Spamfighter's We Like Balls

Why the Net really doesn't need SOPA / PIPA Legislation

2011-12-16T07:49:00.000-05:00

As some of you may know, there are bills wending their way (successfully, it appears) through the United States legislative process that will force search engines and ISPs to become tools of censorship. Basically, the record companies, film studios, and pharmaceutical companies are worried about their intellectual property. I am too. I lived off've the avails of music publishing for quite some

J.D. Falk - Bad Pictures of Good Food

2011-11-17T04:50:00.001-05:00

Death Didn’t Win During the last months he spend with us, my friend and colleague J.D. Falk reacted to the death of a fellow cancer patient, Canadian New Democratic Leader party leader Jack Layton, with the same aplomb and approach he had his entire life. Specifically, a columnist had noted, quite rightly, that Layton had not ‘lost a fight’ to cancer, and called for a better

120 Spam to An address stolen from out-law.com / Pinsent Masons

2011-09-10T10:24:00.001-04:00

In March 2012 I began to receive spam to an address given only to out-law.com I alerted them by way of editor matthew.magee@out-law.com, he told me they were looking into it, then went dead in response. I upped the ante and copied in the following addresses on complaints, to no avail. chris.mullen@pinsentmasons.com, andrew.hornigold@pinsentmasons.com, kathy.jacob@pinsentmasons.com,

Newmans, MacCallums, apples, tobacco, and raspberries

2011-07-13T10:08:00.003-04:00

As I noted over on Facebook, it appears that I have a biological family which is pretty cool. Monday, 16 May 2011 at 07:29 I've been searching for my biological family since the mid 1990s. I had attempted to gain access to adoption records to no avail, they were terse, and uninformative. I'd submitted my gene sample to 23andme.com some time ago and over the weekend, I was matched with my

Acceptance Speech for the MAAWG.org Mary Litynski

2011-06-09T11:01:00.000-04:00

I was honoured with the Mary Litynski award on June 09, 2011. Read about it here. This is not the first award I've received from the MAAWG community. A few years ago, at a meeting in Washington, D.C., I received an honorary doctorate when recognized me as Dr. Evil. At the past meeting, at Disney, you honored me with a t-shirt branding me as Grumpy, from the Seven Dwarves. As much as I treasure

It appears that I have family

2011-05-16T06:40:00.000-04:00

I've been searching for my biological family sine the mid 1990s. I had attempted to gain access to adoption records to no avail, they were terse, and uninformative. I'd submitted my gene sample to 23andme.com some time ago and over the weekend, I was matched with my biological sister. I also have a brother, and my mother is still alive and living elsewhere. The family history and the 23andme

Apple has a file on my computer that lists where I AM?!?! OMG OMG OMG

2011-04-22T15:55:00.000-04:00

These are the 39 apps on my iPhone that know where I am too, and I know 100% that they all 'call home'. Now what? AIM Alarm Clock Camera Camera + CBC Radio Color Craigsphone CraigsPro Currency Dogbook Dopplr Facebook Fandango Foodspotting Google GPS GPS Drive HBO iBart INRIX Traffic iPothole Maps Michelin OutOfTheBox Pano reQall Safari SeamlessWeb ZShazam SoundHound Speed Test Sunrise & Set Take

Why I'm voting conservative for the first time ever this election Pt. I

2011-03-25T18:58:00.000-04:00

The Geeky Ex-rock Critic Industry Minister Tony Clement Who tweets and interacts. And got a Canadian anti-spam law passed A Liberal former astronaut. Yawn

Anyone thinking of voting Bloc Quebecoise?

2011-03-25T09:13:00.000-04:00

Robert Bouchard Gérard Asselin The Bloc seem like good guys, interested in representing their constituencies. For example, here's a bit of a Hansard transcript from Robert Bouchard, Bloc MP (Chicoutimi—Le Fjord) and Vice-chair of the parliamentary INDU Committee: http://openparliament.ca/hansards/2336/109/ Robert Bouchard Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC Mr. Speaker, this week, the Conservative

RSA Conference & BankInfoSecurity.com send Illegal Spam Through Lyris

2010-10-25T18:37:00.000-04:00

I'm a big fan of BankInfo Security and their sister site GovInfo Security. So, colour me chagrined when I recently was spammed about the RSA Conference in February to my CAUCE.org address (that'd be the Coalition Against unsolicited Commercial Email!) and a brief investigation turns up that ismgcorp.com is behind the spam run. What makes this noteworthy is two-fold. The reply-to address,

Epic Facebook Ad Fail

2010-10-25T06:31:00.000-04:00

I guess it is too much to ask to spell-check your ad for counterfeit sports memorabilia

How Dumb Do You Have to be to Respond to Spam?

2010-08-08T09:54:00.000-04:00

Really, really dumb, apparently. I just received the following spam (n.b. the 'confidentiality notice which disallows me from posting it here!!) Dear Neil, As you know, you have been considered for inclusion in the upcoming 2010 Edition of Strathmore's Who's Who for Executives and Professionals, which is scheduled for publication in late 2010. Despite our efforts to contact you, we have still

More on the 'rockstar' thing

2010-05-09T23:09:00.000-04:00

Seriously, now we are seeing ninjas, rockstars and most lately, stormtroopers in the marketing community. If you fancy yourself a rockstar, ask yourself this : Have you ever mistaken a plate of heroin being circulated around the room for cocaine? Has a 14 year-old girl threatened her mother that she would run away from home unless she let her go fuck you at your hotel? Did you furnish mom's home

The "prophet" Muhammad in a bear suit

2010-04-22T07:26:00.005-04:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8636455.stm The radical Islamist assholes at Revolution Muslim told South Park's Matt Stone and Trey Parker they would "probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh". The Dutch film-maker was shot and stabbed to death in 2004 by an Islamist angered by his film about Muslim women. revolutionmuslim.com are cowards; they have domain privacy in place to hide

What passes for shocking

2010-04-16T06:01:00.002-04:00

The Register today reports that a photo shoot promoting the latest Shrek ouvre, 'Forever After' went awry, with the inclusion of scantily clothed young things amidst cartoon (well, CGI) characters.Apparently Paramount and Dreamworks somehow didn't NIX the release of the shoot; they note they won't be suing, but did voice their concern. Please. They own the likenesses and could easily pull the

Misuse of the language pt. #372: "Rock Star"

2010-04-13T05:14:00.012-04:00

"Rock Star" is a ubiquitous phrase these days. So as to clarify what the term means, we offer the following by way of definition:Rock StarsNot Rock StarsRock StarNot Rock StarRock StarFormer Rock Star, now Not Rock Star

Definition of a consumer

2010-04-07T05:43:00.003-04:00

consumer - something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth... no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the

Safe Porn + Safe Web surfing

2010-04-04T11:01:00.005-04:00

As defacto resident anti-abuse/computer security guy for my friends and family, someone recently asked me for advice about which porn sites were safe to browse.While I can't answer specifically (everyone's tastes differ), I can say this:Use Firefox to browse, you can download it at http://getfirefox.comThen (and this is important) download the following pluginsNetcraft toolbarWeb o trustMcAffe

Grow a pair

2010-03-30T13:51:00.002-04:00

If you wish to see your comments posted here, use you real name and a functional email address and blogger account. A spell check would be nice too. Anonymous posters will be presumed to be as spineless and irrelevant as their verbiage.

Dog Abuse at J.R.'s Dog Training

2010-03-14T12:04:00.011-04:00

This 'man', Joe Rosen, of J.R.'s Dog Training, located in Montreal, QuebecHeld this dog2 feet off the ground with this choker chainHis idea of 'off-leash training' is to use the choker chain as well. Except, he threw the chain at the dog's face.

I'm a wanted criminal

2010-03-03T07:55:00.003-05:00

The Quebec Justice Dept. is filing to have an arrest warrant issued for me. Called them to see why. Apparently some evil parking at the airport (I take taxis, ergo impossible) and driving without insurance (dead stupid, since I got receipts dating back to 1998).The nice lady from Justice, one Jennifer Boisclair, contacted at 14:14 02/mar/2010 assures me she will get back to me. Uh-huh. How about

Charity Resources

2010-01-16T16:18:00.000-05:00

UPDATE - Outbound IPsWorld Food Programme64.62.200.42American Red Cross66.45.103.41Compassion International208.85.48.45UNICEF66.45.103.47David Harley, the Director of Malware Intelligence at ESET passed on the following resource URLs :http://www.eset.com/threat-center/blog/2010/01/14/haiti-help-resourceshttp://www.eset.com/threat-center/blog/2010/01/16/haiti-more-resourceshttp://

Helping Haiti - The Email Community Response

2010-01-16T07:17:00.007-05:00

It is inconceivable that anyone within viewing distance of a television or computer screen this week doesn't know about the disaster in Haiti. As of this writing, 50,000 bodies have been collected from the streets of Port-au-Prince. Millions of people, a number our brains simply aren't equipped to deal with, are now homeless.Help is needed now, and will be, for a very long timeIn response, the

Lou Dobbs comes out of the closet as affiliated with Bill O'Reilly, Spams

2010-01-02T07:34:00.002-05:00

This just in from Lou Dobbs, to whom I never gave my email address. Complaints sent to noxsolutions.com, alchemy.net, billoreilly.com, and loudobbs.com From: Lou Dobbs Subject: I'm Looking Ahead to an Important Year Date: January 2, 2010 3:54:53 AM EST To: Neil Schwartzman Received: by 10.142.157.12 with SMTP id f12cs1033423wfe; Sat, 2 Jan 2010 00:52:26 -0800

Train of Dreams.mpg

2009-12-16T19:48:00.001-05:00

My old pal Mack in a tacky vid accompanying one of his best songs. Damn them 80s

I Don't Give Damn About My Bad Reputation - Joan Jett

2009-12-15T19:51:00.005-05:00

I don't give a damn'Bout my reputationI've never been afraid of any deviationAn' I don't really careIf ya think I'm strangeI ain't gonna changeAn' I'm never gonna care'Bout my bad reputationTwo friends of mine wrote pieces today about reputation, one about email, the other about real-life stuff. I think they are strangely, tangentially yet inextricably linked.Laura Atkins, email specialist and

SPAMFighter.com - contrition!

2009-11-06T10:49:00.003-05:00

I just received the following from SPAMFighter supremo Henrik Soerensen, this appears to be the solutions hoped for, assuming they haven't merely suppressed my address, but also provide that facility for others as well. If so, chalk one up for the good guys in terms of making the email marketing world incrementally better. Thanks Henrik!Hi NeilGreat to hear from you. Well, lets just say your name

SPAMFighter.com - made even more famous

2009-11-06T10:12:00.003-05:00

Marketing Profs 'Get To The Point'Want Spam With That Spam? A few years ago, Neil Schwartzman downloaded—but never used—the trial version of an anti-spam software program. "It turned out it was Windows-only," he explains at his blog, "so I never installed it, as I use a Mac. Have done since 1986." Following the download, he received the customary follow-up—one email to welcome him, and two

Some Marketers are as insecure as a Dorky Kid at a High School Dance

2009-11-04T18:01:00.002-05:00

I am 100% certain that about 18 months ago there was a big marketing conference somewhere.And at that conference, there was a high-powered Zig Ziglar-type motivational speaker, except maybe without the dubious background.And this presenter said to the assembled masses, verily ‘We missed out on MySpace. We missed out on Facebook. Look at the hundreds of millions of eyeballs we could have been

#C27 McCarthy Tétrault, Opponents to C-27 Anti-spam Bill, spammed me

2009-10-23T16:56:00.006-04:00

McCarthy Tétrault testified in from of the standing committee on Industry, vehemently opposed to C-27 opt-in clauses. They have also been quoted on blogs and in the newspapers deriding the opt-in permission aspects of C-27 as well as other clauses.They just spammed me.From: McCarthy Tétrault LLP / S.E.N.C.R.L., s.r.l. Subject: e-Alert: CRTC Shapes Canadian "Net Neutrality" Rules Date:

Spamfighter.com : Too dumb for words (but I'll try)

2009-10-20T04:02:00.006-04:00

"We are looking into a few solutions that could solve this issue for you and I thank you for bringing this to my attention.I hope you are satisfied with the solution and I would appreciate if you would delete your blog as we are not Spammers and our people are doing a very tuff job of fighting this 24/7." - Henrik Sorensen, CEO Spamfighter.com October 14, 2009Last week, I told you that

Spamfighter.com are Spammers

2009-10-14T03:29:00.008-04:00

This is a picture of Daniel B. Hjortholt, Henrik Sørensen, Martin Dyring-Andersen and Martin Thorborg. They own a company called Spamfighter.com, and they are spammers."How could that be?" you might ask. Allow me to explain.On July 07, 2007 I received my first email from this company "Welcome new SPAMfighter" after I downloaded trial software. It turned out it was Windows-only, so I never

Phishing Up? Down? Which is it

2009-10-09T06:27:00.002-04:00

Proof that perspective is everything, IBM reported phishing is down.http://blogs.iss.net/archive/2009midyearxftarr.htmlSecond, phishing, especially financial phishing, dramatically declined in the first half of this year.On the other hand ...http://www.ukpayments.org.uk/media_centre/press_releases/-/page/732/The UK Payments Administration's anti-fraud group Financial Fraud Action (FFA) noted that

Kseniya Simonova - Sand Animation (Україна має талант / Ukraine's Got Talent)

2009-09-26T07:49:00.001-04:00

Watch this. If you aren't moved, Jack, you're dead.

A REAL TEXAS 911 CALL( funny as hell)

2009-09-04T05:47:00.001-04:00

rivals bambulance for duh!

MG Publishing aka Canadian Subsidy Directory Spammer

2009-03-10T07:09:00.038-04:00

MG Publishing has been spamming me for a very long time. MGP are now listed in Spamhaus' Registry of Known Spam Organizations http://www.spamhaus.org/rokso/evidence.lasso?rokso_id=ROK8610I have attached the latest letter I sent to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, as well as all of the correspondence in this case that has been exchanged over many years.

Safari 4 needs A Little More Work

2009-03-03T23:35:00.002-05:00

Why do I suddenly want salad?

2009-01-28T11:02:00.002-05:00

Attention America! Your President can beat up Our Prime Minister

2008-12-22T17:21:00.004-05:00

Please have him come up to do so, anytime. Thanks. Your friend, Canada.

My Favourite "Spam" of the Year

2008-12-21T08:26:00.005-05:00

As regular as clockwork (The Chinese clock ... mother!), I get an email from William Lu, the proprietor of the 7th Heaven Café in Yangshuo, China around this time of the year.I never signed up for this email list, and there's no apparent way to unsubscribe.I stayed at the 7th Heaven Café earlier this decade, and I guess I gave William my email address. According to some (including me, most of the

Spamhaus Canadian ISP SBL Listings

2008-11-27T08:15:00.003-05:00

Spamhaus' SBL is great, but looking things up by ISP can be difficult. To that end, I provide the following list of URLs of Canadian ISPs with SBL

Circuit City to shut 155 stores to preserve cash

2008-11-10T00:42:00.000-05:00

UPDATE: Well, that didn't work out so good - CC just filed for bankruptcy protectionFrom Marketwatch, November 03, 2008:NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Circuit City Stores Inc. said Monday it's shutting 155 U.S. underperforming stores, reducing future store openings and renegotiating leases to help preserve cash after its liquidity deteriorated and vendors tightened the struggling electronics

New World Order

2008-11-08T17:15:00.001-05:00

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

Fox news on Obama Election - Not What You Might Think

2008-11-06T13:01:00.001-05:00

http://www.foxnews.com/video/index.html?playerId=videolandingpage&streamingFormat=FLASH&referralObject=3177862&referralPlaylistId=949437d0db05ed5f5b9954dc049d70b0c12f2749

2008-11-04T20:05:00.000-05:00

see more pwn and owned pictures

Consumer Online Spending Growth Slows to 6%

2008-11-03T07:19:00.001-05:00

From Direct, November 01, 2008:E-commerce growth has declined for five consecutive months in the U.S., according to the marketing research firm comScore Inc. Spending in some product categories has actually shrunk.Online sales grew 6% overall during the third quarter. That’s down from a 13% rate of rate in the second quarter and a 12% rate of growth in the first quarter, compared to the same

Symantec plans layoffs as sales fall short

2008-11-03T06:18:00.001-05:00

From The Register, October 31, 2008:Symantec has announced plans to cut its wage bill by 4.5 per cent in a move likely to means hundreds of people will lose their jobs with the security and storage software firm.Chief financial officer James Beer also detailed previously announced plans to outsource work done by its IT and finance departments during a conference call discussing disappointing

Palin Pranked

2008-11-02T07:38:00.000-05:00

More animals wearing costumes

2008-10-31T18:54:00.001-04:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/31/halloween-costumes-for-do_n_139841.html

Happy Hallowe'en! Trick or Treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat!

2008-10-30T12:04:00.003-04:00

Happy Hallowe'en! Click on the pic for MORE

Yahoo! Phishing Exploit

2008-10-27T10:55:00.001-04:00

Netcraft reports:Ongoing Phishing Attack Exposes Yahoo AccountsThe Netcraft toolbar community has detected a vulnerability on a Yahoo website, which is currently being used to steal authentication cookies from Yahoo users — transmitting them to a website under the control of a remote attacker. With these stolen details, the attacker can gain access to his victims' Yahoo accounts, such as Yahoo

STRONGMAIL LAYS OFF 25% OF STAFF

2008-10-23T11:39:00.001-04:00

StrongMail Lays Off 25% of Staff Oct 21, 2008 1:38 PM, By Ken Magill