“Groovy Motherfucker”

Going Down

The 99cent store is now down to 25cents. That’s now cheaper than the 33cent store on The Simpsons .

Lisa: Uh, according to the “Mexican Council of Food”, this expired two years ago.
Homer: Sure, by their standards, but we live in America.

Agent Orange

I’m glad we have Dave Barry to think about the important issues:

What if, for the past year or so, terrorists, working in U.S. factories, have been putting lethal biochemical agents on… duct tape?

Arrested Development

Daryn just got back to me. SpamArrest have posted an apology on their front page:

Spam Arrest Apologizes

Recently we have received some inquiries regarding a mailing we delivered to some verified users of Spam Arrest.

While this contact was completely covered by our privacy policy, our customers concerns come first.

Because of this, Spam Arrest has ceased sending such solicitation and will not send unsolicited bulk email again. Spam Arrest apologies for any inconvenience this action may have caused anyone.

I still hope they rot in hell for ever thinking this was a good idea, but I’ll stop forwarding him my spam. On Monday.

Time is Relative

Lots of people blogging bitching out that Symantec knew that Slammer was coming. This stems from a press release put out by Symantec this morning.

From the Wired News article (emphasis mine):

“Within 10 minutes of debuting at 5:30 a.m. (UTC) Jan. 25 (9:30 p.m. PST, Jan. 24), the worm was observed to have infected more than 75,000 vulnerable hosts,” the researchers’ report read in part.

According to Symantec spokesman Yunsun Wee, Symantec issued an alert about Slammer to DeepSight Threat Management System subscribers “at approximately 9 p.m. PST on Friday, Jan. 24.”

Most of the rest of the Internet didn’t spot Slammer until shortly after midnight EST on Saturday, Jan. 25th.

So apparently “the rest of the Internet” didn’t see Slammer until “midnight EST”. Symantec knew about it at “9pm PST”. So… that would be exactly the same time then. (0500 UTC)

The real problem here is that Symantec are boasting that they gave their customers a whole 40 minutes notice of a problem. At midnight. On a Friday night. Woo! Sign me up for that service.

Win32Assassin

Since I’m posting so much about spam today, I might as well publicise the fact that my long-time mailbox saviour, SpamAssassin , is now available in a shiny new relatively-easy-to-use free Windows flavour.

Revenge, Spam, etc.

Following my my earlier post, an update on the situation.

First, Daryn replied from a different account (daryn@marinated.org):

Subject: Spam violation, washington state

Rod, 

 

Please do not forward your spam to Spam Arrest. We are a washington state company,

and as such, can take legal action against you for this.

 

Thanks,

 

Daryn 

Spam Arrest

However, I’ve checked the Washington state law and don’t believe I crossed the line, since I had no way of knowing if Daryn himself was a resident of WA.

Then he mailed me again

rod,

please remove me from your spam list.

As a washington state resident, if you do not honor my request, I can file a

legal complaint against you.

Thanks,

Daryn

Wrong again. WA state law says nothing about honouring opt-out requests. Only that you cannot a) forge the From address, b) forge a header or c) use a deceitful subject line.

Hmmm... An anti-spam firm who don't know anything about their local anti-spam laws? Promising.

So the forwarding of spam will continue.

In other news, I'm not the only one to be bothered by this spam, which means that SpamArrest's own mail servers are now appearing on various blacklists. Not a good sign for an anti-spam service.

Revenge is a Dish Best Served with Spam

This morning, I opened up my email and surfed through a mailing list I frequent. I was surprised to find a spam email waiting for me in the folder:

Subject: ADV: Enjoy a spam-free inbox

You may remember recently sending an email to a Spam Arrest customer,

and receiving a response asking you to visit our website and type in

a word that was shown to you in a picture.

It was pretty easy, wasn’t it?

Did you know that that one simple step stops virtually all spam from

entering our customers’ inboxes?

You too can enjoy the benefits of a spam-free inbox.

We are so confident you’ll like our product, that we’d like to offer

you a 30-Day free trial. If you are un-satisfied for any reason, just

cancel your account before the end of the trial and you’ll pay nothing.

Click here to visit our website and start your trial:

http://spamarrest.com/affl?1980401

Spam Arrest

Take control of your inbox!

Yes, that's right -- An unsolicited email advertising a spam-trapping service.

The reason I received this email is because one of the subscribers to the mailing list had subscribed to SpamArrest's service. Because I got annoying messages every time I mailed the list asking me to "validate myself", I eventually succumbed and went through the validation process. And because I validated myself, SpamArrest now think I'm fair game to receive their advertising messages.

I emailed spamarrest at privacy@spamarrest.com, ccing pr@spamarrest.com for good measure:

In what way, shape or form, exactly, does this comply with your posted
Privacy Policy?

I am absolutely sickened that an “anti-spam company”, of all people, is

spamming “passers-by”.

I did not opt-in for your publicity material.

Kindly explain your actions before I start publicizing this case more.  (I

think CNet and Wired News would love to make a story out of this)

rOD.

(I actually notified Wired News and CNet immediately. Ironically, two CNet journalists use SpamArrest's service, so I got two "please verify yourself" messages back. Needless to say, I didn't follow through.)

At 1.30pm, I received the following response:

Rod,

Our privacy policy states that we are allowed to contact “senders”, that is,

the people who send our customers email.

Please refer the section entitled “HOW DO WE USE THE PERSONAL INFORMATION WE

COLLECT?”.

You may use the opt-out link in the email, or visit

http://spamarrest.com/optout to remove yourself from receiving future

promotional emails from us.

Daryn

Spam Arrest

Fair enough -- In summary, "If you email one of our customers, we are allowed to spam you". So I replied:

Dear Daryn,

In accordance with my posted privacy policy at

http://arsecandle.org/~rod/daryn.html I will now start forwarding spam I

receive to you.

I hope you enjoy it.

Love and hugs,

rOD.

Daryn has since received a copy of every spam I have received for the month of February so far. That's approximately 450 spams. And he's been added to my reporting scripts for any spams I receive from here on in.

Awaiting further developments.

UPDATE: 16:09pm Read up on what happened next.

“I don’t want to debate world politics with you.”

Last week, I read this transcript of rightwing talking head nutjob Bill O’Reilly lose it with someone who didn’t agree with his point of view, but actually hearing it is something else entirely. What a freakshow!

Snake Eating Its Own Tail

Wired News answers a question I’ve long wondered: What happens when you attempt to purchase the services offered by spam?

Two Will Disappear And Never Be Seen Again

A clue regarding “The Slippery Slope”, care of Mr. Lemony Snicket.

Why I Lurve The Inertnet

My admittedly slender grasp on sanity is, once more, kept intact by IMDB.

On Saturday, I had a flashback to a sit-com I vaguely remembered from the early 90’s. I asked Joy. “What was the sitcom about a witch or something that featured that woman who played the girlfriend of Joey’s with the fruitbaskets?” Joy was no help.

Thankfully the inernet was: Free Spirit. (Featuring Alyson Hannigan?!?)

Never Mind The Bootlegs

The Globe has an article about a potential new service for gig-goers which could be rather groovy.

Clear Channel [has plans to] record live CDs of its shows and sell them to patrons within five minutes after those shows end.