Reader Comments

Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2002 
From: "Mail Room" 
 To: 

 RE: eric/editorial/scumbags.html

No reply needed.

Hi,
Thought I'd let you know your page [above] is making a difference. I'm
dropping out of EE aff prog before I start. I always hated the way they
advertise their product anyway.

Cheers for the info!

New spamming practices - now over ICQ
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002
From: "Marek"
 To: 

 Hi,

First let me congratulate you on the site... you surely must be taking a lot of flak over it and not many people have the guts to bother with it.

I've been using ICQ for some time now, but recently noticed a lot of automated icq spam messages being posted. Shameful, but most of them are quite obvious. Until I came across this little gem:

[Begin quote]
You have a received a URL request.
URL:http://evidence-eliminator.de.vu

URL's description: Marek You're in TROUBLE!!! Sombody is watching YOU ..

[End quote]

The icq number this was sent from (ICQ#148380258) displayed the usual absence of personal information - a sure sign of a bot. The link on the above site pointed to www.evidence-eliminator.co.uk/main. I've not heard of Evidence Eliminator before but I thought I've seen it all till now.

Cheers,

Marek

PS: Out of curiosity I've traced the original link. Just to waste a few more bytes I've included the last few hops of the tracert utility. C:\>tracert evidence-eliminator.de.vu Tracing route to evidence-eliminator.de.vu [62.146.29.34] 17 474 ms 420 ms 421 ms oc3-pos-6-3.cisco12012grp.core.i-p-x.de [217.71.108.210] 18 424 ms 425 ms 421 ms gbiteth-0-2.cisco6506-dhk-01.i-p-x.de [212.123.97.5] 19 428 ms 425 ms 424 ms 62.146.29.34 Trace complete.

But EE doesn't spam, Marek. At least, Andy says so, and Andy wouldn't lie, would he?! Meanwhile, here's another comment upon my expose of Andy's hypocrisy:

Subject: more EE smoking gun.
Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002
From: Eldad
 To: john@badtux.org

I've just visited: go.shtml?B And got the good old "You are now under investigation -The material you have been viewing has triggered enquiries into your Internet records. Click Here to stop this investigation." fake MSIE error page. This URL seems to display one of several ads (perhaps depending on the parameter at the end?) but this one I got is the same ad they have denied knowledge of.

I don't know if I should wish for some international task force that shuts down fraudulent web sites without being hampered by state and country laws.

Well, Eldad, the only good news is that the same thing that keeps me from suing them, the difficulty of enforcing international judgements, is also keeping them from suing me for exposing their lies, hypocrisy, and greed. So maybe everything all works out in the end. Now, *more* spam from Robin Hood Software -- remember, Andy encourages this type of spam:

Subject: Robin Hood Software....SPAM
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002
From: "Doug"
 To: 

 Hey Eric,

I don't know you but now we have a little something in common. After finding out who Robin Hood Software was, I found a link to your page - good information. Wanted to send you my little experience that just happened - if you are not interested in these creeps any longer - sorry to stir it all up again... Feel free to use this stuff however you want... I was just really ticked off by this and mostly wanted to vent. Someday they will get what they deserve...

Doug

I just got a random ICQ message from from ICQ# 148677457, which read.

You have a received a URL request.
URL:http://security7.ch.vu
URL's description: doug YOU ARE IN TROUBLE!!!!!!!  Somebody is watching YOU.........


....following the link this message brings up a scarey little screen - 

the links lead to...

main.shtml


current whois crud on this bogus company...


Robin Hood Software Ltd. 
   181 Queen Victoria Street
   London, London EC4V 4DZ
   UK

   Domain Name: EVIDENCE-ELIMINATOR.COM

   Administrative Contact:
        uunet (uk)    support@uk.uu.net
        UUnet UK
        Internet House, 332 Science Park
        Cambridge,, Cambridge, CB4 0BZ
        US
        Phone- +4401223 250 122 
        Fax- +4401223 250133
   Technical Contact:
        uunet (uk)  support@uk.uu.net
        UUnet UK
        Internet House, 332 Science Park
        Cambridge,, Cambridge, CB4 0BZ
        US
        Phone- +4401223 250 122 
        Fax- +4401223 250133

   Record updated on 2001-06-27 04:49:47.
   Record created on 1999-08-23.
   Record expires on 2002-08-23.
   Database last updated on 2002-01-31 13:51:11 EST.

   Domain servers in listed order:

   NS0-E.DNS.PIPEX.NET           158.43.129.69                 
   NS1-E.DNS.PIPEX.NET           158.43.193.69