Giza aka Douglas Muth's LiveJournal

Some people never change

Wed, 14 May 2008 13:30:14 GMT

MySpace wins $230 million anti-spam judgment

By ANICK JESDANUN

NEW YORK (AP) -- A notorious "Spam King" and his partner now owe MySpace about $230 million in damages after a federal judge awarded the popular online hangout what is believed to be the largest anti-spam judgment ever. The judgment is a big victory for MySpace, although service providers often have a tough time collecting such awards. But even if the News Corp.-owned site never collects, it hopes the judgment deters other spammers. "Anybody who's been thinking about engaging in spam are going to say, `Wow, I better not go there,'" MySpace's chief security officer, Hemanshu Nigam, told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "Spammers don't want to be prosecuted. They are there to make money. It's our job to send a message to stop them." U.S. District Judge Audrey B. Collins in Los Angeles ruled in MySpace's favor Monday after Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines failed to show up for a court hearing. Wallace earned the monikers "Spam King" and "Spamford" as head of a company that sent as many as 30 million junk e-mails a day in the 1990s. He left that company, Cyber Promotions, following lawsuits from leading Internet service providers such as Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, only to re-emerge in a spyware case that led to a $4 million federal judgment against him in 2006. "MySpace has zero tolerance for those who attempt to act illegally on our site," Nigam said in a statement. "We remain committed to punishing those who violate the law and try to harm our members." Nigam told the AP that Wallace and Rines created their own MySpace accounts or took over existing ones by stealing passwords through "phishing" scams. They then e-mailed other MySpace members, he said, "asking them to check out a cool video or another cool site. When you (got) there, they were making money trying to sell you something or making money based on hits or trying to sell ring tones." MySpace said the pair sent more than 730,000 messages to MySpace members, many made to look like they were coming from trusted friends, giving them an air of legitimacy. Under the 2003 federal anti-spam law known as CAN-SPAM, each violation entitles MySpace to $100 in damages, tripled when conducted "willfully and knowingly."

The rest of this article is here.

While I'm happy to see Sanford Wallace get his arse handed to him in court (again), I can't say this comes as a big surprise to me. He's been spamming since the late 90s, and has shown time and time again that he just can't be bothered to play by the same rules as the rest of us, and instead asserts his "right" to fill our mailboxes with crap so that he can make a quick buck.

If there was ever a case for "banning" someone from using the Internet at all, I think Wallace would be a good test case. I'm sure that this raises lots of ethical issues, however.

Anyway, I think this just goes to show that a leopard can't change his spots. (But he'll steal them off a cheetah's back!)

Mailserver stupidity I've not seen in YEARS

Tue, 13 May 2008 19:40:00 GMT

In years past, I used to have much more involvement with email and spam issues, and did my share tracking down the source of spams that came into my mailbox, and reporting them to the sender's ISP. During that time period, I came across my share of broken autoresponders that sat on abuse@ and postmaster@ mailboxes, that would improperly "report" spam complaints as spam, get into mail loops, or worse.

Eventually, the volume of spam, and more specifically forged spam hit such high levels that enough admins got the clue that since email is easily enough forged, having autoresponders that blindly trust the email message and send out an autoresponce based on that aren't such a hot idea. As the level of clue grew, autoresponder usage pretty much fell about the wayside.

Clearly the dumbasses at npgx.com.au missed that memo.

For your amusement, I present:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2961223/postmasternpgxcomau-broken-autoresponder-part-12

and

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2961305/postmasternpgxcomau-broken-autoresponder-part-22

As best I can tell, the following events happened:

1) Someone at npgx.com.au received a spam from a RoadRunner user (rr.com).

2) They reported this to abuse@rr.com.

3) abuse@rr.com responded with a standard auto-responce.

4) postmaster@npgx.com.au responded to that auto-responce with one of its own. Except that it parsed the message it got from abuse@rr.com, saw other domains there like spam.abuse.net and haltabuse.org, and decided to CC about 20 odd admins of those domains, as well as admins of their mailservers. That's how I got that email -- I am also postmaster@haltabuse.org. (That's the first message linked above)

5) I repsond to their postmaster address, pointing out that their autoresponder is broken.

6) I get the same autoresponce, flagging *my* message as spam, and CCing my mail server admins. (Second message linked above)

7) ???

8) ~~Profit!~~ Whoops! I really meant to say: npgx.com.au fails spamfighting 101.

Looking back at the above chain of events, I'd say that #3 was mildly questionable, but not unreasonable. But #4? That kind of automated "we'll email everyone who is remotely connected with this message" is just plain stupid, and I don't recall seeing it at least the last 5 years. If that is how npgx.com.au deals with messages that they perceive as spam, I do not think they will be in the email business for much longer...

A Movie I'd Like To See

Fri, 09 May 2008 16:01:22 GMT

It's game time!

Thu, 08 May 2008 18:22:32 GMT

Ganked from horny_oryx:

Leave a comment and I will:

A) tell you why I friended you,
B) associate you with something - fandom, a song, a color, a photo, etc.,
C) tell you something I like about you,
D) tell you a memory I have of you,
E) ask something I've always wanted to know about you,
F) tell you my favorite user pic of yours,
G) in return, you must post this in your LJ.

Random stuff

Thu, 08 May 2008 14:59:39 GMT

The Garfield Minus Garfield comic strip keeps getting stranger and stranger:

Who knew that John Arbuckle was really a bottom? (Linked because my parents read this LJ and probably don't know what that word means in this context :-P )

In other news, the Chipotle in Ardmore is offering FREE BURRITOS today! I'll be there around 7 PM feeding my fat face.

I bought Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel for the Play Station 2 last weekend and beat it last night. Yeah, I'd say it was worth the the $12.99 I paid for it... and not a penny more. I'm glad that game's over.

Some recruiter decided to call me yesterday at work. I cannot begin to wrap my brain around what prompts these people think: "Gee, I'm going to call someone at work during business hours and try and get him to leave his job there!" Then said recruiter went screaming over the line as she war-dialed her way across the floor and bothered some other co-workers too. Not cool.

Also speaking of work, was CCed on an e-mail from a co-worker a short while ago. That's not unusual. The fact that the primary recipient of the email was the Cron Daemon was, however. In fact, I don't think I ever saw that done before. :-)

And finally, in Anthrocon news, we have a couple of featured musical performers this year. Both Tom Smith and Alexander Adams will be performing live concerts on the evening of Thursday, June 26th at AC.

Plushie conventions

Wed, 07 May 2008 13:02:46 GMT

From http://stlouis.craigslist.org/ats/636810922.html, found on a mailing list that I'm on:

Reply to: comm-636810922@craigslist.org Date: 2008-04-09, 9:46PM CDT On June, 6, 13, 20 and 27, you’ll find the largest collection of handmade designer plush in some of St. Louis’ hottest shops from artists and crafters all around the world. We’re calling the show Crammed Organisms and the theme is Fairy, Folk and Fable. A companion book by the same name will be for sale during the show. Okay, so what is plush? Plush is the modern word for stuffed animals (no, we’re not talking about taxidermy…), also known as stuffies, plushies and now Crammed Organisms. We have over 130 participating artists from all over the world (including France, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Israel, Spain, Netherlands, Ireland, Germany and Sweden). Show-goers may purchase the exhibited plush items and pick them up at the completion of the four-week show. WHAT: Crammed Organisms—the Largest Plush Show in the World WHEN: Fridays, June 6, 13, 20 and 27, from 7 to 11 p.m. WHERE: June 6- Star Clipper Comics Featuring a Build-Your-Own-Plush Station 6392 Delmar Avenue, University City Loop, St. Louis

And they have a website, too: http://www.crammedorganisms.com/

I was thinking of going, but it has the look and feel of a very commercial convention, more like a trade show actually. Not like say, a fan-oriented convention. :-/

Time for a fart poll!

Tue, 06 May 2008 19:02:25 GMT

I've wanted to ask this for awhile, so here we go!

Note that everyone can view everyone else's answers. This is for personal safety, so everyone knows how far away they should stand from each other at the next convention. :-)

If you know of any good fart jokes, BTW, feel free to leave them in the comments.

View Poll: Farting

Metal Pron Solid 2: Sons of Libido

Fri, 02 May 2008 20:18:38 GMT

Wow, I missed when this game was released for the PS2:

For the curious, the song is called Jungle Boogie and was recorded by Kool & the Gang in 1973.

A crazy dream about my old high school

Thu, 01 May 2008 15:17:05 GMT

I had a crazy dream last night, in which I had visited my old high school and gave a presentation to the computer club on Life, The Universe, and working in the computer industry. What's scary is how intense the dream was. I recall myself going through different sections in detail and giving real world examples based on my own experiences. I even recall this in the form of a Powerpoint presentation, which is downright creepy.

If I were giving such a presentation, I think it would come off looking like this:

- About me
-- Working in the industry for 10 years
--- 6 different employers. Laid off twice.
-- I did *not* attend college
-- I studied additional technology on my own
-- Networking networking networking!

- School
-- Bad grades aren't the end of the world
--- But don't drop out!
-- Practice your skills
-- College may not be for you
--- But education still matters!
-- Networking networking networking!

- Higher education
-- It's expensive
--- Student loans
-- Great practice for the real world
--- Office politics
-- Get involved with clubs/organizations
-- Networking networking networking!

- The first job
-- Getting your foot in the door
-- It's *who* you know
-- Networking networking networking!

- The office
-- Office politics
--- Rank vs. leverage
-- HR. Don't piss them off.
-- Don't exceed your access.

- Things that keep me up at night
-- Outsourcing
-- Outsourcing
-- Outsourcing

- Your career
-- Technology that does not exist today
-- Find a niche and become an expert
-- Keep up to date
--- Slashdot, Wired, etc.
-- Networking networking networking!
--- LinkedIn

- Any questions?

I think that covers most of the things I'd talk about. Did I miss anything? Maybe I should have a separate section on office politics. Hmm...

What a "normal person" thinks of Anthrocon and furries

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:39:34 GMT

Well, a normal person who collects swords from Xena and Highlander, that is. :-)

From An article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

Q: What's the weirdest thing you've ever seen Downtown? A: The Furries convention. It was the first time I had ever seen or heard of them, and it was so interesting walking down the street seeing people in full costume. I got a chance to talk to some of them, and they were very interesting to talk to.

Glad to hear that he got along well with us. That's always a good sign.

Why Comcast didn't show for your appointment

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:59:25 GMT

I know why Comcast didn't show for your appointment.

Because they were busy doing donuts in their work van, that's why:

And people wonder why I don't want to do business with Comcast.

Because they're both married, you dolts!

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:19:06 GMT

Seen on CNN.com just now:

Yeah... I'd be careful of using phrases like "finish off" in that context...

Of course, the following headline of "Keep it Pumping" makes me wonder just what drugs the CNN editors might be on today...

SEPTA: Like a nun falling down the stairs

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 23:53:06 GMT

I took another picture of an advertisement at SEPTA's Market East station today. But first I have to mention that SEPTA has been on this "green" kick all month. They have these "green" advertisements all over the station about how using public transit saves on fossil fuels and whatnot. And I think that's good--I'm all for conversation.

But some of their signs make my eyes bleed. Like this one:

So... what's wrong with this picture? Well, if you look closely, there is green and blue lettering, right next to each other on a white background. Can't see it? Look closer, I assure you it's there. But yeah... putting similar colors like that next to each really doesn't work out that well.

Keep in mind that no flash was used on that picture, so there is no "washing out" of the colors. What you see in the pic is pretty much what I saw when looking at it from a distance of 3 feet.

My inner graphic designer is crying.

I think God rolled a Double Zero

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:03:07 GMT

Yesterday was pretty crazy. The first thing that blew my mind was discovering that one of the regulars from the Anthrocon forums not only lives half a mile away from me, but also rides the same train into Center City every day. We pretty much saw each other on the train on a near daily basis without knowing it! Maybe I should start wearing my Anthrocon t-shrits around town more.

The second thing was the vandalism I saw of a Cottonelle ad at Market East Station:

Here's a closeup:

So yeah, it's been an interesting week I think.

The people have spoken. They told Lisa Paolino to go to hell.

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:08:44 GMT

Here are the total election results from last night:

It gets more interesting when the results are broken down by country. Lisa barely won in Delaware County, which has her "home" township of Radnor:

In Montgomery Country, her opponent pretty much destroyed her.

So, what can we learn from this? For starters, character really does matter. When you employ sleazy campaign tactics, people are going to call you on it and talk about you. And when your response to the criticism is to whine about your opponent's "harassment". Holy crap... do you even know what "harassment" is, Lisa? It's repeated unwanted contacted by another individual with the intent to annoy. Criticism != harassment. Good lord.

Actually, just to wander offtopic a bit here, we've been dealing with some pro-Lisa trolls on the Save Ardmore Coalition website on and off over the past few months. And they spewed out phrases like "harassment" and "cyberstalking" when complaining about the criticism of Lisa. Similar tactics to what Lisa used in her blog? Hmm. This makes me wonder just how closely the trolls may have been connected to Lisa? After all, it'd be yet another scandal if Lisa Paolino was found to be involved with trolling a civic group....

Anthrocon days off

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:33:52 GMT

Got my days off for Anthrocon. All 5 of them. From the Wednesday before the con until the Tuesday afterward. The Tuesday is my day of recovery. :-)

In other news, my mom "found" a $50 savings bond from when I was born. That should be worth quite a bit by now. However, she is holding it hostage until I buy her and my father Anthrocon memberships. Wait, what?!

Lisa Paolino implicated in fraudulent ballots

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 04:48:21 GMT

I've been trying to cut back on my Lisa Paolino bashing, because it's just too darn easy. It's like beating up a midget. A blindfolded midget. A blindfolded midget with his hands tied behind his back. But then I got wind of her latest scandal and realized that she is a bigger douche than I thought.

Please look closely at the following ballot, which was sent out in the mail to voters in Montgomery and Delaware counties:

That looks all nice and... official... right? Except, it's not. She has not been endorsed by the Republican Party in Montgomery County and that is flat out not an official ballot.

When her opponent, Lance Rogers found out, he was pissed, and understandably so. He then proceeded to bitchslap her so hard in court in Montgomery County on Friday, that she flew clear across the county line, landing in Delaware county and got smacked around again in an emergency hearing on Saturday.

What's even crazier about this whole thing is that Paolino's "representative" in court, one "Mimi Auchincloss", who actually tried to say that passing out fake ballots is protected under the First Amendment. Riiiight. And I'm the Queen of Denmark. Look at my crown! Isn't it fabulous?

All this craziness, and Lisa hasn't even been elected to office. She is clearly out of control and I seriously doubt that she has the interests of her voters in mind. I do not believe she has any business holding any office.

"Probably the dumbest thing I've ever seen"

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:47:13 GMT

Today's dose of stupid consists of trying to rob a police station:

http://www.copsatwork.com/police-station-getting-robbed.htm

The runner up is this guy, who argued with a cop and kept insisting that "you can't arrest me until you read me my rights". The officer's taser politely disagreed:

http://www.copsatwork.com/some-idiot-tasered.htm

Porn sites and free speech

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 01:36:27 GMT

...tend to go hand in hand.

Which led me to discovering this button on a porn site:

Hey, I'll lend a hand in protecting freedom!

WTF Denmark?

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:45:16 GMT

alexismckee just showed me this video, which shows "how true Danes are", according to him.

Quote for the Day

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:12:06 GMT

"I do not pee in the bed, I pee *on* the bed. I punish it, because it's a weak piece of furniture. It's soft. I pee on everything that is weak. " -- Dolph the Fascist Hippo

The Circle of Life

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:41:44 GMT

Went through my work email this morning, all 100 pieces of it.

We've done a few company trips to Hershey Park and places like that in the past. Looks like my employer is planning a new trip: to see The Lion King on Broadway!

I've seen it twice before, and the last time I saw it... I was facepainted up like a cheetah and almost made the Big Elephant trip in the opening song, because one of the performers was staring at me. Let's see if I can not make that happen this time. :-)

Lisa Paolino's Legal Letter

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 02:03:52 GMT

Since folks have been asking, I have finally published the letter that Lisa Paolino's attorney sent me. It can be found on the Save Ardmore Coalition site at:

http://www.saveardmorecoalition.org/node/2202

I have a bit of a rant there, but I'll add a little here. It just boggles my mind that she would do such a thing. What was she thinking? Is she really that ignorant of First Amendment issues to think that she could force someone to take down content that she doesn't like?

And yes, she is currently an elected official. She sits on the Board of Commissioners in Radnor. Isn't this like... some sort of misconduct on her part? Any legal types out there who can comment? Quite frankly, I have serious concerns about someone like her being responsible for running a township when she is pulling stunts like this.

Back from Furry Connection North

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:18:59 GMT

This is the shortened version. A more detailed report and pictures will follow in a week or so.

DAMN I had a good time there! That was one of the best well-run conventions I have seen in a long time. I tip my beret to girtygrin, 2_gryphon, nikvulper, Jibba, Gerret, Ed Hyena, Basil, and all the other staff who worked hard, got things done, made this into a most excellent convention experience.

Did I mention that this was a first year con? The fact that it went that smoothly makes their achievement even more outstanding.

My rating: A+++ Would definitely do business with again.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:24:45 GMT

I think I've done enough Lisa bashing for a bit. It's kinda like shooting fish in a barrel, really.

At point blank range.

With an elephant gun.

So anyway, I'm gearing up to go to Furry Connection North this weekend. I hope I'll see many of you there.

And now, for a bit of humor, I have a video from Graham Chapman's memorial service. The reason it is humorous is because Graham was a member of the sketch comedy group known as Monty Python. Of course, this means his service was conducted by the other members of the Python Group. They managed to make people laugh without being patently offensive. This video also includes the Eulogy as delivered by John Cleese:

Man, I wish I could get someone half as classy to speak at my funeral some day.