Companies that spam or sell your address!

General discussion re sg.

Postby Guest » Sat Jun 18, 2005 7:22 am

I know you guys are trying to be all nice and fairminded and polite and everything, but I'm afraid I have harsher attitudes about both the spam and the browser compatibility.

Companies always TAKE the right to use, abuse, measure, and monitor us. It's a matter of class interests, perspective, and morality. If they really meant all that privacy jazz, they'd actually go out of their way to NOT record any personal info. A real anti-spam policy would mean implementing an SG system at the ISP. It would mean NEVER even having something to opt-in to. Look at the SG website - it's free and they never contact their users at all. An ISP is getting PAID, for cripe's sake.

If they'd get all the useless scripting out of their webpages, there wouldn't be a problem with different browsers. Users wouldn't have to expose themselves [turning their scripting on] just to use such sites. Anything fancy that they really need to do can be accomplished with server-side scripting. Most of it is garbage. Just look at the blocks of code programs like Dreamweaver stuff into every page.

If they say it's too much to do, I say they're big, they have the resources.

All the webmail sites suffer from the same abuse of scripting. I have to engage it to view their site, so they have to screen my webmail to avoid giving me a script virus. If I could keep my scripting off, the webmail site wouldn't have to do anything to protect me, I'd already be invulnerable. They make me prefer SMTP.

By the way, hows about a separate forum for this topic alone - SITES THAT SPAM or something?
Guest
 

Postby SysKoll » Sat Jun 18, 2005 5:07 pm

By the way, hows about a separate forum for this topic alone - SITES THAT SPAM or something?


That was the intended idea, given the title of the thread...

Regarding scripting, I am not sure what you mean... I use Firefox under Linux and I never heard of any flaw that would make Javascript usafe on this platform. So it's on all the time.[/code][/quote]
-- SysKoll
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Postby Guest » Tue Jun 21, 2005 1:24 pm

What I meant was: When you click on 'discuss/support' on the SG home page, you get

http://images.spamgourmet.com/phpBB2/

which lists the following 5 forums:

[1]
General Discussion
[2]
Support / Hilfe / ayuda / ondersteuning / ...
[3]
Polls
[4]
Developers
[5]
What's New

I think you should add the current thread as a sixth forum.

As far as the scripting goes, I admit I have programmed very little in Javascript, but it seems one can invoke any old thing from such a script, which might be malevolent. Until I know more, I keep scripting off.

Among my computer service clients, those who keep scripting off [on my suggestion] have never picked up any spy- or mal- ware, whereas those who ignored me have always been nailed.

This has also been true of email clients, where I have always used older software and disabled the scripting and html.

Lastly, I remove as many file types as possible from the registry [obviously windoze]. The result is, no matter how stupid the user, they are invulnerable.
Guest
 

Postby josh » Tue Jun 21, 2005 2:21 pm

My concern with adding a forum is that it could be seen as "leading with the chin" when it comes to takedown letters from poor sport companies.
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Postby Guest » Thu Jun 23, 2005 7:25 am

josh wrote:My concern with adding a forum is that it could be seen as "leading with the chin" when it comes to takedown letters from poor sport companies.

I see your point.

Do I presume correctly that even if all the spam reports are unsolicited 'opinions' [not 'slander' or 'libel'] from users only, and no reports come from the founders, you still fear a 'legal' attack on SG itself?

If so, why is it safer to keep the list of spammers as a thread rather than a topic? Seems a small distinction to me.

Perhaps we could list our spammers on another blog which is not 'legally' related to SG.

Perhaps we could always make our posts in the form of 'I might be wrong and I'm not completely sure, but slimecorp just sent me 15,362 unsolicited emails in 6 days. Is it just possibly conceivable that I might be mistaking them for spam?' :mrgreen:

Perhaps we could take our cue from the librarians who are resisting the FBI by inversion and make this thread into something 'positive': Not a list of spammers at all, but a list of companies that provide 'wonderful opportunities to learn about exciting affiliates.' :twisted:

You would have to edit the posts to maintain the style if anyone posted a flame in anger.
Guest
 

Postby josh » Tue Oct 18, 2005 3:03 am

OK - just the facts. In June, I got most of the way through the signup process at retailreportcard.com, I don't think I finished, and I've certainly received no benefits from their program to date.

As of today, the stats say 1568 messages have been eaten on that address, and from the looks of the eaten message log (before I hid the address just now), the frequency is increasing. Ouch!!!

Or maybe I should say -- darn! just think of those amazing offers I missed!
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Clubtera.com and KendraJade.com

Postby chilla427 » Thu Oct 20, 2005 5:19 pm

Hello - I would like to report a spammer that has gotten hold of two of my spamgourmet disposable addresses. From the looks of the emails, its the same spammer sending to both. Now I kinda expected to get some kind of spam when signing up for porn sites, which is why I used my spamgourmet address. Here are the details.

http://www.kendrajxxx.com
signed up 2/27/04 cancelled 4/27/04
Spam started Oct 2005

http://www.clubtera.com
signed up 7/17/04 cancelled 9/15/04
Spam started Oct 2005

Obviously neither of these disposable addresses were used for any other purpose. Here is one of the original emails:

---------------------------------------
Spam listing deleted because 1. it contains email addresses that might be innocent bystanders, 2. it contains so mainy offensive words that this forum might have to be relocated to a curtain-occulted backroom in a seedy video store.

Please don't post that kind of stuff here, mmmkay?
-- Syskoll
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Postby crazycomputers » Thu Oct 20, 2005 11:34 pm

If you really don't like spam then steer clear of any pyramid get-stuff-for-free things. A friend wanted me to look at http://www.freegamingmachine.com so I entered an sg address when I was asked to sign up. The next page has the list of "offers" you have to complete before you can get your free product.

I never completed an offer, nor went through the site's registration process. It's now 22 days later and the disposable has eaten 622 messages -- NONE of which are from freegamingmachine.com. This does not come as a surprise to me; indeed the "privacy" policy states (after the BS "we respect your privacy" boilerplate) that they share your address with "carefully selected vendors, business partners and other organizations." Still makes for good stats though. This one address makes up for two-thirds of my eaten messages. Considering that I've had my account for a little over a year that means that I'm either careful who I give disposable addresses to, or FGM flat-out sucks balls. (Probably both. I mean, both things I said, not both balls. Although that's very likely too.)
Real programmers don't comment their code. It was hard to write; it should be hard to understand.
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Godaddy.com

Postby sgopal2 » Tue Oct 25, 2005 12:06 pm

I registered a domain via godaddy.com about 2 months ago. To avoid being spammed, I used a disposable address in the box that forces you to list an email address (godaddy.10.XXXX@spamgourmet.com).

This morning I found two spams in my inbox. I sent a complaint to abuse@godaddy.com and am waiting to get a response.

I really doubt someone would be creative enough to figure out my domain name (www.26phb.com) which is being used to sell my house, so I assume that Godaddy's security was compromised somehow.

I pray that Godaddy.com didn't violate its own privacy policy and gave out my email address without permission. If so what kind of recourse do I have?
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Postby SysKoll » Tue Oct 25, 2005 1:48 pm

You would not have much of a recourse. You'd have to prove that Go Daddy are the only ones to whom you gave this email address. And since you cannot prove a negative, you have no case.

All you can do is bitch and retaliate. Bitching involves emailing them. Retaliating means posting abundantly in forums such as this one, making sure that search engines will pick your post when looking for "GoDaddy spam".

Please keep us informed of the incident resolution.
-- SysKoll
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Here is Godaddy's response

Postby sgopal2 » Tue Oct 25, 2005 5:57 pm

Here is the response I got from Godaddy.com (abuse@godaddy.com)
Code: Select all
From: Go Daddy Spam and Abuse Department <abuse@godaddy.com> Mailed-By: godaddy.com
To: sgopal2 <sgopal2@XXXX.com>
Date: Oct 25, 2005 1:33 PM
Subject: RE: Spammer got hold of my domain registration email address

Dear sgopal2,

Thank you for contacting the Spam and Abuse Department.  Unfortunately there is nothing that we can do regarding this situation due to the fact that the WHOIS information is publicly accessible to anyone.  Additionally the domain name advertised in the email is not registered or hosted with GoDaddy.com.  I apologize for any inconvenience that this situation might have caused you.


Sincerely,


Spam and Abuse Department

GoDaddy.com


My main issue is that my website address (26phb.com) was unique enough that it shouldn't have been guessed. So obviously the person (or bot) was tipped off somehow to query 26phb.com.

Even still querying WHOIS usually involves some type of manual typing in of GIF images to avoid a computerized harvesting.

Godaddy is either selling off registrant's email addresses, or they have a weakness in their WHOIS query engine that allows spammers to get the addresses.
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Postby SysKoll » Thu Oct 27, 2005 4:11 pm

Or there is a WHOIS database access that is automatically scrapped off by a spambot somewhere. Don't discount that possibility.
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Re: Verizon sells your email address to Cheetahmail

Postby theq » Fri Dec 16, 2005 12:35 am

VZEMPL wrote:In the case of the Grammy email mentioned below, this email was not selling any service and was considered a customer service email, not an advertisement, which is why there was no ADV tag. We felt that the exclusive content we were providing around the grammy's event was an exclusive entertainment opportunity that we were making available to our customer base.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

(wipes tears from eyes)

No, it's not SPAM - it's an "OPPORTUNITY" that we were "MAKING AVAILABLE" to you out of the goodness of our heart.

Just because VZEMPL knows how to write a reasonable-sounding email doesn't change the fact his employer spams.

Spams. Got it? Spams.
Verizon sucks. SUCKS. SUCKITY-SUCK-SUCK-SUCKS.
(although, perhaps not as badly as Comcast)

Know what? If I'm ever in a position to weigh a Verizon product against someone else, I'll remember this. Honest. I don't do business with spammers - even reasonable sounding ones.
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Ameritrade leaks addresses

Postby jgombos » Fri Dec 16, 2005 3:03 am

ameritrade.bank.<myacct>@spamgourmet.com

I've been getting hit with "stock tips" that are obviously not originating from Ameritrade. Ameritrade is credible enough to not be sending emails like "hot stock! major profits.. buy xxx...".

So it seems you cannot trust Ameritrade with any information - they don't protect it well enough.
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Re: Ameritrade leaks addresses

Postby SysKoll » Fri Dec 16, 2005 4:34 pm

jgombos wrote:ameritrade.bank.<myacct>@spamgourmet.com

I've been getting hit with "stock tips" that are obviously not originating from Ameritrade. Ameritrade is credible enough to not be sending emails like "hot stock! major profits.. buy xxx...".

So it seems you cannot trust Ameritrade with any information - they don't protect it well enough.


The obvious would be to suspect they sold your address. Especially if you're getting stock spam and not the usual dugs and 419 spam. This would be particularly bad, since Ameritrade has a lot of info on their customers.

However, before we put the blame on them, we need to eliminate other possibilities. Can you be totally, absolutely sure your own machine isn't leaking email addresses? If you are running Windows, you might have an email-address-scrapiing Trojan. Please check your machine very carefully. Ask for advice if needed. Let us know.
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