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Posted by R. C. White on June 19, 2007, 10:47 pm
Please log in for more thread options Hi, John - and David.
David was not really accusing ME of spamming. He was accusing some unknown
person of stealing my identity to spam this group. At least, that was my
interpretation. And, yes, I should have started the Subject line with OT.
Some of my friends - fellow MVPs - HAVE been the victims of online identity
theft in other newsgroups. Usually the fraud is obvious because the content
and style of the message is so out of character for the purported author.
But some of them are artful enough to cause serious embarrassment - or
worse - to the innocent "sender". In fact, I have jumped to the defense a
couple of times, myself, when I thought the phony message was apt to cause
harm to the reputation of the victim.
Maybe it's time to let this thread die?
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(Retired. No longer licensed to practice public accounting.)
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Currently running Vista Ultimate x64)
> David H. Lipman wrote:
>>
>>> Hi, John.
>>>
>>> Me? A spammer? Hah!
>>>
>>> But I can see how someone could easily have gotten that idea from my
>>> post. ;^[
>>>
>>> Yes, it really was me who posted that. As I said, my son emailed
>>> the story to me and I immediately thought of the discussion here a
>>> week or so ago. And I thought that, even if you were not interested,
>>> John, some of the others here might be.
>>>
>>> No hard feelings, David. In fact, I quite agree with you! But I
>>> would have simply ignored me - as I've ignored a few spammers here
>>> over the years. Giving them attention simply feeds their ego,
>>> especially if they think that they have made us angry.
>>>
>>> Sorry to have caused a furor. I'll try to be more discreet next
>>> time.
>>>
>>> RC
>>
>> Actually, I DO tend ignore spammers.
>> This post had an "odd feel" to it so I made my reply hoping to irk a
>> response.
>>
>> Your response shows that it is not a form of spam. Spammers are
>> getting very smart. They are making their spam seem like legitimate
>> posts. Often the spammers are members of affiliate networks. They
>> spam to get the "kickback".
>>
>> In the future, please prepend "OT" to the subject such as...
>>
>> "OT: Hey, John Pollard - $10 DSL?"
>
> I have never received (or heard of) a post such as RC's, that was spam. I
> don't mean to say it couldn't be done, but that I think - given all the
> factors involved here - that the burden of proof should be on those
> claiming such things are spam.
>
> I grant that spammers will do what they can to stay ahead of those who
> would thwart them; but I totally disagree that we should assume that our
> friends are spammers ... with zero evidence to support the assumption.
>
> If you want to identify spammers; great. You may be doing others a
> service. But I believe the burden is on you to prove they are spammers
> (or change the form of your response) ... everything that seems like spam
> to you, is not - as we now know - necessarily spam.
>
> Or as we say too often, and support not often enough: innocent until
> proven guilty.
>
> --
> John Pollard
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