Month: December 2004

Why are spammers such assholes?

Ok, spammers are lowlife lying scumbag thieves. That much is a given, and it’s not exactly news. So why am I upset? Well, because a spam got through my filters. And not just any spam, but a spam advocating a cause I support – helping the UCC get their commercial on the air in spite of anti-gay backlash from CBS and NBC. And to make it worse, it went to one of my role accounts, not my normal account. I occassionally post to usenet with this role account, but almost always just to groups that are local to that role, although sometimes I use it to post to other newsgroups in the region or to the news.admin groups. I never have, and I never will, use this email address to sign up for newsletter or ask for information – that would kill the very reason for having role account.

I immediately fired off a complaint, pointing out that before I got the spam I was supporting the cause, but now that they’ve descended to spam I wasn’t. No response, except a few days later I got another spam. This time I said what I really thought.

What followed was the usual dance of denials, lies, evasions, and general scumbaggery that anybody who has talked to a spammer is all too familiar with.
Some highlights:

If your name wound up on our list without your consent it was assuredly not due to anything intentional, such as harvesting.

Bullshit.

And by the way, a courteous note would have done just as well.

My experience suggests not.

So why am I upset? It’s just business as usual for a spammer, right? Well, except this one professes to be a non-demoninational religious organization, and I sort of expect them to have a moral code. I’m naive that way.

Mail filters written by idiots.

I got an email from my Dad, and since it’s a Microsoft Turd document I tried to bounce it to my work account so that I could read it there. But it bounced:

<tomblin@foo.bar.com>: host mailgate5.foo.bar.com[192.232.121.235] said: 550
    Message refused - Banned text appeared in header or body: 'shit' (in reply
    to end of DATA command)

I piped the message through strings to see where the banned text occurred. It was somebody’s name – “Phil Matushita”. Words fail me.

With a mark-down like this, how can you NOT afford it?

Screen grab from a Garmin GPS dealer.

The price has been marked down from $799.99 to $799.00. Well, I couldn’t afford it before, but now…

(Note: This is not a hint. This is the not the GPS I want anybody buying me for Christmas. If I were in the market for a new GPS, it would be the Garmin 296. Thank you.)