I have nothing to say, except to ask you to look at my sig... :D

Actually if they know the addresses of the spammers why not close them off.

original... [img]tongue.gif[/img]

I agree wholeheartedly that spam is bad, and I'd like to get rid of it. The problem is that there's no governing body that rules the internet. The US can make all the rules it wants, but companies with servers in Novosibirsk don't have to comply, and the US can't force them to. They've run into the same thing with taxation on the internet, and they're running into the same thing with spam.

The "e-postage" that you'd want someone to pay (and don't bring out that urban legend) is already paid... in the price of their ISP and internet connection. Unfortunately, when the price is free, there's no penalty to the spammer. And with libraries, internet cafes, and free ISPs, it is indeed free.

Is spam evil, so to speak? Well, I don't think so. There are those who abuse commercial email, but there are those who use it nicely. I get emails from PalmOne, TigerDirect, Staples, and a few other companies on a regular basis that let me know about things they've got available -- sales, promotions, and whatnot.

I've purchased things from those emails, and I'm glad to get them. I don't purchase things from the abusers... period. Nor will I.

If someone finds a way to segregate those two groups, so that I could easily identify my "good" commercial email, I'd be really, really happy.

The best way to stop the spammers is to ignore them completely and never ever buy anything from them. Unfortunately, there are too many uninformed people who do buy things from them, and every one who does adds fuel to the fire.

Well rejoice, for I am here :D Just add domains of companies from which you don't want mail to your "blocked" list and don't block the domains of companies you shop with :D [img]tongue.gif[/img]

What gets me, is that Lycos, which is FREE, has awesome spam-filtering, yet RoadRunner, which I pay for, can't seem to be able to do it. I had to give up my original email address (which I liked) because it gets 30-60 Spam emails/day (I don't know how, I was very careful with who had my address).
Seriously, if Lycos can offer the spam filters for free, why can't RR and these other online providers?

Ahh... if it were only that simple, Vaskez. I can certainly do that in some areas, but I know a few folks with Yahoo, Hotmail, and other freebie accounts. Unfortunately, I'm not interested in filtering out every one of those, or filtering them in, either.

What I'd want is some way that, without necessarily knowing who the sender is, I could be certain that it's really something I'd be interested in. That's what I'm looking for... really [img]smile.gif[/img]

original... [img]tongue.gif[/img] </font>[/QUOTE]Why, thank you Vaskez :D
[img]tongue.gif[/img]

I think there's a huge difference between Gaming and Spam. For one thing, spam is abuse of commercial advertising, as mentioned before. Secondly, some people actually like and enjoy gaming, while no one I have encountered anywhere appreciated spam in their e-mail inbox.

I wholly support this idea. Bring the suckers down, I say. To be honest, I'm shocked spam is so successful...

*walking around the mines*

Looking back up at my post, I probably should have put "bad behavior" in quotes. I don't consider it bad behavior, but others do, and quite vehemently. Fortunately, most of them tend to stay away from here :D

My point is that as much as you feel that spam is rotten and evil (to paraphrase), there are people who feel the exact same way about gaming. Whether you or I think they're right is beside the point; it's what they believe, and they're entitled to their belief.

How many of "them" would it take to decide to turn this screen saver so it focuses on IW instead of some spammer? How many would it take before the IW server fell to its knees under the onslaught? Not many, quite frankly, and fewer than one might think.

Once you open the door to a DDOS on spammers, you open it to DDOS on other nasty groups too. Who could argue with doing it to the pedophiles? To the sexual abusers? How do you know you're DDOSing the right person? The right IP?

You don't. Not until it's all over. And wouldn't you like to be the one to be responsible for launching a DDOS against the compromised computer of some poor family, some poor family whose only phone service is Voice over IP, whose VOIP couldn't be used to call emergency to get an ambulance when little Suzie started choking on a hot dog, and then died?

That's a contrived situation, to be sure. But... is it impossible? No. And in fact, spammers are probably going to try to use computers just like these to do their dirty work.

Gaming good. Spam bad. DDOS to combat spam: also bad.

My [img]graemlins/twocents.gif[/img]