It's Just this Little Chromium Switch Here

Link: Issue #32: Harming Spammers Fiscally Proves Tricky

The December email newsletter from Spamcon has just been published. It talks about why AOL's anti-spam lawsuits are helpful, even though AOL has been unable to collect on the judgements. It also discusses the angry backlash at infamous spammer Alan Ralsky.

The Spamcon is one of the most positive and effective forces in the battle against spam. Hope you'll consider supporting them.

With great fanfare, I'm pleased to announce the First Annual IJTLCSH Guess-the-Spam Contest. It's good clean fun for the whole family, and your chance to win a fabulous prize.

The goal of the contest is to guess how much spam I received (number of email messages) in 2002. The person who guesses the closest wins.

Post your guess as a comment to this entry. You have until noon CST on Sunday, January 5 to submit your guess.

If you win, you'll get some wonderful--albeit cheap--crap. The grand prize is your choice of either: a ten dollar gift certificate redeemable online at Powell's Books, or a used 3COM 3C509-TP0 ISA Ethernet NIC.

Contest rules: One entry per person. Purchase not required, but bribery is always appreciated. Decision of the judges (that's me, buster) is final (and probably a little capricious). I'll only ship within continental U.S. If you live elsewhere, you have to come pick up your winnings. Void where prohibited. Spammers need not apply.

cc the cat was a total bitch last night. He's something like fifty pounds overweight and is on this diet that makes him completely miserable. He's not losing any weight on this diet but he finally stopped getting bigger.

I've been doing a lot of cooking recently and that makes him even grouchier. Well, breathing in the same room makes him grouchier, but he's really pissed about this food thing. He sees me preparing all these delicious meals, and all he gets is a scoop of crunchy kibble at midnight.

I think he reached wits end last night. He was quite upset I was enjoying my cheeseburger, and he was letting me know what he thought about the situation. I rolled my chair back to--I dunno, taunt him or something.

That's when I heard one of those sounds that you never want to hear coming from a cat

I finally chased him down and did a bodypart count. Fortunately he had as many appendages as he woke with, and they all still seemed firmly attached. But he's been punishing me ever since. I haven't caught him, but I know he's been moping around the house all day muttering, "You suck!" behind my back.

Dec 29 update: Apparently I have been forgiven and things are back to normal, which mostly entails sleeping a lot.

When you receive dozens of spams a day, not much shocks you anymore. Yesterday's inbox, however, provided a surprising new low. Here is an excerpt:

    Click Here: http://www.amazinghealthconcepts.com/mortgage1/

    Mark Harper
    Mortgage Consultant

    Your Information:
    chip rosenthal  -  austin, tx  -  ph= 512-442-XXXX

Notice the bit of personal information tagged onto the end. This invasion of privacy is a remarkable new spam low.

I wondered, "How the hell did the spammer get this information?" I do have my mailing address and phone number on my resume, but there my name is listed as "Leonard." So, I don't think it came from there.

There is a sleazy marketing practice called e-pending, where companies try to correlate your email address with personal information without your permission. I'd be surprised, however, to see chickenboner spammers spending the money on these services. So, I remain perplexed as to how he got it.

Then I wondered, "Why the hell did the spammer do this?" Is he trying to intimidate me? We know who you are! We know where you live! Maybe he thought by presenting this piece of personal information, I'd believe he had some right to spam me. Instead, I am creeped out and offended, which I suspect is not what the spammer wanted.

This incident brings together the worst of two worlds: spam and data (non-)privacy. It's a pity our Federal legislators are too busy attending Enron and Global Crossing fundraisers to do anything about these problems. Over on the other side of the globe, the Europeans have instituted strong personal protections. As somebody on a mailing list noted, "With the EU data-protection laws, the spammer would be looking at a jail term."

Dec 29 update: I have posted an update to this entry.