Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Spam

Two Spammers Murdered in New Jersey 205

Posted by Roblimo from the cautionary-tales dept.
Zerbey wrote in with a CNN report about the excution-style murder of two shady online stock promoters whose primary marketing device was ... spam. Zerbey wrote, hopefully with tongue in cheek, that they may have been slain "by a disgruntled recipient of UCE who decided that e-mailing abuse@ simply wasn't effective enough." Farfetched? Perhaps. A quote from the story: "Though investigators have not pinpointed a motive or suspects, Monmouth County Prosecutor John Kaye said the attack likely was at least partly tied to the pair's penny stock Web operation, www.stockinvestor.com, or other ventures."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Two Spammers Murdered in New Jersey More

Two Spammers Murdered in New Jersey

Comments Filter:
  • Will learn from this incident.. I'm getting spam on ICQ, and that's annoying as hell. I don't mind it in my email becuase I sort of expect it - but not on ICQ. How about this for an idea, we call all the spammers at 3 am and spam, then we cover their car with flyers, the we call them at work and follow them all over..

    You get it, they are every where - invading you life...
  • In all seriousness, their deaths PROBABLY had NOTHING to do with spam, but business practices in general. As much as I would love for this to be a lesson to spammers in general, spam != bad business for most companies.

    Not sure I agree. It's more that bad business does not imply spam. The other way arround it's hard to see something which involves stealing and deception (i.e. spam) as anything other than a bad practice.
  • My god! When I heard about this I realized I need to email all my friends! I think I'll post it on a bunch of news groups too!

    Important news!
    Spammers killed!

    Please forward this message to everyone you know!

  • This almost certainly has nothing to do with spam, and a lot to do with the $10m of investors money that disappeared.

    The two differ only in trivial details. The bottom line is that these two engaged in theft as a way of life, and finally made the mistake of robbing the wrong person. The Universe punishes stupidity by death, with no appeal.
    /.

  • Joking aside, the place where you go wrong is calling these two dead entities for "humans". They weren't, they were spammers. Treating them as human beings would be unethical. The have the same relationship with the human species as cancer cells have with ordinary cells. And should be treated accordingly.

  • Thank you for enlightening me of your complete and utter lack of intelligence. You'll be happy to know that henceforth all communiques coming from your little corner of stupidity will be ignored until the day you die. However, just to perhaps encourage brain cell growth in that shriveled little head of yours: My signature means that it's pointless to reply to my post with the intention of evoking some sort of response from my end unless your replying post is scored 1 or higher because, well, I have a hard threshold of 1. If you feel that is egotistical, you are of course welcome to your (rather moronic) opinions. I am, quite honestly, however, surprised no one has tagged you as flamebait, because quite obviously you're not a biped and I'm flaming you because you're an asshole.

    One day people will phrase these questions (at least they should be queries, you presumptuous little bigot) politely, rather than mindlessly attacking anyone who isn't ``cool'' to them like some sort of barbarian with an ``inadequacy'' complex. Ha!

  • Back when a spammer used my email address to spam roughly two hundred thousand AOL users and I got burried in complaints and bounces, I, too, wished to be alone with the guy responsible, and a nice baseball bat.

    Zero tolerance to spam... but seriously, if this indeed was the motive, then it's going a tad bit too far.

    Can't say I'll be mourning, though.
  • I've never seen a better reason for reducing legal costs. Currently, unfortunatly, it's cheaper to hire a hitman than a lawyer.
  • my, you sure did get worked up about that one.
    Perhaps sometime you will find something to channel your clearly profound energies toward besides this useless forum.
    Assuming I am not a boped is astrange assumption.
    Also, youe own attitude shows so many of the qualites you decry in my post, it is amazing you, with your astounding mental capacity, have not yet detected a small note of hypocrisy.

  • Kinder, gentler SPAM? (Score:5)

    by r2ravens ( 22773 ) on Saturday October 30, 1999 @12:34PM (#1575574)
    I don't mean to make light of this. Yes, two people have been killed and this is a fundamental wrong thing (tm), it's just that there is this pattern that I keep seeing.

    A few years ago, U.S. Postal workers flipped out regularly and started shooting up their place of employment. We haven't seen these events in Post Offices for a while. What happened? What changed? Was it just a phase of the moon? A syzygy (sp? - planetary alignment)? Some temporary problem of extraterrestrial influence? Maybe stress?

    Hmmm... we might be onto something here. Perhaps the conditions were too repetitious/opressive/stressful and people flipped out. Maybe as a result of those events, the work model changed a bit. Maybe the bosses are a little less authoritarian. Maybe postal workers are being a little nicer to each other.

    If the above is true, it could be a result of fear that their fellow workers might be capable of hurting them, or it could just be a recognition that there was a problem to start with and a sincere desire to make a positive change.

    The bottom line is that there were a series of these events and now we haven't heard of such events for a long time.

    In April, we had the Columbine shooting. There are some questions yet as to who the shooters were (philosophically), and their motives and targets. As a former High School outcast/geek, I can understand if their motive was fear or anger at jocks, being picked on, or excluded, or the structure or whatever. Maybe it was even due to their own mental imbalances. (I'm not condoning their behavior, only saying that I understand.) In any case, there is some reason why this happened and similar or copycat events continue to occur. There is some stressor, and I hope that these tragic events will cause the average person (student) to take a closer look, to stop and think about the impact of their actions. I can only hope that whatever brought about the change at the Post Office can happen in America's Schools. Maybe Jocks won't pick on Geeks because they're afraid of being shot. I realize that this is the wrong means to the desired end, but if we can take what was a tragic circumstance and make positive change as a result, at least there is some good. (My fellow Geeks, please do not take this a permission to go and shoot Jocks, and please do not believe that this is a good way to make a difference. I'm just arguing that since it's already done, maybe there can be some positive change.)

    It appears that problems seem to fester and not come to serious light, let alone get lanced, until some extraordinarily bad event takes place. This is really unfortunate, but seems to be true.

    Even though I agree that the killing of these two "shady" businessmen is certainly about the monetary fraud they committed, if it causes a Spammer to stop and think, "Maybe there is someone out there pissed off enough about what I am doing that they might try to do me bodily harm...", even to simply stop and consider the impact of his/her actions on others, this can only lead to improvement in our internet community the same as improvement has come to the Post Office.

    Yes, I do recognize the downsides to all this as have been stated in many other posts. Labeling this as a Spam revenge thing can cause certain less-than-critically-thinking individuals to see us in a bad light. And this is the same tactic (at least the fear component) that has made it damned difficult for many women to obtain consitutionally protected abortion services. But there are facets of life that are simply fait accompli and we try appreciate the benefits we receive and fight against the injustices. As with most things, they can be used for bad or good.

    IANAS (I am not a sociologist :), but these are just my observations of what is. Events like this are always bad, I just hope for some positive outcome when I see them. And what I look forward to in the future is recognition of and solutions to problems before horrible acts of violence force them to our attention. It has been said that "eternal vigilance is the price of freedom", but I think that if we can be attentive to the subtle things, our path will be smoother.

    Russ
  • I had to reply to this again becasue I am puzzled by the extent of the emotion and antagonism in your reply. i wrote one line, not intensely insulting, and you composed a whole paragraph and a half of insults. You seem to be , and i quote ' mindlessly attacking anyone who isn't ``cool'' to them like some sort of barbarian with an inadequacy'' complex." If anything should be tagged as flamebait, it is definitely your strange, paranoid overreaction. Perhaps your job as baker leaves you frustrated and angry, but please. Calm down.

    By the way, your sig sucks.

  • Re: do the math (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Assuming that each message wastes one minute of other people's lives (remember, you have to include bandwidth waste and message download times), then each batch of one million spams they send out takes about 1.9 years out of other people's lifetimes. If they've done it 80 times, they've killed two people. I think one could make a case for self defense. Of course, by this math, Bill Gates has killed more people than Hitler. Admittedly not quite the same thing.

    Look at it another way: one of the 50 or so times some driver of a car deliberately tried to run me off the road on my bike, I smashed his windshield and dented his hood. Almost every serious biker I know in the area (Denver/Boulder) has been attacked/hit by auto drivers. Was I justified for reacting that way to a single incident? Maybe not... he threatened my life, but I could have gotten away. Instead, I cost him a few hundred dollars and scared the shit out of them. If that had been the first time it happened, I'd have let it go. But nobody who saw that will ever try to bump a bike again. And everybody who saw it, except the guys in the car, thought I was justified.

    We need to retaliate every once in a while, give them a scare, or they'll never stop.

  • Re: (Score:1)

    by GeeBee ( 104073 )
    If you want to be murdered, a tried-and-true method that has worked pretty much through all history is to start stealing from the little guy.

    An even more tried and true method is to start stealing from the big guy. If the big guy doesn't like your action (s)he has the resources to do it and get away with it, and something to lose if they don't do it.

  • I agree with you that people have an apparent disregard for human life, but if these Slashdotters had known people involved, they wouldn't have said the things they did. So I think therefore, that they really do care for human life, they just see this situation through a looking glass.

    As for gun control, that definitely wouldn't have stopped someone angry enough to kill from killing. Murder is against the law, and he didn't mind breaking that law, so why would he care if guns were outlawed? Outlawing guns is the worst thing you can do. If you don't believe me, look at Australia. They banned handguns and saw a VERY sharp increase in the amount of violent crimes involving guns.
  • Yes! . .the article is inflamitory flaim bait.

    Serves no purpose. The article should be moderated down. Roblimo, and Zerbey should loose buko-Karma for this ilk.

  • Re:For once.. (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 30, 1999 @06:06AM (#1575585)
    Oh geez! Lighten up already!

    I really don't need to hear anyone making cheap jokes at the expense of a couple of dead people.

    Then ignore the thread. Nobody is forcing you to read these posts. Asking the moderators to aggressively down-mod this thread just so it palatable to your own sensitive intellect is just a little selfish (not to mention arrogant).

    It's not funny.

    But it is funny. Perhaps you don't know the definition of comedy. According to Mel Brooks (and he should know), "Comedy happens to other people. Tragedy happens to me." I don't know those two, so therefore it's funny. Apart from that, do you not realize that jokes and laughter are a very human coping mechanism for stressful stimuli?

    It's not cute.

    You're right, it's not cute. But cute is not the same thing as funny, and many of the posts here are hilarious.

    They're dead.

    That means they are totally beyond caring what we do or don't say about them. Are a few dark jokes going to make them any more dead? Will false empathy and crocodile tears bring them back to life? It didn't for Diana Spencer, so don't expect a miracle for these two losers. So who is harmed by a little dark humor on Slashdot? Before you claim yourself as a victim, though, please remember that nobody is forcing you to read Slashdot.

    Those were human lives.

    They were SPAMMERS so 'human' is a debatable term. Additionally, there are now over 6 BILLION people on this planet. It's not as though human life (or spammer life for that matter) is exactly a scarce commodity.

    all of these tasteless jokes would be appropriately tagged ``flamebait''

    Thanks ever so much for so selflessly volunteering your services as the "Touchstone of Tastefullness". From now on, I'll make sure to consult you before I read anything. God forbid anyone should be subjected to potentially offensive material.

    I for one did not need this to ``brighten'' up my morning.

    You've never administered a public mail server, have you? Well, after spending all night cleaning up a spool directory that was clogged with over 6 Gigabytes of UCE, this sure brightened up my morning.

    I think there's a phrase that could be paraphrased here somehow, but I've been awake too long dealing with spam to think of how right now. The original quote is "A Liberal is just a Conservative that hasn't been mugged yet." I think it could go "An Overly Sensitive Thought Police On Slashdot is just a Heartless Uncaring Bastard who hasn't spent all night sorting and cleaning spam out of a mail spool yet.
  • What next? What's worse than destroying whole communities for personal gain, which is what spammers do?

    Stopping spammers is simply self defence. Yes, it should be the job of the police to stop the spammers, not the individual victims. There are always problems involved when private citizens attempts to enforce justice. But until the law starts working, we really have no alternative.

    I want spammers to know that, yes, spam is cheap advertizing. But spam hurts people. Even if the spammer is too stupid (or greedy) to see how spam can hurt. And some of the people hurt might take it personally. Very personally.
  • Even if it's not "real" child porn made with 100% child, how can you prove it? If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

    Even if it's "fake child porn", all it does is encourage other pornographers and those that want to download child porn. It's sick, disgusting, and perverse and to think of it as anything other than that makes me suspicious of whoever does.

    I'm sorry if you disagree.

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

  • For a much happier Slashdot experience:

    1. Set your threshold to 0 or 1 (or higher).

    2. Set your reading order to "Highest scores first."

    3. When a new topic comes up, especially a controversial one, wait a little while before reading it. Give the moderators a little time. If the article was posted at 11:50, don't come in at 11:55 and start complaining about the off-topic posts.




    --
  • And just how do we ask them to take a Karma hit?

  • Definitely! I know we've all thought about killing spammers but I doubt anyone would really do it. Or would they?
  • Ah, yes, the good 'ol /. tradition of responding without reading what you're responding to.

    FYI, the article you didn't read mentioned spam in passing. It was not a "spammer's get whacked" article... that's the spin the person who submitted the article put on it.

    The two victim's business dealings in general were the focus of the article. The fact that they manipulated stock, defauded people, etc. That they used spam as a part of that was only simply mentioned. When they mentioned potential suspects, they only said there was more than one gunman involved, most likely, that certain people (ex husband of one of the victim's gf) was cleared, and a strong suggestion that it was tied to their "shady business." No mention of spam.

    There's no mention of net vigilantes wreaking horrible vengence on spammers. I'm dismayed that a few people here actually are assuming this is what has happened (and, even more dismayed that they seem to sort of be into it...).

    You know, if you are against media hysteria, perhaps you should try to not jump to conclusions yourself.
  • >a BOFH offing lusers ? yay! something ive always wanted to do. now wheres my trusty Desert
    >Eagle .50....

    Nah, not offing lusers. Just rm -rf'ing them.

    Dan "Now
    • that
    is a LART" Poore
  • My 2 bits, WRT punishment of spammers:

    1st offense: Fine, say $1000 or local equivalent

    2nd offense: Confiscation of hardware, triple the 1st offense's fine (in line with the TCPA for the sender knowingly violating the law)

    [here's where we start to differ]

    3rd offense: Spammer locked in a cell with a 386 using a 2400 baud modem (I'd say lower but I don't think you can find 150 baud modems any more), being fed tons of spam to an inbox that only holds about 100KB or so, with bounced messages disappearing completely, never to be seen again. To get fed, the spammer must find the right message (out of thousands of choices) and reply to it, deleting the rest. Note that the 'send food' message won't have any identifying markings in the Subject line or From line to indicate it's the message that must be replied to for the spammer to get food, and may even be buried in a message with the subject of a spam the spammer him/herself sent in the past.

    4th offense: Wait a second... how do dead people spam? :)

    Dan "To keep this post on-topic with the thread" Poore

  • Actually, I think the AC has a valid point. If you read the article, it nowhere says, or even implies, they were killed for their spamming. It is believed to be because of their "shady" business practices.

    Just read the comments. How many posters look like they actually bothered to follow the link?

    Certainly, the AC could have been a little more polite, but I just wish people would take the time to read the link for themselves, rather than believe everything they read on /.

  • Yeah, there are laws against Nazi propaganda. And I won't complain about them. Now, even if you can *theoretically* say anything in the US, what happens when your neighbours start ostracizing you? Not your problem anymore because it's not the bloody 'government' who's doing bad things? Typical libertarian silliness -- it can only be wrong if it's from the govt -- and vice versa
  • Hmmm. Sounds like a good idea. When I reflect on the amount of spam that a couple of my old email addressed got, I can understand someone's motive to be driven to murder :-)
  • It may not stop anyone else from spamming but it will stop them.

  • Q: What do you call 10,000 spammers on the bottom of the ocean?

    A: A good start.

    Sorry, it had to be said. :-)

  • I think there's a BIG difference there,

    On slashdot you can have a discussion with the other person while the spammer hides behind a faked email address...

    Or if it would happen to be the real email address you just make a BIG mistake if you reply to the email!

  • Still, why does a sexual situation nessisarily hurt a child?

    There is a difference between a child voluntarily, in private, engaging in sexual acts (for instance, with another child or alone), and an adult exploited said acts for the purpose of pornography.

    It's natural for children to have sexual desires and to explore them; it is not natural for adults to interact sexually with children, because there is an inherent imbalance of power.

    If a 13-year-old boy fantasizes about girls his own age, it's normal. If a 50-year-old man preferentially fantasizes about 13-year-old girls, something is wrong with him, because that kind of behavior indicates a need to dominate and abuse his sexual partners.

    The bottom line is that child porn is not about children wanting to explore their sexuality. It's about adults who should damn well know better, exploiting children and using them to fulfill their own needs, with no respect for the child's mental or emotional stability. Is every child harmed by every sexual situation? No. But it's a risk no adult should ever take. That's what's wrong with child porn.

  • Give me a Break! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You people don't actually believe that these two were executed for sending spam do you?!

    Read the CNN article you twits. They were probably killed because they had thier hands in god-knows-what kind of dirty buisiness.
  • Perhaps this brace of murders wasn't because (or just because) the victims sent spam. Nevertheless, I have been expecting spam-motivated assaults or murders for some time now.

    The government has allowed a massive annoyance and misappropriation of resources to continue for quite a long time now, and is not responsive to citizens' calls for regulation barring the practice (on the model of the earlier ban on junk faxes).

    The spammers themselves are (understandably) unwilling to stop a practice they believe profitable, merely because people are annoyed.

    The commercial network services have proven ineffective at stopping the practice, as spammers can create new accounts faster than the network operators can delete old ones, and the network operators themselves are not held liable for their customers behavior, and thus have no incentive to prescreen customers (and a disincentive, as it would reduce their customer base).

    Technical solutions have not been effective - merely leading to an arms-race, which the spammers so far are winning.

    This leaves a lot of very annoyed people with no effective way to abate the nuisance - except possibly direct action.

    Now add to this the recognition that somewhere between one-in-50 and one-in-200 of the population in general are psycopaths. (Think of them as people with a brain damage that leaves them with no conscience - no sympathy for the suffering of others.) And that this group has the usual mix of smart and dumb, and of foreseeing and thinkers-for-today.

    It's only a matter of time before one or more of them gets so mad as to try a little direct action. And given the above, such people might easily believe that the only direct action likely to eliminate the nuisance is to intimidate, damage, or eliminate the perpetrator of it.

    This is, in my opinion, the inevitable result of the government's failure to live up to its claims of protection.

    Please note that I'm not advocating either government action or literal attacks on spammers. I'm simply pointing out that I expect the latter in the absense of the former.

  • In all seriousness, their deaths PROBABLY had NOTHING to do with spam, but business practices in general. As much as I would love for this to be a lesson to spammers in general, spam != bad business for most companies.

    No, I'm not saying that spam isn't bad business. What I am saying, is that not all spammers are out to defraud, and make money off of us.

    The most interesting thing for me, is to wait and see if this DOES discourage people from spamming. I mean, seriously, we can't say that these deaths AREN'T directly related to spam. This could scare potential spammers/scammers, especially ones specifically out to defraud or propate inethical business practices from making the first attempt.

    Either way, reap what you sow = good way to think. Karma gonna git you sucka.


  • ... On my aol account.
    I kept getting messages like "I've got a stick to tell you about" etc. I think I actually responded once and told them it was illegal what they were doing (attempting to inflate the price through bogus means).

    That is freaky shit.
  • I'm getting mailed about this folks, and no I didn't intend it to be a funny article - I posted it cause I assumed it would interest the Slashdot community. Whatever the guys did I would never condone murder or make fun of it.

    Apologies if I offended anyone I certainly didn't intend to.
  • >> and child porn spammers deserve an espcially
    >> painful death.

    > Really? For what is death *deserved*?

    He just said it. For spamming.
    The pain is extra for the child porn.

    One of the first spams I received (before I learned that spammers are _always_ lying) started with "We found your name on a list of people with a special interest in child pornography...". If the spammer had been in reach my anger would have made his death far quicker than he deserved.

    > Methinks thou trollest.

    You wish. The existence of spammers are the prime arguments for the right to keep and bear arms.

  • They were SPAMMERS so 'human' is a debatable term. Additionally, there are now over 6 BILLION people on this planet. It's not as though human life (or spammer life for that matter) is exactly a scarce commodity.

    I take it that means you are also expendable ;)

  • Aren't we all?
    We'll all be expended sooner or later. :)
    dang it...i thought i could live forever..
  • > If you produce it using real children that's bad.

    The definition of "child porn" varies. In Denmark, in means real pictures produced with real children ( 15 years) in real sexual situations involving other people, animals or objects. Pictures of "nakid kids" are not even considered pornographic (respectable newspapers will bring them to show that "now its summer").

    So for me, it is quite easy to hate child porn. Producing it hurts real children.

  • That's ridiculous to say. Spammers are humans. Just because you don't like one's actions, that doesn't make them any less human then you. No human deserves to die for being annoying (or stealing, if you want to put it that way).
  • The point is that child porn should not be a crime. There is nothing wrong with having brutal, violent, vulgar sex with young, underage, deliciously innocent childs.
    And even if there was, distributing pictures has nothing to do with the children. Maybe it should be illegal to rape the children, but certainly not to distribute pictures of it. Most americans seem to have some very twisted values. It's ok for children to be porn, but not have sex? Come on!

  • I could understand it if I got tagged a -3 on that post for ``overrated'', but seriously, ``troll''? You've to be kidding me. Well, it wouldn't be the first (and far from the last) time when I voiced an actual opinion that a moderator thought was some sort of flamebait. Get a grip. I post often enough for you people to (probably more for the worse than for the better) know what is and is not a valid statement from my camp. heh.

    At any rate, for those of you mindlessly crying out, ``Politically Correct''.. You've obviously never seen me post anything on a controversial issue (new to Slashdot, anyone?). I find the accusation to be useful for generating a few laughs, however. ;)

  • Some people get seriously ill if they see or smell a bird. So, by having a bird in the window in my house, I might harm someone passing by. You simply can't make laws agoind [sic] something as vague as "harming other people". No nation has such a law.

    IANAL, but I do know a homeowner is liable if anyone slips/falls/get hurt/etc on their sidewalk (even though the sidewalk isn't necessarily owned by said owner). I'm not clear if this extends onto the road (I doubt it), but it's quite possible if your bird causes someone to get ill, you'd be liable for it, *if* it happened on your side and stretch of the sidewalk (and they decide to press charges).

    A reason why most people tend to shovel the snow off of their part of the sidewalk when it snows (patch of ice underneath snow is especially dangerous). I'm wary of people who don't shovel the snow (I end up walking on the road... much safer, plus I hope to keep out of the hospital).
  • Well, i actually think it is a good thing.
    If spammers see the reaction slashdotters have had and think they will get killed by a raging group of Linux guru's, they may think again.

    Think about it, /. has formed the basis of a very tight group of people who seem to get into fights alot, it could scare some people out of spam
  • have anything to do with this?

    In all seriousness, it sounds like spam was just part of how they did business. I didn't get anything from the article which would indicate that the killer(s) was a disgruntled spam-recipient.

    I don't know anything about the victims, but the brief profile in the article indicated that they may have been involved in some shady business activities. A disgruntled business associate/customer/creditor sounds more likely than a hacked-off spam target. The fact that the victims were spammers is interesting to the slashdot community, but probably not to the world at large.
  • ... that, and we just gave them more publicity by posting their URL on Slashdot than they got in a day's spamming.

    - Michael T. Babcock <homepage [linuxsupportline.com]>

  • Re:For once.. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I take it that means you are also expendable ;)

    Damn straight.

    However, I have taken the sensible precaution of arming myself. This makes me expensive to "expend".
  • Yeah, right. Moderate this message down to show the world that geeks are loving and caring people, who knows that inside the most unscrupulous spammer and scammer, there live a good person who just have to be shown kindness and understanding to be let out.

    It is important that we never let the public know that geeks are people who get angry when violated, and who are able hate the people who violate them repeatedly. Those are dark emotions which we should keep hidden.

    Gosh, my karma is going to suffer today.

  • I was playing quake the other day... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    and this dude comes on my server and starts spamming his URL in huge banner fonts. So I fragged him.
  • You may be right. But I think it's only going to be a matter of time before something like this can be attibuted to spam. People kill for far less. Road rage is becoming more common. Why not spam rage? It annoys the hell out of me. Granted, I haven't killed anyone yet... but that doesn't mean I haven't wanted to get hold of the person who sends me spam and use their delicates for a bit of target practice... ;)

  • If their stupid and leave a 1800 number to get removed or to get more info do what I do..You get on your favorite sex newsgroup and advertise it as free sex talk..they get hundreds of thousands of phone calls. No one dies and they learn a lesson

  • simple (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Don't use the spam list, use the customer list. You can delete spam with a mouse click, but being swindled out of your life savings by a penny stock scam is a bit more non-trivial.

    This is not about spam! This is, excuse, was a con artist scamming the _wrong_ client.

  • Road rage is becoming more common. Why not spam rage?

    Why not indeed. How about because you don't know where they are, and by the time you track them down, if you can, you will have cooled off slightly? Road rage would happen alot less if the people involved were 100 kilometres (or miles, if you prefer) apart.

    I don't think spammers are going to be murdered on a very frequent basis. Mailbombed? Possibly. ISP cracked? Maybe. But murdered? It is an idea simply lacking in practicality.

    I'll admit it seems like a fun thought, but I would hope it never really happens.

  • It's good to see that not everyone in the world is heartless. For example, take this AC. I'm not exactly sure what this is called, but I love seeing people pick apart other's posts and then replying to individual pieces. So, naturally, I find it my duty to do the same...

    Asking the moderators to aggressively down-mod this thread just so it palatable to your own sensitive intellect is just a little selfish (not to mention arrogant).

    Arrogant? If she were being arrogant, her sentence would have perhaps been "You should moderate these down because I say so."

    But cute is not the same thing as funny, and many of the posts here are hilarious.

    Hi, you should also note that many of the posts here are incredibly stupid (i.e, the both of ours!)

    They were SPAMMERS so 'human' is a debatable term.

    Gee, I wasn't aware that "anonymous coward" was now synonymous with God.

    It's not as though human life (or spammer life for that matter) is exactly a scarce commodity.

    Hello, do you know the definition of the words you are typing? Quoting M-W Dictionary - lookup "Commodity" [m-w.com]: 1 : an economic good: as a : a product of agriculture or mining. Well now, since when is a human life an economic good?

    I think it could go "An Overly Sensitive Thought Police On Slashdot is just a Heartless Uncaring Bastard who hasn't spent all night sorting and cleaning spam out of a mail spool yet.

    That's pretty good. Think of it all by yourself?

    Some might consider this flamebait (not sure why) but I would just like to inform them that this is sarcasm at it's finest!@#$

  • oops (Score:1)

    by Ermit ( 27328 )
    Forgive me, I think I referred to the original poster as a she. As far as I know, it's a he. Sorry
  • They're dead.

    So they won't be around to rip any more innocent people off. How is that a bad thing?
  • yes, i know the people making the "death to spammers" were probably joking (i hope), but this guys had family who
    cared about them....even if they stole $$$, they deserve to punished to the full extent of the law, but laughing and joking
    about their deaths is so cold hearted and sick. have someone close to you die, and then see how quickly you find the
    death of others so god damn funny.

    Oh boo hoo hoo! Cry me a fucking river, why don't you?

    If their family members aided and abetted in their thieving activities, or if they benefitted from them in any way, or are responsible for their upbringing into being such crooked bastards, then there ought to be absolutely no sympathy for them whatsoever. Do try and think on rational terms for once, and please spare us your misguided human compassion.
  • Now I'm not saying it was right to kill them just for spamming, but I understand...
  • These guys were working as informers for the Feds.
  • Easiest way of killing spam on icq: Press the ICQ button, go to Security/privacy, Ignore list. Check the following check boxes: Do not accept WWW pager messages Do not accept Email Express messages and finally Do not accept Multi Recipient messages, if it's all users or not on my contact list, it's up to you if u have friends that do mass messages. This SHOULD eliminate all spam

  • Re:sheesh... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The problem is, anarchy is /fine/ by me -and I tend to support it way over any government involvement- if it all works out generally nicely - but as soon as you get real blood on the carpet, it's gone way too far.

    Then you don't support anarchy at all. The thing about anarchy is that it (supposedly) resolves itsself. These people screwed some other people over, and now they're dead. They can't screw anyone else over, and the people who killed them aren't going to try to kill them again.

    Problem solved, and if it were legal to kill people who had pulled a scam on you, everything would be good.

  • I keep getting spam offering me 51 million email addresses for $115...that kind of thing makes me very annoyed. Put that together with someone with an attitude and a gun, and the spammer's gone.

    Ah, I kinda like the tought. Fortunately I don't have a gun ;)


    --
  • when sending out spam is a reason for murdering someone, what comes next?

    Murder for sending out massmessages on IRC? ;)


    --

  • And remember - the purpoise of the moderation system is to give higher ratings to the most interesting, insightful, and funny posts.

    The purpoise is not to make it so that you don't see anything that might upset/offend you.

  • I read that they were working for the Feds. They may have been scumbags, it seems more likely somebody found out they were snitches and wasted them. Fact is few people will actually go out and kill because they got screwed out of money(especially honest ones). They just go to the cops, if they're smart enough to realize they got scammed. But there a plenty of people, once they get dirty, who will kill to avoid heavy jail terms. They only got fined 650k 'cause they cut a deal for information
  • Less SPAM clogging up our networks is what comes next.

    Hmm, maybe I should get myself a gun after all. First take out all the local taggers, then take out all the spammers..


    --
  • (begin pedantic mode) beaucoup-karma (end pedantic mode)
  • I don't know why I'm dignifying what you said with a response, but I'm just interested in knowing who you think finds nothing wrong with child pornography.

    Most countries have outlawed murder and some have even outlawed assault and battery. Are you suggesting these laws and others like them are legislating morality? Because, if so, you really are stupid. Small wonder you chose to post anonymously.

    -A.P.
    --


    "One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

  • > Gees these spammers must have really done well
    > for themselfves, check out the picture of their
    > house

    That house belongs to the father of one of their girlfriends. It states that in the article.

    dave
  • > Microsoft's Y2K "important message"

    Is that a UL being passed around by idiots who believe everything they get forwarded in email?

    dave
  • Well after all spammers are pritty much 99.44% scam artists anyway.
    Who in there right mind would advertise with spam if they knew they were alienating 90% of there potental costummers?
    Only a scam artist would want a quick load of costumers with little chance of repeate busness and no chance of expantion.

    So in all honnestly I'm supprised spammers havn't been gun down before for non-spam related busness details.

    On the other hand spammers do seem to believe pop culture and the idea is now planted firmly in our geek minds. Nevere mind the fact that we'd never accually kill annother human being even if we barely recognise em as such.
    We are geeks and play violent video games so according to popculture we are dangerous violent blood thirsty psycopathic misfits.

    I see a new first person shooter comming out... Geek revenge.. or "Spam Hunters".
    Include on the game CD a howto on accually tracking down spammers and giving them das boot.
    Finnaly direct players to call it a tranning program "Heh,heh,heh" simi-demonicly.
    On the box front "The #1 spam elimination tool - Guns, bombs and psycopaths mag"
    Maybe include a compemetry issue of this fictional mag in the box :)
    Ok enough.. I have work to do... not related to spam however...
    By the way.. Spammers beware.. we are psycopaths now and we know where you live..... muahahahaha
  • Q: "How do you call a spammer floating dead in the river?"
    A: "Pollution"
    Q: "How do you call all the spammers floating dead in the river?"
    A: "The solution"
    Yeah, it's reaaaaally baaaad to wish someone's death.

  • People die.

    Sometimes people who deserve it die.

    If you rip off a bunch of other people really badly, you can expect to die.

    If you engage in the sending of UCE, you do so at your own risk.

  • What, you're going to go for telemarketer operators? They're just kids getting paid $5/hr.

    As far as mass-snail mailers, it's not costing you anything. Actually, neither is telemarketers. You can hang up/toss out the mail.

    The main complaint about SPAM is that THEY are costing YOU money, or at least piggy-backing off of your internet connection fees.
  • What I feared is actually happening here ... notice how all the jokes made on the death of those spammers are moderated down? That's the real problem with /.'s moderation system: it incites people to act POLITICALLY CORRECTLY. Yeah, the fact that those spammer died amuses me. Am I cruel? Yeah maybe. So what? I'm against the death penalty, personally. How many of those 'moderators' who labelled all those jokes as 'troll' or 'flamebait' are actually sick death penalty-happy right wing americans? Most of them, I believe.

    Death is'nt funny? Hey, I've got bad news for you folks: WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE. And those guys are ALREADY dead. Tough. Shit happens. Plus they were crooks. Not just spammers, crooks, who probably ripped many people of their life's savings.

    You merkins listen: KEEP YOUR 'POLITICAL CORRECTNESS' CRAP FOR YOURSELF.

  • There may be more truth to that than it seems... (Score:4)

    by mrsam ( 12205 ) on Saturday October 30, 1999 @08:39AM (#1575687) Homepage

    These people were the ones behind the "JTSR Restaurants" series of spam runs late last year and earlier this year. That was one of the more massive spam runs of the last couple of years, involving nearly hundreds of fraudulently opened throwaway dialup accounts, and hundreds of hijacked mail relays over the course of several months.

    I think that it is very much possible that someone who had his mailbox pummeled day in and day out with that crap -- many people received half a dozen copies of the same fucking spam every day for weeks -- went bonkers and tracked these people down.

    When you start annoying tens of millions of people at random, you are bound to come across more than just a couple of nuts, kooks, and freakazoids. That's a given, according to laws of probability and statistics. There's no way around it. When you have such a large sample of population chosen at random, there are bound to be quite a handful of nuts in there.

    Well, if you want to go around and start annoying and harassing a bunch of mentally unstable people, well, you'll just have to do it at your own risk. I'm really surprised that this hasn't happened more often.
    --

  • I apologize if I didn't make myself clear. I was in a hurry when I wrote that, but now it's time to clarify. When I wrote spam !=bad business, what I meant was that spamming doesn't necessarily indicate that your are involved in OTHER bad business practices. Yes, spam IS a bad business practice, but lots of TOP-RATE companies use spam to some small degree. It's hard to keep anonymous these days... Guess I've just been lucky.
  • If not, when the first spams start coming, get very pedantic on the abouse@ reporting. Some of the first ones will be small time operators trying to sell lists to you. Get them shut down.
  • Regardless of the spamming, i do not even find it remotely funny that they are dead.

    Me neither. THey deserved what they got. Heck, they deserved a lot more.

    Yes, it's annoying to get spam. but i have yet to see death as i justification for having to delete electronic mail.

    Spammers cripple the net. They use up resources that aint theirs. They plague millions of people every day.

    they deserve to punished to the full extent of the law, but laughing and joking about their deaths is so cold hearted and sick.

    I prefer to say they deserved it. I prefer to say that I really hope this will happen a lot more often in the future.


    --
  • Please bend over, remove the 2 X 4, and lighten up.
  • Those were human lives.

    Humans are YAA (yet another animal). So who cares if a couple of people died? And beside, they were spammers so I personally enjoyed reading it. Quite frankly I hope this will happen more often in the future.

    and all of these tasteless jokes would be appropriately tagged ``flamebait''.

    I have a feeling my karma is suffering bad today. Spammmers deserve what they get. I cannot help it, but I *love* it when I hear about spammers, crackers and the like gets it bad.


    --

  • Re:Spam Kills (Score:3)

    by gad_zuki! ( 70830 ) on Saturday October 30, 1999 @09:38AM (#1575697)
    New Jersey, execution style shooting. Its a mob hit alright, but its not CNNewsworthy unless it has the word Net or Web in it.

    "Both killed in iExecution style..."

  • I know people who really don't care about discussions
    but, you're right, these people won't use slashdot for discussing their spam-mail and that's the difference
    it's your own decision to use slashdot, but when being spammed by email you are forced to receive this and you can't easily start a discussion with the other person

  • Someone mark the article as flaimbait... (Score:4)

    by jbrw ( 520 ) on Saturday October 30, 1999 @05:02AM (#1575700) Homepage
    Oh boy...

    Looking at the first few comments posting to this article, it seems as though we're in for a bumpy ride.

    This almost certainly has nothing to do with spam, and a lot to do with the $10m of investors money that disappeared.

    Read the article and think before posting some off-the-cuff reply.

    ...j

  • How, exactly, do you produce child porn without real children????

    Nevermind, I really don't want to know.

    -----
  • How can you say this is a "outstanding contribution to the free software movement"???
    Sure, spam isn't great, but in what way is it stopping free software??

    This way of thinking just gives the free software movement a bad name!

  • It's sad... (Score:4)

    by archivis ( 100368 ) on Saturday October 30, 1999 @05:07AM (#1575707) Journal
    We all hate spam. As gratifying as it is for the net-savvy to see spammers get theirs it is, we need to look beyond the immediate visceral rush.

    This is going to make us look bad. Now, not only is the net the playground of pr0n vendors and the dreadful capitalism-destroying mp3s, we're a bunch of gun-toting vigilantes who work out our grudges with guns as well as harmless flames.

    A crime like this could lead to even more net-hysteria among the clueless.

    Poor guys...scummy as they were, nothing it looks like they did would make them deserve to be gunned down like an animal.
  • Somehow it isn't suprising. I mean, spammers are almost universally hated online. So 'natch there are alot of jokes going around about "what we would do" if we ever caught one of them alone.

    In the same vein on how alot of us have had thoughts of pouring iron filings into the back of a crappy monitor at work to get a new one, this is kind of the same logic.

    I have to say that making jokes about spammers (a general group) isn't necessarily a wrong or evil idea. However, laughing at a the real thing (specific people) is morally reprehensible. Nobody deserves to die - that doesn't mean we can't joke about it. Seems alittle contradictory? It is. Non sequir. None the less, it is true.

    --

  • Re:sheesh... (Score:3)

    by xmedar ( 55856 ) on Saturday October 30, 1999 @09:11AM (#1575717)
    Welcome to the wonderful world of natural selection, your host this evening is Mr. Darwin, he will explain how spammers are unfit life forms which in time will be erased by equally unfit homocidal elements, that in turn will be incarcerated, therefore elliminating two social ills at once. This has been a pulic service announcement.....

  • Re:POLITICALLY CORRECT MODERATION (Score:4)

    by Wah ( 30840 ) on Saturday October 30, 1999 @09:45AM (#1575719) Homepage Journal
    That's the real problem with /.'s moderation system: it incites people to act POLITICALLY CORRECTLY.

    Actually, Political Correctness was introduced with Meta-Moderation. If you moderated a "darkly funny" joke up, then get meta-moderated by a tight ass you lose karma. This leads to conservative moderation and ultimately PC behaviour. It's because Rob added a conscience to the system (something above the action that determines if it is good or bad).

  • PC Agenda Alert


    Humor is completely subjective, and while I really do appreciate the cheap one liners, some may not. Yet, you don't see the humorous posts crying out against the bleeding-hearts. Why? Because they get it, when they rub a handful of neurons together they know that censorship and tastefulness are the tools of the fascist-minded.

  • For once.. (Score:4)

    by Kitsune Sushi ( 87987 ) on Saturday October 30, 1999 @05:23AM (#1575735)

    ..I actually find myself wishing for some more moderation. Honestly, anyone who's doing some moderation today, please take a moment to read this: I really don't need to hear anyone making cheap jokes at the expense of a couple of dead people. It's not funny. It's not cute. They're dead. Those were human lives. No one deserves to be murdered (this becomes an arguable point when it comes to the legal system and the death penalty, but in those cases the offenders have committed murder themselves, and as much as we all hate spam, it's not murder), and all of these tasteless jokes would be appropriately tagged ``flamebait''. Anyone who really cares to read all these sick, tasteless gestures can lower their threshold to 0 or less if they haven't already. I for one did not need this to ``brighten'' up my morning.

  • Spam Kills (Score:4)

    by unc_onnected ( 6084 ) on Saturday October 30, 1999 @05:24AM (#1575738)
    seriously, it sounds from the article that their deaths is not at all related to spamming, except indirectly. these guys were ripping people off with penny stocks. this kind of securities fraud is nothing new, its just nowadays people may believe spam mails telling them how to get rich. whereas before it may have worked only by word of mouth. the guys are fscking con artists, they probably skrewed up somewhere, stepped on someone's toes or ripped off someone who got

    a

    little

    pissed.

    and dude, to the guy who said something about how the spammers did well for themselves, the house is owned by one of the guys' girlfriend's dad. i doubt either of them was very wealthy.

    unc_
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • The *Important* Recent Dpam News (Score:3)

    by nocleverhandle ( 91713 ) on Saturday October 30, 1999 @10:59AM (#1575746)

    Microsoft's Y2K "important message" is being sprayed all over - including addresses that had previously opted-out of their informational newswire mailings, and apparently harvested addresses as well.

    This spam is different. This time a huge company is violating it's own privacy policy and blatantly disrespecting the wishes of the recipients.

    I'm very disappointed that this is getting no press whatsover. It is about the worst precedent that could possibly be set by a industry leader.

    Prepare for the deluge of spam from mainstream companies.

    The spam wars are about rendering email useless for unsolicited advertising before unsolicited advertising renders email useless as a tool for personal communication.

    -- Walter Dnes in News.admin.net-abuse.email
  • I don't know if everyone was giggling too hard, or just drank too much during Halloween weekend, but this scrolled off the main screen with narry a reply.

    ObOnTopicComment: It wouldn't surprise me if this was spam-related. As with "road-rage", and other similar psychologically triggery scenarios, anger is not unusual. Mix that with a few too many down the bar, and a knowledge of who the spammer is, and this could easily be the result.

    Whilst this is certainly disturbing, I have to say that inciting anger, to save money on marketing, isn't an FDA-approved method of staying in good health. It doesn't excuse what happened, no matter what the reason or motive, but if you choose to live dangerously, don't blame danger if you don't make a Hollywood escape.

  • Some spammers put in other peoples adresses or phone numbers as revenge, typically against people who got them kicked out of their last ISP.

    This is the _real_ reason you shouldn't try to get even with the spammers, you might hit the wrong people.

  • Maybe there isn't a murderer out there. (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 30, 1999 @05:24AM (#1575758)
    Maybe this is just the result of a very agressive procmail filter.

    If so, I hope it's Open Source.
  • "child porn spammers deserve an espcially painful death"

    "if it were child pornography spam then nothing short of what happened to them would be required"

    Why is so many attacking this all the time? Ok, spam in general is bad but why would child porn spam be extra bad? If you produce it using real children that's bad. Just as producing regular porn by raping people. But I can't see anything wrong with child porn in itself.

Slashdot Top Deals

I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that they might escape the lusts of the flesh. -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain"

Close