Posts Tagged ‘SPAM’

I use Twitter a lot. I wanted to stay informed, especially from friends. I decided to port all direct messages to my cell phone. That way I didn’t have to install a Twitter client. At first that was great – I could respond to people I need to talk to.

That has all changed with the Twitterbot.

Now, if I “Follow” the wrong person, I get a direct message:

Thanks for following me. I hope to talk to you, but in the meantime: here is a free gift hllp://i.am.spamming/you.

I am not impressed – In fact, I am downright annoyed. You want to get unfollowed by me? Then all you have to do is send me a bot like that. I’ll unfollow you in a heartbeat.

I don’t mind @replies. But the direct replies are the ones that go to the cell phone too. I am glad someone is trying to open communication, but this is redicuous.

So what can be done to change this?

Twitter could block directly direct messages – Maybe set up a blocker to direct messages until the two have conversed or a 30 day grace period has passed. Maybe even an

“Allow this person to DM you” option. Just because I want to follow them doesn’t mean I want them to spam me.

DM Karma – If your Karma is below a certain level, you cannot DM anyone.

In the meantime, I am going to have to turn off the option to SMS me for direct messages. I guess what was a good thing last year might not be so much this.

Bloomberg reports on gathering clouds in Twitter Land. Aggressive attempts by companies to use Twitter to market themselves are turning Twitterers off and fostering the growth of third-parties to help Twitterers control who can follow them. Read the full story here.

The story goes on to describe some of the actions Twitter is taking to combat this.

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I can see it now – Grampa sits jr on his knee and tells a story of how he was the third partner in the Apple franchise. He then proceeds to tell his sons’ son that he decided it was too risky and pulls out of the company 11 days after it was founded. At the time he was concerned over Jobs and Wozniaks’ work ethic and felt the company would not last – let alone make any money. Guess he should’ve listened to Forrest Gump.

By the way, that person’s name is Ronald Wayne.

In other Tech History, we see the Microsoft – Yahoo bid war heat up as not only Yahoo works deals with Google, but also tries to merge the internet operations with AOL. In the meantime, Microsoft talks with NewsCorp to do a “Joint acquisition”. That, the first SPAM, the DNA database and a whole lot more on todays Quickcast

*This podcast was recorded off the Blue Snowball Mic

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No, I am not an advocate of Spam. I am an advocate of controlled email. If you ask for it, you should get it, but it doesn’t mean you should get your email shared for so called “3rd party” affiliates. For if they are no longer and affiliate, do they still have your email address?

Last week McColo, a webserver known for trafficking of Spam, was taken down. The result was an instant drop of unsolicited email. IronPort – An E-mail security firm, said the problematic email dropped from 153 billion messages to 64 billion: A drop of over 60%. Other sites also reported a down spike in messaging.

But is that a good thing?

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iTunes Finally Cleaning House? – Interviews with Jamie Miller and Bryce Whitty: Win $25 Gift certificate – Paythefan – Sponsor for CES – Aunt Passing

At the end of the Podcast, we play a special song called “Legend on the Internet”, a song produced by local musicans and friends and written by @Sunspot_Mike of the Local Band: SunSpot

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It’s the Podcasts’ 1 YEAR Anniversary -GeekKon – CES – Interview with Walt Ribeiro – Future Segment – Paythefan – TechPodcast Roundtable

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Not more than 24 hours after the judgement of the so called “Spam King” is handed down, it looks like MySpace is under attack from spammers again. For months I have gone without “Friend Requests” of busty blondes wanting to show us their webcams. Tonight, I opened my profile to find about 10 new Friend Requests. When I went through the 10 profiles, it was almost the exact same profile with only the main photo changing.

Sanford Wallace was the man known as the Spam King. He would send messages to MySpace users which would redirect them to his site. MySpace filed suit last year, and on March 15th, Wallace pled guilty to felony fraud.

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I have a great online toolbox. Items that help me work with websites, servers and desktops – and the best part is it’s free. Akismet – or Automatic Kismet is a great little tool that keeps spammers from posting nonsense. I can’t say how Akismet has helped out on this site.

If you look to the left bar on the bottom, it says how many posts have been put in the Akismet quarrantine. These are posts that do nothing but try and improve their sites’ ratings. If you were to read them, it would say something like:

 …sombody posted a great article on how much they like Akismet…..

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I read an interesting article today on Tech Republic. Poster Tim Malone noticed that at his company in a 30 day period, out of the 12 million emails received, 96% was marked as Spam. Not unusual, but it counters an earlier article back in December where Google mentioned how Spammers are giving up. So does this mean that is wrong, or are Spammers just becoming seasonal and getting the bulk mailing out of the way?

At the beginning of the year, Barracuda Networks claimed that 95% of all email in 2007 was Spam. Except in this case, Tims’ company was 1% over the average. And of course, we are only in the first month of 2008 so this may average out better by June or July.

Still, can we really expect Spam to dissipate in the future?

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Google made a bold announcement this last week that Spammers are starting to throw in the towel. They claim Gmail has seen a decline in SPAM throughout the year. They claim that spam has plateaued and will continue this trend til it begins to decline in the years to come. 

Is it true? Are spammers giving up the fight? Or are they just taking a retreat to regroup? Maybe they are just getting smarter by making their SPAM legal…..

Lets start with the good stuff. What Spam is out there now. Well, the most favorite one in my book is the “I am a Lawyer and you (either) A) won the lottery B) Lost a wealthy long lost relative C) Have a client in a foreign country that needs your help”. No matter how hard email filters try, I always seem to get that email. Read the rest of this entry »