[Asterisk-Users] Fw: Gift for Mark Spencer

[Joe Greco]

> On Tue, 2004-11-23 at 19:06 -0600, Joe Greco wrote:
> [..snip..]
> >
> > On the flip side, senders of spam should not expect recipients to go 
> > to much (or any) trouble on their behalf, especially given the current
> > spam environment on the 'net.  They - not hackerwaCker - blew the 
> > surprise by sending the message to recipients unknown.
> 
> I'll just summarise all you said into one conclusion which remains the
> same as to what Steven said: hackerwanker is a moron.
> 
> :-)

No, that's not what I said.  If you want the short, brutal summary, it'd
be:  

The spammer who sent the message is the moron.

Really, there are all sorts of bizarre phishing schemes and other scams out
on the 'net.  If you go asking random people for donations, and cannot put
the request in the context of solid well-knowns, such as an organization or
individual who is clearly legitimate, then it looks quite possibly like a
scam of some sort, and posting it to the list isn't exactly unreasonable -
it's more like a "watch out for this scam" community service.

However, we also have to remember that even being a well-known wouldn't make
it right to send unsolicited bulk e-mail.

So.

It's unfortunate (for the people trying to organize the gift) that
hackerwacker sent an alert to the list.  It's not unusual, though.  As
service providers, many of us actively encourage customers to put a stop 
to abuses of the mail system such as chain letters and other scams by 
asking people to take active countermeasures.  I'd consider this to be 
an example of just such a countermeasure.

It seems fitting that spammers should not have their goals furthered by the
act of spamming.  It would seem that this is precisely what happened in
this case.

I'll further note that I did receive a copy of the spam in question.  While
I did not choose to complain to the relevant sites about it, or to post a
message to the mailing list, the Boulder Pledge is certainly applicable -
I will not be contributing towards a gift effort that spammed.

... JG
-- 
Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net
"We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I
won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN)
With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.