IDIOTS WHO SPAM THE INTERNET

Last updated Sat Aug 16 00:01:56 2003

SPECIAL NOTE, AUGUST 2003: Okay, this is ridiculous. At first, all I got was either retaliatory email from spammers or "go get 'em!" notes from people just as disgusted with all the crapmail as I am. Problem is, the volume of spam has grown to the point where I simply cannot keep this part of my site updated (e.g., the over TWO THOUSAND spams I got from some ass over in Korea in a couple of hours, knocking my email out for over a day). Even worse, I've been getting hit with complaints from people (who just don't get it) with names the same as, or similar to, the names appearing on various "Idiots Who..." pages.
Never mind the fact that the only names appearing here are taken from the actual spam messages via cut-and-paste; never mind the fact that, depending on family surname, there may literally be thousands of people in the USA alone with the "same" name; never mind the fact that I've been exposing spammers and not picking names randomly from a hat. These folks (whose names I will not release for both their and my own protection) just figure that if they run a Google search and it returns a hit on something they don't like, then it's a personal attack.
Well, gang... sorry to pop your bubble, but names are NOT unique, and I am NOT attacking any of you, and I am NOT making any claims about anybody except the individuals who have actually taken the time to send me unsolicited commercial crap. On the other hand, I'm trying to have a life, run a business, and keep my nose in things happening in cyberspace, and you have all pointed out to me that at this point you're more work than you're worth... So you won't find your names here, and neither will anybody else. I'll keep this page up (eventually it may fall apart through the normal link rot that affects every page on the web), but instead of exposing the actual spammers among us, I've deleted the pages with their names and addresses (except for a few samples of the infamous "Nigerian 419 scam") so you can all go back to your Googling without having to worry about the real-life fact that there may be some idiot out there with the same name as you who's busy screwing over ISPs and telcos by flooding their lines & servers with tens of thousands of unsolicited (sometimes dangerous) emails and screwing over Internet users by filling up their inboxes with all kinds of crap.
I want to thank all those of you out there who've picked up the fight, and all those of you who've invited me to join in class action suits, etc. against specific spammers — and I encourage you to keep pushing back against the f*king morons who've made it just about impossible to avoid government intervention to "protect" our emails.

SPECIAL NOTE, JANUARY 2002: Regular visitors to this feature of my site may have noticed that I have been updating it far less frequently than I once did. There are several reasons for this: 1) things had reached the point where I was spending 2-3 hours (or more!) every day just handling the spam, and have had to back off to get real work done; and 2) I signed up for a new filtering service from my ISP that blocks the vast majority of the crapmail messages. Although I will be updating these pages far less often in the future, I will continue to post the names of idiots who participate in pyramid schemes, as well as information for any spammers stupid enough to have more than one or two copies of their crap blocked by the filters. Take heart, though; I continue to report the vast majority of spammers to their ISPs, and anyone stupid enough to send multiple pyramid schemes to me also gets reported to the Postal Inspectors of the USPS. Hang in there, gang!

Special Additional Semi-Spamming Weirdness: Okay; it's not quite spam in the classic sense, but I'm REAL tired of big corporations acting just like the mindless spammers complained about herein. Early in 2001, numerous letters sent to several state attorneys general asking that all charges against the company be dropped were proven to not only come from a company Microsoft had hired to drum up public support... they came with return addresses attributing them to people who were dead! I just learned that Microsoft wants to keep their "almost spammer" status so badly that in December, an online poll asking about preferred development platforms showed .Net a distant third to Java and "Other" " until a surge of automated and repeat votes originating inside the microsoft.com domain changed things! Read all about Microsoft's latest display of bad ethics at ZDNet here: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2102244,00.html



Special "Just Doesn't Get It" Award: Here's proof that, unfortunately, self-employed computer folk like me can easily have our reputations tarred for us by alleged "colleagues" allegedly in the same industry:  http://petemoss.com/spamflames/ShifmanIsAMoronSpammer.html   

Elsewhere on this web site (look 
here) you'll find a few words to guide you away from doing something silly or dumb with email. These pages, however, are a listing of (some of) the unethical idiots who have made a conscious decision to try to make a buck illegally at the cost of those of us who are trying to be good netizens. I leave it up to the reader to decide what 21st century version of the classic tar and feathers should be bestowed upon the idiots listed here.

Oh, by the way, this is nowhere near all the spam I get; I'd literally have time for nothing else if I listed each piece of crapmail here!

Most spam includes a note saying something like, "this message cannot be considered spam according to..." with a reference to a bill in Congress. If you want to see some of what the U.S. Congress has said, here are a couple of quotes from H.R. 2162:

"No person may use the equipment of an electronic mail service provider, or cause such equipment to be used, for transmission of unsolicited commercial electronic mail in violation of a posted policy of such provider."


And while we're at it, here's another tidbit that defines "spam" as...

"...any electronic mail message, the principal purpose of which is to promote, directly or indirectly, the sale or other distribution of goods or services to the recipient."

In other words, if you're selling a physical object or a service, or if you're "only" trying to convince someone to buy a physical object or service, then you ARE spamming.

If you're new to the net: "spam" is Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE), i.e., advertising or soliciting via email messages that the recipient hasn't asked for. Sending UCE is called "spamming." Spamming is currently a criminal act in 4 states, and another 14 states are currently considering similar legislation. None of the pending "opt-out" bills before Congress pre-empt existing or future anti-spam laws at the state level. If you get spammed, I suggest you visit SpamCop, but in any case: 1) Do not reply to spam — the return address is rarely real. 2) Do not use the spam's "remove" link or address — the majority of spammers either include invalid information there, or use your response to verify that your address is a "known good" address they can make money by selling to other spammers.

Unfortunately, because my name is associated with a number of different Interent domains, I get a lot of spam — roughly 80% of all the email arriving in my account qualifies for that definition. My "Idiots" file started off as a single page, then was split into two... and now those two have gotten so long that I've had to create an entire sub-section of my website with multiple pages to handle the crap! Simply choose one of the headings from the list below, and you'll be taken to a page of associated IDIOTS WHO SPAM THE INTERNET!




SPECIAL WARNING:
[August 4, 2001] I have received numerous messages over the past couple of weeks from individuals in the muzik.com domain with "urgent! please contact me! thank you..." as the subject line and an empty body (no text). DO NOT REPLY TO ANY OF THESE MESSAGES IF YOU RECEIVE THEM! The sender's address is usually info@mail.muzik.com and if you are able to look up the owner of that domain — difficult to do because they've registered with a great deal of false data — you'll find that it's a small group of scammers in Russia. If you reply to their crap, they'll verify your address, and then the spamming will REALLY begin...!







Cybernetic Sleight of Hand

A particularly insidious type of spam in which the spammer wants to sell you email lists you can use to create more spam, or register you in more search engines than actually exist, or help you advertise via spamming... or any number of other things that any legitimate online business won't do...



Funny Business

I've received so many spams (only a fraction of which are listed here) detailing one or another crazy business deal that was "too good to pass up," that I've given them their own page! [30-Mar-2001]



Funny Money

Well, it finally happened — I received so many investment scams, loan scams, mortgage scams, and other financially-based spams that I've given them their own page. I'd say "enjoy," but since it's all crapmail... [13-Apr-2001]



Internet Spies

Alternatively "The Internet Spy And You!" or "Discover Secrets About Anyone!" or "No More Secrets!" or "CIA" or "Cyber Investigator's Assistant" or "This Was Never Intended to Reach Your Eyes!" or any of the other variations on the theme of software that's supposed to help you dig up all existing information about anyone you want...



Pyramidical Posturings

Pyramid-type schemes where you send money to a list of individuals, then drop one name off the list and add yours and send your personalized spam out into the world... (Note: this page just keeps growing and growing and...)



Playing Doctor

Well, I finally received so many spams for cheap drugs from foreign pharmacies... enlarge, minimize or otherwise modify body parts... clean out my innards... and all kinds of other snake oil that I decided to add a whole new category! [05-Jul-2001]



Four-One-One on Four-One-Nine

I've been contacted by Nigerian scam artists often enough (only a fraction of the letters appear here) that I decided it's time to give this dangerous scam its own page... [17-Aug-2001]   You can also see (and enjoy!) how The 419 Coalition handled their involvement in a 419 scam by going here



Other Assorted Idiotic Annoyances

Great deals on real estate...  learn web design at home... and gobs & gobs of other crap!



By the way, if you're wondering where all the sex & fetish spam is, I don't include it here (although I certainly seem to get a lot of it) — I don't want to run the risk of accidentally sending traffic to those sites so that they can claim higher advertising rates...!