Saturday 2 May 2009

CNN: carbon footprint of spam

Finally, I have the CNN footage.

Amusingly, they mixed up the captions, so Woody got my title...


No video? Click here for the carbon footprint of spam video.

Wednesday 29 April 2009

A "Monster" Spammer (NYSE:MWW)

Update May 1 3.30 UTC: several listwashing requests.

Dear Monster.com (NYSE:MWW),

You are spamming me. Stop it. Please.

You're sending marketing email to an address that has never given informed consent to receive it.

Not only that, but you're even breaking the spirit, if not the letter, of the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act. While your unwelcome missive does include the proscribed physical address and unsubscribe link, they are displayed in white text on a white background.

Yes, really. (I dare say they'd be more visible if my email client displayed HTML images by default, but like many clients, it doesn't.)

Naturally, it's also in violation of the law in which your UK subsidiary operates. There was no "prior consent" given, within the meaning of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003. Offenders are liable to a fine of up to £5,000 in a magistrate's court, or an unlimited fine if the trial is before a jury.

Update May 1 3.30 UTC:
I've received a couple of email messages and a Twitter DM from Monster, expressing apologies for the situation. Sadly, these expressions of regret don't extend to actually fixing the spam problem; they appear to be an attempt to listwash.

Sorry, Monster; listwashing is bad practice. My standard operating procedure is to never unsubscribe from a list that I did not subscribe to.

If Monster wishes to solve this problem, it would stop sending email to addresses of people who did not subscribe. I'm open to a public dialogue on this subject: feel free to tweet or comment here, rather than privately emailing or DM'ing.

Today's Tweets

  • 07:32 The swines! Flu panic blamed on Twitter and blogs ping.fm/D7j7T #itblogwatch #swineflu Voices of reason drowned by twits #
  • 08:00 @djtechnocrat Yes, but it was always thus. Twitter makes the whole thing grow faster, whipping ignorance into a huge frenzy. #swineflu #
  • 08:56 I'll be at Infosec on Thursday afternoon only. Currently available for briefings 1.45pm-4pm. #
  • 11:48 @hprice Loudmouth workers leaking data through social networking sites tinyurl.com/d4p7uc #
  • 11:50 Planning to keynote at Inbox/Outbox in mid-June. inbox-outbox.com #
  • 12:11 @hprice LOL #
Thanks: LoudTwitter

Tuesday 28 April 2009

Today's Tweets

Thanks: LoudTwitter

Monday 27 April 2009

Today's Tweets

  • 07:54 @markwu Dropbox isn't a backup tool; Mozy is. They solve different problems. richi.co.uk/mozy #
  • 09:26 RT @fdestin Suddenly reminded of ... cartoon: "I used to tweet but I went back to pointless incessant barking" -- bit.ly/ZHfy9 #
  • 12:59 @haiyo Dropbox isn't a backup tool; Mozy is. They solve different problems. richi.co.uk/mozy #
  • 13:55 @haiyo Yes but DropBox doesn't do versioning and recovering deleted files. As for your mozy problems, let @Mozy know. He's good; he'll help. #
  • 14:02 @hprice "piqued" ;-) #
  • 14:43 RT @AllenHarkleroad Debt collector threat over BT bill for £0.00 ($0.00) tinyurl.com/djrs3h #
Thanks: LoudTwitter

Sunday 26 April 2009

Today's Tweets

  • 20:33 Some thoughts about vendors I met at the RSA Conference ping.fm/IVfZw #
  • 20:39 @LivingInHD Pretty happy with my Viera 50PZ80B plasma, but surprised how poor the blacks are. Quite a lot of light when screen is "black". #
  • 20:44 @berkmancenter Thanks for the linkluv #
  • 23:35 @mengwong thanks /LogicQcwLogiQ^[ZZ #
  • 08:17 WANT: Smart Fourtwo powered by Tesla EV drivetrain ping.fm/bfcKM Hey aftermarket peeps, how about a conversion kit? #
  • 11:21 RT @AllenHarkleroad To Tweet or to Re-Tweet that is the question.... #
  • 11:31 @travelingcircus Hi. Interested in what people are saying about spam (not to mention @spam) #
  • 11:39 @awaken319 No need to be a euro-hater. Of course, some European countries are worse than others. #
  • 11:39 @signatureladyj I only know enough to be dangerous ;-) #
  • 18:45 @hprice Try @Thepeoplefinder for that task #
  • 18:52 @hlslaughter I did a test disaster-recovery of about 185GB. It averaged 500KB/s (would have been faster, but for my 6Mbps DSL). #
  • 18:55 @mozy do you think that @dornquast is being fair? e.g., twitter.com/dornquast/status/1616523717 #
Thanks: LoudTwitter