and get the f*ck out of there. A few brews later he was thinking "maybe the kid had something there and I'll give it a try. A very attractive woman just happened to walk by. "Hey lady" he said; "stick a feather up your ass?" "What did you say" she replied. The gunny said "Oh it's raining like a f*ck out".
Hope that explains spam.
I think there have been a few I don't see how one could gather statistics or do a proper accounting without the cooperation of the spammers. Quite frankly, I'd be skeptical of such data provided by legitimate marketers and so am especially doubtful of anything a spammer had to say about its profits. Keep in mind that many, if not MOST spammers already had a criminal history before getting into spam.
It seems plausible that supposed revenue from selling 'make penis fast' pills are being used to lauder other illegal income.
Such as the US.
Spam is a particularly egregarious example of cost-shifting. The recipients are footing most of the cost for delivery. It's like telemarketers calling collect. Hence the zeroth law of spam [2].
I have heard numbers as high (yes, high, not low) as 1 /100,000 spams result in a sale, while the complaint rate has been quoted as ten to one hundred times the sales rate.
One fellow I know says he bought so much from the spammers that he no longer had to leave the couch to go to the bathroom while watching TV.
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